It's work for sure Smalljaw but yes VERY rewarding. Make no mistake, my place has UNTAPPED potential. I'm 4500ft from the 12k acre Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge (they have two 2-day 150hunter draw gun hunts on it annually, otherwise it's bowhunt only) and the 1000 acre tract between me and the refuge belongs to a good friends uncle. In 1999 that friend killed a 183inch 10pt on that tract. Then in 2007 on my farm (I bought it fall 2010) my neighbor and the gamewarden had been watching a GIANT during the early fall. The afternoon before gun season opened my neighbor saw that buck again on my place and he was chasin a hot doe.
The next morning (gun opener) the game warden was back out there watchin my place from the road and yep THERE came Bullwinkle chasin that mistress. They bounded across the road (onto another owners property which is mainly open farm ground with a few thin strips of trees along the ditches) and down a tree line. About 400yds down that treeline sat a hunter. The buck ran by 50yds from the hunter! He shot Bullwinkle and with that the gamewarden headed over there to see it and help the hunter load it up... it had 20 scorable points and grossed 203inches!!! :shock:
The Hatchie River is a special place! It's the largest remaining, free flowing, "natural tributary" in the lower MS River valley. It's protected by Federal and State laws so there will never be any dredging, straightening or otherwise RUINING of the river proper. It's hardwood bottoms or the surrounding area by farmers, developers or even the Feds like the Corp of Engineers are kept VERY tightly under control. Other than the occasional, once a lifetime logging here and there, the place looks, flows and "grows critters" just like it did when Columbus sailed the oceans over here! THANK YOU TO THE LORD ABOVE is all I can say! I waited, looked, walked, rode, searched and looked some more for "the right place" for five years but it never came until this jewel. He simply meant for me to have this place and I truly believe that! I researched this and was shocked to find that for the Hatchie River's 100+ mile wanderings through west TN, tracts over 500acres that actually have river frontage are VERY VERY VERY rarely sold! They stay in families for generations and generations primarily because of the rich farming soil and the astounding game populations and environment. (They likewise are bought out and combined with larger neighbors via owners with the resources to amass large tracts and so such transactions are never offered or made available to the public for sale in the first place!) We were made aware of several buyers that were putting together deals/offerings on my place while we were buying it. I had NO idea of the rarity of these places at that time or I wouldn't have slept for weeks. (Woulda paid more for it had I known that as well but I never bothered telling the previous owner that! :laughing )
My real estate guy and I actually researched the state archives and found out that from where the Hatchie flows across the MS state line into TN just south of Bolivar, TN to where it dumps into the MS River north of Memphis (appx 100mile footprint) that since the Civil War my purchase was only the 23rd-24th transfer of deed of a 500+acre tract with river frontage along the Hatchie!!! (Yes I've already placed it into trusts with plans for the great great great great grandkids to hopefully ply these same fields and woods as me and my boys do today) It's honestly an HONOR to have a place that looks and acts like it did since before we ever became a nation. (I have one GOLIATH Swamp Chestnut Oak standing on my place that is nearly 120ft tall, 14+ft in circumference and estimated to be over 200yrs old! That's nearly a worlds record for that species.)
LOL ask the old timers around this site, I used to DISAPPEAR from this site Sept-Feb and that's why Kev originally put this hunting section on the site so us "nimrods" would still check-in during the cold months! :razz
Is it November yet??? :at the bar
RA
pic of my buddy Mark's 10ptr in 1999:
http://www.tndeer.com/tn-trophy-room/trophy-search-detail.php?recordno=173
"Haywood County" is the county my farm is in, for the last 2 decades it's pumped out some amazing non-typicals. (I know Justin Samples as well and held that rack a few days after he killed it. Truly a gnarled up "nasty" buck that defies description. Has alot of "cactus buck" in it as well. Jackie Bushman thought it was going to score over 300 and would make it a worlds record by hunter as the #1 & #2 heads were found dead. Bushman would've paid him ALOT of $$$ but the buck just has no real, descernable frame so the record books just don't have a way to score it properly.) The 203incher killed on my place is down the page, the "Mike Wilbur" buck from 2007.
http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/2010/09/22/trophybucks_naw_haywood_0209/
Just need a quick .5" or so popup shower and the "golden acorns" should start sproutin quickly soon after! :beer:
