I might have popcorn in my feeder. My hunting partner just called and said the place our stuff is setup burned last week down by Palestine. Our stuff is okay and the timber didn't burn but the grass and under growth burned. The neighbor started it burning trash. The fire dept. had to come in and cut a fire break. It burned part of a big cattle ranch as well. I wasn't going to hunt it this year but my buddy was and won't be going for a while now. The deer and pigs that were there left for a while. Could be a good thing though since the nutrients will be turned back into the ground so growth should really come back in the spring.

you never know

We had a fire on our place late October '98, by opening day hunting was back to normal. That was less than 2 weeks later. Now the trailer was another story, it burned to the ground. Stands survived with a little scorching. But the deer were in place opening morning.

Now that all of the underbrush is burned off, the new growth will attract deer like a magnet. Should get good in a few weeks if the warm weather holds.

I wish we could burn off spots, might be worth looking into this year.

Sorry to hear that..back in the late 90's we'd be fighting fires from the sky, around the state, always looking for deer stands and camps to put out. The Forestry dept considered deer stands, cabins etc...as "stuctures", and that added to revenue for statistics. Gotta save the structures..
You should have a great year out there, deer love that stuff, and I'm sure alot of the underbrush was burned out

once a lil bit of rain or heavy dew mornings hits it, it will green back up quick

We had 40 acres burn last weekend when a milk truck lost a wheel. Caught some of the place on fire, dozers and trucks were all over the place that night cutting fire breaks and such. Next morning they went to clear the pix from the camera and a deer had been there from when they left by the next morning. So you never know.

I wish our place wold burn. Get rid of the cedar.

PLANT!!!

Thanks for the info guys. If I was planning on hunting I would have gone anyway but my buddy decided not to. Hopefully I can get out there in a few weeks and check it out. The landowner is going to turn the soil over since he bought the place for hay for his horses. This is a free place for us so I am not too worried about not hunting it often.

Our landowner burned about 250 acres this past yr! Yes..just wait...it works great!

Sorry to hear about that, TDM - but at least you didn't lose your possibles!

I agree - in nature it's the best thing that can happen.

I burn 1/6th of my place every year. There is a lot to a burn so that it does more good than damage but heck, a little fire never hurt anything!

Typically, we burn at 1:00 p.m.(depends on a lot of factors) but it is over in an hour. We keep a fire watch in the pasture through that night. We typically see deer and hogs in the burn THAT NIGHT. Within a couple to 10 days you will have growth that the deer will not be able to resist.

I thought I would show some pictures...


I've lighted a back fire (into the wind) around this deer blind to protect it from the front fire which would absolutely consume this blind otherwise. Note the disced fire brake in the foreground. Also, look at the dead grass in the background. Two years of drought. This 100 acres will be consumed in about three minutes. It's really cool to watch!


The front fire has been lit and it is taking off across the pasture faster than it would be possible to run ahead of it. This is with a breeze that is almost calm but dominate in one direction!

This year I decided to burn a 25 acre pasture between my house and the highway. This is an old improved pasture that I'm trying to encourage regrowth in (back to native pasture) plus I was worried about a careless cigarette thrown out a window up on the highway. The big problem was IT HAD TO BURN TOWARD MY HOUSE, NOT ACROSS THE HIGHWAY. TPWD helps me with the burn but the Burn Agent would not light the fire. I had to do it. The pasture was prepped like any other so it should be good to go. I said "what the hell" and put a torch to it. My house is on the other side of this fire!


The fire burned across the pasture in one minute, within feet of my house! A lot of high fives and my dad said I had "brass balls"


My house is on the left in the picture, the fire is just about there and then it was GONE! This picture was taken by my wife who was up at the highway in our truck with my mother and all our valuable documents in a lock box. She told me she knew I wouldn't burn our place down (I've got a wife that actually thinks I'm the neatest thing since ice cubes!) Fire is an awesome range management tool when done right and if you've worked with it you appreciate what the fire-fighters must work with!

That's awesome! How big of a fire break do you make between areas of pasture you don't want to burn?

Last year the place next door to our lease decided they were going to do a control burn on ceader and ended up burning over 300 acres. The whole sky was orange at night for about two nights. It didnt realy affect the hunting much. We saw no more or less deer than we usualy did.

matt

They bulldozed then burned 1/3 of our property in the middle of October, well they burned it a day or 2 before opening weekend. Smoke pretty much killed hunting the front half with no deer to be seen. The little bit in the back that they left alone had deer, my dad shot 2. By sunday there was already tracks where they had bulldozed and burned trees. BTW landowner is refunding us $800. Had to get his pine trees planted while it was dry, oh well, I know where i will be this weekend!

Holy crap...Brass balls is right.

Neat pics!

Would there be any interest in a prescribed burn topic? I've got plenty of pictures and information.

you have my interest. i would like to see the pictures.

My interest as well

Give me about a week and it will get it together.