I snapped this pic yesterday afternoon of a very special place, to me. It is a field on my land that has been in continuous food plot plantings for the past 48 years. It is almost 400 yds. long, and has an elevated box blind about midway the field and on the right, that you can see if you zoom in on it. On the left, and behind the big oak trees that line the field and drop acorns into it, is a 500 acre Carolina Bay, a cypress swamp, that has a few very big trees around the edge, but cypresses and grass over the most of it. To the right, and out of the pic, the land goes uphill about 20 feet in elevation to my larger fields, where I grow cotton, peanuts and corn, in rotation. It is 180 yds. from the stand to where I am standing, and 200 yds. from the stand to the far end.
I plant a mixture of wheat and other things tasty to deer and turkeys in it each fall. I killed my last deer, that I killed "off permit" and in a sporting manner, here, with a .54 cal. muzzleloader and a patched round ball. My grandsons and a friend hunt it now, as I quit hunting deer for sport about 20 years ago. If I decide to slip off early one morning to call up a gobbler, this is one of my favorite places to go, as they roost in the tall trees I mentioned all around that 500 acre cypress pond. I have seen as many as 27 deer feeding in this field at one time. Hogs also lay up in that cypress "pond", and we get overrun with them from time to time on my side of the "pond". We killed and caught 73 hogs in one 12 month period, several years ago, within 500 yards of where I was standing when I snapped this pic. We see a covey of wild birds here each year, but leave them alone. It is a game paradise, and a very peaceful place. I just thought some of you woodsmen might like seeing it.
Oh, I almost forgot ............ anybody that can't figure out why I named it "The Smokehouse"? If so, it's 'cause we can go and get a mess of meat there anytime we want to.
SRH
