St. Jude Ohio hunt preview and updates

[Burnsie]

Nice place Brian!  Between your place and Jim Glimer's (LittleBigMan) beautiful 5 Pine location I'm dreaming of back home in NW Wisconsin.

[Shawn Leonard]

By the way your helpers are adorable!! Makes me wish mine were'nt all grown up!! Very nice!! Shawn

[Brian Halbleib]

It's been a busy fall but I wanted to get an update posted since the guys are headed in for the St Jude hunt tomorrow. Progress has been slow on the building but it's been a great first year at the new place. I went out opening morning of the archery season and an hour after sunrise...

     

Exactly a week later, on opening morning of my home state of Pennsylvania's archery season, I hunted a creek bottom just down the road from my house and same bat time, same bat channel...

     

The freezer is full again so it's time to turn the attention to figuring out some bucks and preparing for long sits on November days.

It hasn't been all play, I brush hogged for the last time this year and hopefully gave those big Ohio bucks plenty of room to roam through the thick stuff.

   

     

-Brian

[Brian Halbleib]

The farm is in the snow belt above I-80 and I got a little preview last weekend already

   

The farmer that leases some of my tillable ground got the beans in late and they were still standing as of last weekend. Thousands of acres of beans have already been cut in the surrounding area so these are the only game in town

   

Hopefully the guys will luck out and the beans will still be there for them all week

   

-Brian

[jjwaldman]

I got jealous when I saw the dirt from the holes you dug.  I was planting trees in rock this week here in Middle TN.

   

[Brian Halbleib]

Rut sign is getting heavy and hopefully things will break wide open for these guys

   

     

The 10 day forecast is looking pretty decent also. Now we just need the deer to cooperate

   

-Brian

[Steve in Canton]

Looks like you have some good goose and duck ground with that flooded bean field.

[bowhunterfrompast]

Congrats on the new place...it's looking really great.


 

[gregg dudley]

Awesome!

[Brian Halbleib]

Fred & Burton arrived today. It was a pleasure meeting both of them and showing them around the farm and the area. We took a ride on the Polaris and I showed them my stand sets and pointed out the property boundaries. A lot of the beans in the area have been cut but mine are still standing.

   

After leaving the farm we went and got Fred his license, Burton had already purchased his on-line.

     

Afterwards, we had a nice lunch at a little cafe and got them checked into their hotel.

     

Fred left Jersey at 3 AM but instead of a nap, he was ready to hunt.

   

-Brian

[Brian Halbleib]

One thing you can count on when getting together with Tradgangers is good food. Fred's wife baked some cinnamon bread and zucchini bread and I was lucky to be taking some loaves home. I got into the cinnamon bread when I got home      Great stuff!

     

They headed out for an evening hunt and I headed home to take my wife out and catch a Penguins game.

   

Pens won 4-2 and I got a text from Burt that he saw a 2.5 year old 8 point chasing two does. Pretty great night for all.

     

-Brian

[VictoryHunter]

[Izzy]

Looking like adventure is on the wind.

[Mike Gerardi]

[Whip]

I haven't hunted with Burton, but I have with Fred. He is hard core, and those poor deer on your place are in serious trouble!  Good luck to all of you and great job on helping St. Jude in the process.

[oldskool]

   

[Brian Halbleib]

Slow weekend, especially with the downpour most of the day Saturday. So far, the guys have seen two young bucks and two does. Seems to be the story in a lot of places, the rut seems close to busting wide open.

I visited Burton and Fred tonight and we had dinner. It was nice to catch up and hear the stories from the first couple of days. I've got a four day work week then I plan to be back up the farm early on Friday. The next few days I'll be relying on phone calls and text messages for updates. Looks like the weather will be in their favor this week. Supposed to get down in the 20s tonight.

Oh, and the zucchini bread was delicious too!

-Brian

[Mike Gerardi]

This week will be good. Good luck guys and hunt hard.

[Brian Halbleib]

Mike, I will be over at the farm this weekend. Let me know if you are free some evening for dinner or a beverage.

Burton had to pack up and head home so Fred has the place to himself the rest of the week. I talked with Fred on the phone tonight and he had a decent buck come by just out of range and it hung around for a while.

Some does also came in range but he didn't want to shoot a doe and spook the buck. As luck would have it, the buck never came in range but I could hear the excitement in his voice while he was relaying the story. I got a feeling he's going to have an opportunity on a nice buck before the week is over.

-Brian

[Mike Gerardi]

Things still heating up in Lake Co.
This was a couple of days ago at work. He had her pinned down for over 45min. Sorry for the poor pic. Phone camera.