I made my first round thru the Sweetwater/Philadelphia area today and was surprised to see a lot of corn still standing. Last year at this time nearly all corn had been cut and a lot of the fields normally in corn were in soybeans.
The first field I go by is the Sweetwater Valley Cheese Farm and some of the corn across HWY 11 had been cut but the "Cheese Farm" hadn`t been touched and looked still very green although a little shorter than usual. Next farm is in the Pond Creek Valley is Billy Barr Dairy and his Brothers place and both were still green and standing. A.J.Smith dairy has corn where beans were last year and looked to be fixin to start choppin`. Same for the Snake Watson and Brothers farms in Cedar Valley...startin` to chop.....Also saw a shore nuff Millet field on Snake`s place .
Between these these half dozen or so Farms (hundreds of acres of corn) will be a good opening day shoot and maybe some the later days. TWRA usually leases a few of these fields and some of them hold private or pay hunts...
I`ve had good hunts on all of these farms and they are easy to get to off the Philadelphia exits on I-75. Last year I hunted a less than desirable field on Snake`s place and really wasn`t expecting a good shoot but had a limit in 33 shots and was sitting on the tailgate drinking and icy cold beverage at 3:30.
I saw quite a few birds on the wires even though it was about 90 degrees and they are usually Burpin` in the trees on the creekbeds after a morning feed. I really expected to see bad conditions for opening day considering the lack of rain and the stunted (short) corn locally and the too many bean fields last year. But it looks good and unless a deluge of rain hits they should have plenty of chopped fields by opening day.
I`ll post some updates in a week or two.
The first field I go by is the Sweetwater Valley Cheese Farm and some of the corn across HWY 11 had been cut but the "Cheese Farm" hadn`t been touched and looked still very green although a little shorter than usual. Next farm is in the Pond Creek Valley is Billy Barr Dairy and his Brothers place and both were still green and standing. A.J.Smith dairy has corn where beans were last year and looked to be fixin to start choppin`. Same for the Snake Watson and Brothers farms in Cedar Valley...startin` to chop.....Also saw a shore nuff Millet field on Snake`s place .
Between these these half dozen or so Farms (hundreds of acres of corn) will be a good opening day shoot and maybe some the later days. TWRA usually leases a few of these fields and some of them hold private or pay hunts...
I`ve had good hunts on all of these farms and they are easy to get to off the Philadelphia exits on I-75. Last year I hunted a less than desirable field on Snake`s place and really wasn`t expecting a good shoot but had a limit in 33 shots and was sitting on the tailgate drinking and icy cold beverage at 3:30.
I saw quite a few birds on the wires even though it was about 90 degrees and they are usually Burpin` in the trees on the creekbeds after a morning feed. I really expected to see bad conditions for opening day considering the lack of rain and the stunted (short) corn locally and the too many bean fields last year. But it looks good and unless a deluge of rain hits they should have plenty of chopped fields by opening day.
I`ll post some updates in a week or two.
