Creating my "Over the Top" Deer Blind

[EddieWalker]

Nothing. My timer in my feeder stoped working, and I just got in a new one. I've been buy cheapy timers and this time, I order "The Timer" which is supposed to be a good one. Guess we'll see. The hogs are all over right now. I had them tear up the grass ten feet from where I park my truck two nights ago. They are also back to tearing up the grass at my front gate. There are tracks all around the blind, in the wheat and around the feeder. There's no corn on the ground, so they are just walking around.

I've seen one deer, and that was a doe. There are no deer tracks in my food plots when I looked this morning. I have wheat, turnips, clover and rye grass growing.

There's still a few more weeks left of deer season, but without even seeing any deer tracks, I'm not expecting things to change too much.

Eddie

 

[txdon]

You know the deer can hear when you munch on chips. You may want to stock some quiet snacks.

 

[EddieWalker]

No way. Tell me you'r just joking!!!!!! My Dorito's don't make an noise. hahahha

Eddie

 

[Steve C]

I was hoping to have some pictures of the pad all leveled of and ready for drilling holes for the posts.

First issue that I had to deal with was a small mistake that I made a few weeks ago. I was pushing some dirt with the dozer and trying to get done before dark with very little fuel in the tank. I pushed it too far and ran out. So for kicks, I got to blead my fuel lines in order to get it started.

Then I drove it over to where my deer blind is going to be and started pushing dirt. I was having fun and enjoying myself.

After just a few pushes, I changed directions to work in my drainage area, and while in the bottom of the drainage ditch, something went "BANG!" I turned off the engine and found that the fan had broke off of it's mount and taken out part of the shroud.

As you can see in the pics, I need a new fan.

Today, I learned that Case no longer makes or supplies my fan. There are several different tractors that used the same engine, but it appears that each had a differen sized fan. If they had one, it costs $1,050 because it's reversable. If we can find a standard pushing fan that will fit, the cost around $280. The base is another $250 and the shroud is $450.

After two visits, much conversing with the parts guys, mechanics and anybody else that came by, we're stuck.

I've been searching the net and might have found a used one from a salvage yard in Florida. We'll see what happens tomorrow when I talk to them again.

If not, and none of the other models are able to adapt to my dozer, I've thought about searching for an electric one. The opening in front of the shroud is 26.5 inches. Of course, finding a pushing electric fan that big is probably easier said then done.

Until I find these parts, everything else is on hold.

Eddie

Try camping world.

I have one in a box somewhere that I bought for my diesel pusher motor home. I think it was around $125. I bought it because the standard fan put a large load on the motor. With the diesel pusher the only time you realy need a fan is when you are stopped or in city traffic. Going down the highway the suction behind the 12 foot tall motorhome draws plenty of air through the radiator.

My motorhome uses the same radiator as the 7.3 ford diesel pick up trucks. It is a big sucker and so is the fan.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for the tip. Then engine in the dozer is a Cummins, but even though it's a very common engine, there are a hunderd different configurations of it. Unfortunately, my fan system is very unique, which is why it was so expensive.

Eddie

 

[Steve C]

Thanks for the tip. Then engine in the dozer is a Cummins, but even though it's a very common engine, there are a hunderd different configurations of it. Unfortunately, my fan system is very unique, which is why it was so expensive.

Eddie

The engine in my motorhome is a Cummins 5.9
The fan is just a D.C. motor with a blade attached.( And a thermostatic switch) You can reverse the flow by just reversing the electrical connections. I am sure that we could get you up and running in an hour or two if I was near by. Think outside the box, you just need to blow air through the radiator

 

[Steve C]

Thanks for the tip. Then engine in the dozer is a Cummins, but even though it's a very common engine, there are a hunderd different configurations of it. Unfortunately, my fan system is very unique, which is why it was so expensive.

Eddie

Oh wait! I think I led you astray! Your machine is not worth saving, the cost of repairs is just to high, perhaps I should drive down there and relieve you of the burden. It should be worth a couple hundred per ton?

Well if you don't want to tackle the fix, I have a truck and trailer

I suspect that the electric fan from camper world will do what you need to have done. Or I could dig mine out of the box and sell it to you.

 

[czechsonofagun]

I've seen one deer, and that was a doe. There are no deer tracks in my food plots when I looked this morning. I have wheat, turnips, clover and rye grass growing.

There's still a few more weeks left of deer season, but without even seeing any deer tracks, I'm not expecting things to change too much.

Eddie

With so many pigs in your area, the deer population must take real beating. I know wild boars in Europe are known of snacking on fawns and feral hogs won't be much different.

 

[EddieWalker]

Well if you don't want to tackle the fix, I have a truck and trailer

I suspect that the electric fan from camper world will do what you need to have done. Or I could dig mine out of the box and sell it to you.

I might be confused. Did you miss the part where I got the parts and got it up and running again? I'm under the impression that you were offering a suggest to repair or replace the fan if it broke again.

If so, I did consider an electric fan, but came up short in trying to find one that cold move a similar volume of air as the original fan. Unlike a vehicle on the road, cooling the dozer requires a massive amount of air to be pushed through the fan without any aid of moving along down the road. Because of the amount of dust in the air while pushing dirt, the fan has to push the air from the engine compartment, forward, out the front of the dozer. I can see the dust being blown off the dozer blade from all the air that's being moved. My radiator is massive. I've been arond RV's all my life. It's not even close in comparison. Not only am I cooling water for the engine, but I'm also cooling 30 gallons of hydraluic fluid from three hydraulic pumps. Two tracks and the blade.

Since Case no longer makes a replacement blade for my dozer, the guys in the parts department worked at finding something tha would work. While they did that, I contacted several salvage yards, and got lucky. I was able to buy the parts used, and finish leveling off the dirt to build the deer blind. I've since put on several hundred hours working it in other areas of my land. The guys at Case did come up with a fan that they thought would work off of a wheel loader. Since I found one, we never went any farther on that.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

With so many pigs in your area, the deer population must take real beating. I know wild boars in Europe are known of snacking on fawns and feral hogs won't be much different.

I've started thinking that you are right. I still might not have the right stuff planted for them, but I also find it hard to believe that they just don't like what I'm growing. The hogs are loud, aggressive and prone to sudden movement. All things that the deer don't like.

I've resisted trapping them because I really don't want to deal with it. There are ads in the papers from guys who say they will come onto your land to trap and remove the hogs for free. I'm debating doing this. I'd like to have more deer arond here, but given a choice, hog meat is much tastier then deer meat. We can also hunt hogs year round.

It's a tough choice.

Eddie

 

[Tororider]

Eddie, I will suggest making sure you triple check references for anyone that you would have come trap on your property and probably get some agreement in writing, all things I am sure you would do anyways.

My guess is that you could trap as many hogs as you want and still have plenty to hunt year round. From my understanding of the population in Texas, it is prolific. Either hunting them yourselves or having someone else do it for you may help your long term prospects of deer hunting.

On another note, whatever did you decide about raising turkeys? Too much work? I am sure I missed it somewhere else.

 

[EddieWalker]

On the turkeys, I met with some local biologist and professors that are working on restocking turkeys in the area. From what they told me, and what they've tried, I reallized that I would just be wasting my time and money trying to get anything going here. They wonder too far, and unless caught in the wild and released here, are just coyote bait. You just can't raise birds and expect them to survive in the wild. While I'm sure it's not impossible, it's not something that I'm going to put allot of time into.

They are also working with groups of landowners by gaining access to large blocks of land. After they get several thousand acres into the program, they start releasing birds. In the last three to five years, they tried a new method for doing this, and the results have been very good. Before, the birds would just slowly decline in numbers. Now they are increasing in al their study areas. One of these study areas is just ten miles away from me.

I hunted a ranch in CA that was about that far away from the same thing. They stared letting birds go, and for the first couple years, all you knew about it was what come up from talking to the game wardens of biologists. Nobody that I know of actually saw any birds. Then one year, we saw a few of them. Heck, we didn't even know what they were at first. Then the next year, we saw quite a few of them. Different groups all spread out. The year after that, we started hunting them. They were just about everywhere!!!

In my little dream world, I'm hopeful that something similar might happen here. The government is doing their thing and working on getting the turkey population back up to huntable numbers. With everything they are doing, it's just a matter of time until it happens.

Eddie

 

[ToadHill]

Maybe you should change the name to "My Over the Top" Hog blind.

 

[Tororider]

Hopefully it works out for you. Do you have a large coyote population around you? I would assume that the coyotes really don't bother the hogs much?

I have heard we have some turkeys around our property, but I have never seen any, so I am not sure if it is just a small population or they were just passing through. I have thought about hatching some coturnix quail and releasing them on our property just to see what would happen. I figure it would be fun for my kids, they reach breeding age very quickly and the eggs are cheap. I may do that this spring since my oldest son has been on me to hatch out some more chickens and if I were to do the quail I have a place to release them and don't have to worry about housing and feeding them. We will see.

 

[EddieWalker]

The reason I named it Fort Peyton is because of it's intended use of making it into a playground. Eventually, I'll pull the windows, add bars and call it the prison for the kids to play in. What is now my food plot, will be surrounded with an 8ft deer fence for my pet elk. Both are long term goals, and both are things that I want to do right now, but if I did, it would interfere with my tree clearing and road building.

Even though the deer hunting is terrible, and I've only seen one doe from it, I still enjoy sitting out there and reading a book. When the kids are with their dad, Steph will join me in the blind. We've spent several days sitting in it all day long. She's probably the only person that I could do this with. I'm sort of a loner and enjoy not being around people. My personal record is six days without seeing anohter human. That was on a backpack hunting trip into a Wilderness Area. Anyway, we've had some very nice days just sitting there, reading our own books, listening to our Ipods and watching for animals. She has 15/20 vision, which is allot better then normal. She sees things faster then anybody I've ever met. While I'm looking too, it's rare that I'll spot something before she does.

The heater is just barely enough to heat it, but it's enough to make it barable on really cold days. Of course, I'm always opening the windows, so I'm not really expectng it to be toasty warm in there!!! LOL

Eddie

 

[lakngulf]

Dan Moultrie was on a radio show a few weeks back talking about issues in field dressing feral hogs. I did not get the whole story but the main thing was to wear gloves, which is common sense anyway.

Fortunately, we do not have that many yet in central Alabama, although there are major problems south of us. We have the deer and turkey, around my house at the lake and at the old farm place where I hunt. My green fields of wheat, rye and turnips are healthy but clipped to the ground. Strangely enough, the only deer I have take (a big doe) was grazing in the area of the pasture where I mowed as a passage way from one side of the field to the other.

 

[Western]

Strangely enough, the only deer I have take (a big doe) was grazing in the area of the pasture where I mowed as a passage way from one side of the field to the other.

When the deer slow their grazing in my plots, I will usually shred the top off. It seems they prefer the young tender growth over the older coarse growth. This can kill some type of plantings I guess but it works great on oats and wheat.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks. I'm gonna mow tomorrow!!!! It sure can't hurt anything.

Eddie

 

[Steve C]

I might be confused. Did you miss the part where I got the parts and got it up and running again? I'm under the impression that you were offering a suggest to repair or replace the fan if it broke again.


Eddie

yes Eddie I did miss that part....my bad
The electric fan on my motor home is about 30 inches in diameter and it does move a lot of air. It is a pusher style with the engine in the back, but it is only blowing through a 4 core one ton diesel ford truck radiator (replaced it 3 times) and the transmission cooler for the alison transmision.

It is handling only 160 hp of heat rejection and is aided buy the vacuum created behind the 12 foot tall box going down the road.

 

[EddieWalker]

Here's a video clip that my wife took of me running it after I fixed the fan.

YouTube - Case 1550 Dozer - Sunshine on a full load.

Eddie