Cordray’s Mill

1,442± Total Acres

250 acr PRIVATE WATER

5,600 ac Adjoining Nochaway Plantation

No. 1 Region for B&C Whitetails

1,442± acres of true river-bottom wilderness — a renowned trophy-whitetail corridor, the largest privately held flooded impoundment in South Georgia, and the income to carry it. There is nothing else like it, and there will not be again.

The rarest thing money can find

You can own anything. You can't manufacture this.

The Albany Plantation Belt is full of beautiful, finished quail ground — manicured pine, mown courses, a program run to the inch. It is magnificent. It is also everywhere.

What almost no one holds is genuine wilderness: blackwater channels, flooded cypress, hardwood bottoms where the biggest bucks actually live — river, uplands, and irrigated fields all under one gate. That property is asked for daily and found almost never. This is that property.

01: The trophy-deer thesis

The corridor the big ones travel.

The Ichawaynochaway Creek is one of the most renowned whitetail corridors in the South — a wild highway threading the great plantations of Southwest Georgia, the region that leads the entire South in Boone & Crockett entries.

Held as a sanctuary for nearly two decades, this ground grows the dark-legged, swamp-bred bucks that live in the bottoms and move the edges and corridors unseen. Neighboring plantations have produced multiple Boone & Crockett bucks exceeding 170 inches—including a remarkable 175-inch 10-point taken just two seasons ago. During the rut, mature bucks funnel through these creek bottoms from every direction; one guest counted thirteen different bucks from a single stand in two hours.

There's just no pressure. The deer are naturally big — and this place is loaded with them." - Chris Peake, Plantation Manager

The region's quail numbers and whitetail genetics are as good as it gets, and SW Georgia leads the South in B&C rankings. The immediate neighborhood is a "who's who" of some of the best hunting plantations in the country. - Jon Kohler

• Border: 5,600-ac Notchaway Plantation — world-renowned neighbor
• Near: 25,000-ac Deer Run & the Jones Center at Ichauway
• West: Massive irrigated farmland — a corridor "straight out of Iowa"
• Cover: ≈500± ac mixed pine & hardwood, swamp edges & travel corridors

18 yrs Un-hunted Wildlife Preserve

700± Acres Timber, Bottoms & Cover

1.5 mi Creek Travel Corridor

5 Trophy Plantation Neighbors

02: The Water

Two hundred fifty acres of water. All of it yours.

Cordray's Mill Pond is the largest privately held flooded impoundment in South Georgia — arguably second in the state only to the Okefenokee, and entirely private.

Dammed a century ago on the Ichawaynochaway, it is a one-of-a-kind braid of green-tree reservoir, open lake, and marsh. Boating the old channel feels like San Antonio's River Walk drawn by nature — a fine cut of water with ancient cypress leaning over every bend, everything flooded, no one else there. The bass, bream, and crappie fishing is extraordinary, from two private ramps. Both the mill pond and the natural Ichawaynochaway Creek are navigable by boat, allowing owners to explore virtually the entire stretch of creek frontage directly from the property.

• 20± Ac. By the Bridge | Open water, viewable from the crossing.
• 40± Ac. Flooded Channel | A mile of permanently flooded ancient stream.
• 80± Ac. Marsh | Semi-open fishery & waterfowl conversion.

"One could explore for days and fish for weeks on the permanently flooded ancient stream channel and main lake body and never fish the same place twice." — Jon Kohler

"When you run that creek, you're the only person there. It's something you don't see every day." — Chris Peake, Plantation Manager

After The Rut

A sporting calendar that never closes.

When the deer season ends, the property keeps giving. Hard-gobbling Eastern turkeys work the pasture edges and creek bottoms each spring, dove pour into the ag fields, and the mill pond turns on for waterfowl through the coldest mornings of winter. Chase whitetails in the fall, gobblers in the spring, ducks in between — and fish the lake the rest of the year.

For a family that wants more than a deer camp, Cordray's Mill is a true year-round place. The trophy hunting is the reason to buy it; the rest is why no one ever wants to leave.

03: Waterfowl

A flyway with five blinds and no crowd.

A managed duck impoundment with five fully accessible blinds sits inside habitat most hunters only dream about — and no public pressure has ever touched it.

Ancient hardwood forest gone to marsh is the real secret here: it holds birds year-round and turns a morning into the kind of shoot you tell people about. Every duck species that matters in this flyway uses the water.

• Mallard
• Widgeon
• Gadwall
• Teal
• Wood Duck
• Tree Duck
• Ringneck

"Twenty years without hunting pressure on a body of water this size makes for exceptional duck hunting." — Chris Peake, Plantation Manager

04: A Day HERE

Turkey at first light. Bass by afternoon. Same boat.

Generations of farmers and sportsmen carved navigable canals to the islands, the nooks, the corridors — and one runs straight to a cabin's back door.

Work a gobbler at dawn, step off the porch into an 18-foot boat, and be on crappie and bass by lunch. An established sunflower dove field adds some of the best wingshooting in the flyway, and the spring turkey numbers are, as you'd expect of ground this wild and this rested, exceptional.

"You can turkey hunt until late morning, step into an 18-foot boat behind the cabin, fish all afternoon, then go roost a bird for tomorrow." — Chris Peake, Plantation Manager

05: Income & flexibility

Land that pays its own way — or grows your biggest buck.

This is a working property. 240± acres of prime irrigated farmland — five pivots, three pumps, drawing from your own 250-acre reservoir through a deep-water canal system — bring roughly $70,000 a year in farm and water lease, alongside a 229± acre pecan orchard and 76± acres of pasture.

Keep it as reliable income and standing deer feed. Or exercise the rarest option in the region: run the pivots as habitat insurance — watering forbs, grasses, and shrubs through the spring droughts that limit wildlife everywhere else. Rotate into perennial peanut and you hold both a lucrative crop and the single best forage for growing trophy whitetails in Southwest Georgia. The land decides nothing. You do.

• $70k/yr | Farmland & water lease income in place
• 240± Ac. | irrigated — 5 pivots, 3 pumps, private reservoir
• 229± Ac. | established pecan orchard — income & forage
• 76± Ac. | improved pasture
• Option | Convert to habitat or perennial peanut at will

06: Two worlds, one gate

Two properties. One gate. No public water.

GA-45 splits Cordray's into two distinct worlds, joined by private bridge crossings. To the north, the dammed impoundment and its flooded timber. To the south, the natural, undammed Ichawaynochaway — a channel that looks lifted straight out of the 1700s, where two great tributaries, Merrett and Falling Creeks, marry the main creek on this very ground.

The rarest detail is the one you can't see: the road through the property is not a DOT right-of-way. The public cannot launch, boat, or fish your Mill Pond from it — a level of privacy almost unheard of on water this size. River bottoms, uplands, and irrigated fields, all controlled under a single ownership. That kind of diversity, on one deed, is what makes this genuinely rare.

"Everything is flooded. You're the only person there. It's something you don't see every day." — Chris Peake, Plantation Manager

07: The Heritage

Georgia's first resort. The deer had it first.

Built to harness the power of the Ichawaynochaway, Cordray's Mill was one of Georgia's earliest resorts — pre-Disney, pre-anything. A grist mill (its stones still intact), a swimming pool, and a dance hall drew crowds from across the state for the better part of seventy years.

Long before that, this was Muskogee ground. Where Merrett and Falling Creeks meet the Ichawaynochaway, the artifacts and arrowheads run thick — because this is where the people lived, and where the game has always been. The land has been telling this story for a very long time.

08: Room for every generation

Five places to lay your head. One place to gather.

• 3 BD / 2 BA · Furnished · Owner's Pecky Cypress Retreat |The main cabin — pecky cypress cabinetry, live-edge counters, exposed beams, a horse-trough tub, and a short walk to the fishing pond. Equipment included.
• 3 BD / 2 BA · Income · Lakeside Cabin | On the lake's southeastern shore, on the ground where the old dance hall once stood. Finished with cypress milled directly from the property itself. Private ramp. Currently leased.
• 1 BD / 1 BA · ½ Kitchen · Silo Guest House | A charming loft guest house near the fields and equipment barns — perfect for visiting company.
• 4 BD / 1.5 BA · Income · Converted Church House | A historic church beautifully remodeled into living quarters. Currently leased.
• 4 BD / 2 BA · Income · Farm Residence | A newer, comfortable home leased by the farm operator — turnkey income from day one.
• Also included | Quality outbuildings and equipment barns, private bridge crossings, two boat ramps, and an exceptional maintained interior road system.

"Isn't that a lot of wetland?"

That's the entire point.

ou're not buying uplands to raise crops or cattle. You're buying recreation — and the trophy deer, the turkeys, and the ducks this country is famous for live on that water. This isn't wetland to look past; it's the asset itself. You wouldn't want more, and you wouldn't want less. It is, quite simply, the ideal mix.

The current landowner loves the abundant wildlife but does not hunt — leaving the age structure, and the opportunity, fully intact for the next steward.

An Asset Class By Itself

The Ideal Social Storm™ Property

World-class deer hunting, the optionality to build a wild quail plantation, an income-producing farm, a 250-acre private lake, and room to house every generation — in hard times a safe retreat, in good times the ideal place for recreation.

"This is one of those properties that the next owner is going to take to an entirely new level — and for the next ten years people are going to tell me how much they regret not doing it themselves." — Jon Kohler

Your Guide

The broker who sold it the first time.

Jon Kohler & Associates knows this land — and this niche — better than anyone. Jon sold Cordray's before; under his guidance the owner expanded it, took control of more of the Mill Pond, added a cabin, added floodable duck-pond sites, and secured both sides of the creek's great tributaries.

A third-generation land broker and National Broker of the Year for Recreational Land, Jon has an eye for a property's true intrinsic value — and the record to prove it.