A wise man learns from another mans mistakes

[Jordan Selsor]

I learned allot of "what not to do" at the old farm. Anxious to apply what I have learned to the new place. Figured we could make a thread so others can learn from our mistakes. Looked and found a thread with similar title but it wasn't made with this intent. I will go first.

 

[Jordan Selsor]

Tree plantings
Plant fewer trees and do it right!

Good cages, weed mats, I have had better luck with mulch over gravel! Take a pick ax and bust up the ground all around your trees! I could tell a big difference doing this! Sprinkle a bit of fert in that tree hole.

Cages are better than tubes period! BUT in planting allot of seedlings tubes are great! I have had much better luck with 3-4ft tubes especially with chestnuts. 5+ ft'rs make seedlings to spindly doing more harm than good! As trees grow out of the shorter tubes apply cages in high deer density areas with heavy browse pressure.

In the south pears out do apples period! They grow faster, produce sooner and are allot less picky on planting sight. I am putting a greater effort on Olympic and other late season pears this go around! Still planting an apple orchard though! Love them too much:)

More to come as I reflect

 

[bowhunternw]

I would totally agree with smaller plantings done right. The thing that always gets me is the price per tree drops so much with qnty. I have mostly planted spruce and cant find them till spring when everything else is brown.

 

[trampledbyturtles]

Here's a hot take for ya.

Going all in on concrete remesh for cage material on my apple trees.

While yes, it is nice it can stand its ground with only one t-post. An makes pruning and getting in for work easier.

Its is turning in nitemare for me up here in the north due to all the rabbits. They use it as a security hideout from predators. And when the snow gets deep. They shred the trees to pieces. Even with 36in window screen.

Had to go back this summer and add chicken wire around the majority of them. Added material cost / time lost / replacement tree cost. Should just have went with smaller holed slightly more expensive fencing from the start an located more t posts...

 

[SwampCat]

I have two properties, eight miles apart, in the same river bottoms. For the first few years I did the same things on both properties before I learned they might as well have been 500 miles apart. Dont take for granted what works on one property will work on another.

 

[j-bird]

Couple of things that have hit home for me:

#1 - If it's worth doing....do it right. Far more times than I can count have I cut corners or over extended my realistic abilities or otherwise short changed my efforts and projects....leading to failures or poor results. I think you can apply this to about any thing we do. Too many times I have cut corners due to cost or time or effort. 1/2 assed effort = 1/2 assed results.

#2 - Observe, Plan THEN act. Again, guilty of not doing this. Early on I wanted to change the world....and to do that I did what I could where I could. Turns out....the deer don't care if it's easy for YOU. This particularly holds true when placing food plots. How many times do we see a place to put in a food plot and do and THEN try to figure out how to hunt it???? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

#3 - YOU ARE NOT AN ISLAND! Again, guilty. The TV shows and many other resources out there make you think like we are managing 1,000's of acres of land.....WE ARE NOT! We do not control the entire world of a single deer in many cases. As such....you have to look well beyond your property and see how the deer use the land in general and how they move across it and why. We have no business "culling" deer or thinking that the deer are ours. That deer walks across your property line on a daily basis...to manage otherwise is simply foolish.

#4 - do what is best for YOU and your local deer. Food plots are all the rage....but not enough can be said about clean water and good diverse habitat and cover. Deer survived for a long time without our help....we should seek to supplement that to help them...and NOT expect to turn them entirely dependent on us. Look at YOUR habitat and what YOUR deer need and want and like.

#5 - don't fix what isn't broken. Sometimes...we need to know when to just leave well enough alone. I hate when people insist on improving known bedding areas.... If the deer like it now...stay out!

#6 - sometimes the biggest changes you can make are the scariest. By this I mean timber harvest or larger scale plantings. I have done both with a timber harvest and native grass plantings. I was VERY concerned about screwing it up....but these projects are ones of immensity and not intensity....and as such have had far more positive impact than say my plots or orchards that require constant work.

#7 - realistic expectations. What we see on TV and the like is not realistic for most of us. We are not going to grow a 150" deer every year. In fact B&C class deer are the exception to the rule and not the standard that many try to present it as. In many areas the top deer will be 120 to 150"....and we need to realize that we can pass that 150" deer all we want...but if the neighbors are killing them....well it's not doing us much good. The same holds true with numbers of deer. You need to understand that not all habitat can support 30 deer per square mile. We need to realize if you have limited cover you may not see a deer every time you hunt.

So now I'm going to go out and do something that flies in the face of one of these I'm sure.....some people never learn!

 

[4wanderingeyes]

The size of the antlers does not make a successful hunt. To often I hear, it was only a 6 pointer, or I just shot a doe. If you were ok with the decision when you pulled the trigger, dont degrade your hunt when you tell your story to others. Most properties wont put out 150" deer.

If you live in bear country, it isnt a matter of if a bear will destroy some of your apple trees, but when. Plan accordingly!

Before you spend a couple grand on building a nice deer stand, make damn sure that is where you want it. I built my deer stand on the wrong side of a food plot, and it has costed me a few nice deer over the years. It still is a nice stand, and spot, it is just after a few years of hunting the stand, I figured out it would be much better 100 yards away.

 

[144]

Build all box stands on skids...period

Way too hard to move otherwise. Working on one right now.


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[yoderjac]

My biggest mistake was using a 2-bottom plow and dong deep and frequent tillage. I had great looking plots but did way more long-term damage to my marginal soils than any short-term benefit I got from the plots. I'm still paying for it.

It is one thing to make mistakes that can be corrected the next season. It is another to make mistakes that destroy in one year what will take many years to mitigate.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

1) Hunt a new property for a year before making any major changes since it is easy to mess up a good thing.
2) Plant apple/pear tree rows in straight lines. I have a lot of apple trees that were planted without thinking and they look really stupid now that my orchards have expanded and they are the only ones not in a row. Every time I run the brush hog in my orchards I wonder why I planted those first trees where I did.
3) When possible plant food plots and perform habitat improvements in a way that benefits deer while allowing you a good opportunity to kill them. Going crazy with food plots and TSI, tree plantings, etc. might really benefit deer, but if it creates mostly random movements then the deer might be harder to kill. Give the deer some awesome bedding cover and awesome food, but make them walk by a stand to get to use them.

 

[Jordan Selsor]

My biggest mistake was using a 2-bottom plow and dong deep and frequent tillage. I had great looking plots but did way more long-term damage to my marginal soils than any short-term benefit I got from the plots. I'm still paying for it.

It is one thing to make mistakes that can be corrected the next season. It is another to make mistakes that destroy in one year what will take many years to mitigate.

Thanks,

Jack

I still have much to learn about soil health Jack. You going to spray an pray plots? or using a no till drill? I have been staying clear of annual plots for several years now. My motto is add clover/alfalfa to every mix and then maintain it as a perennial plot for several years. Then rotate which plots I am tilling under annually.. One hole I always struggle with is late season food... Turnip/clover/rye mix is the answer I just never seem to execute it...

 

[Jordan Selsor]

1) Hunt a new property for a year before making any major changes since it is easy to mess up a good thing.
2) Plant apple/pear tree rows in straight lines. I have a lot of apple trees that were planted without thinking and they look really stupid now that my orchards have expanded and they are the only ones not in a row. Every time I run the brush hog in my orchards I wonder why I planted those first trees where I did.
3) When possible plant food plots and perform habitat improvements in a way that benefits deer while allowing you a good opportunity to kill them. Going crazy with food plots and TSI, tree plantings, etc. might really benefit deer, but if it creates mostly random movements then the deer might be harder to kill. Give the deer some awesome bedding cover and awesome food, but make them walk by a stand to get to use them.

Great advise!!! With a new farm I am chomping at the bit to plant a bunch of trees this fall. But advise from you an other tells me to set back and hunt it this season an see what the deer movement looks like. Low pressure is better than a bunch of tree plantings that can wait till early spring!
Great mention on planting trees in straight lines! Instead of grid style plantings I hope to do more straight lines keeping clear shooting lanes for rifle shots an mowing maintenance.
Focusing on the kill shot an huntabilty of plots is what separates those that kill good deer consistently every yr to the rest of us lol

 

[Jordan Selsor]

Build all box stands on skids...period

Way too hard to move otherwise. Working on one right now.


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Thats a good one! I have an old trailer I am thinking about building a box stand on to avoid this predicament!

 

[144]

Another one - don’t use a forestry mulcher on a pine thicket in the south. Takes forever for the mulch to break down and you will attract all the beetles in the area to your surrounding pine trees... bad mistake


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[144]

And... if you are putting up a gate to your property, make sure to account for your truck, trailer and a bit more room so that you can pull in or out without being on the main highway. I have to make a mad dash to the gate to lock/unlock, so that I don’t get hit.

I’m a matter of a couple of inches from the highway and gate, seriously...


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[j-bird]

Get your kids or grandkids involved! I realize in many cases we are on a mission to get some sort of task completed....however....we need to ensure we take the time to connect the kids to the land. Let them get dirt on their hands and feet. Let them spread some seed or dig the hole for a tree. Let them feel like they are part of the process. I feel those that get the dirt on their hands....tend to get it under their skin as well. And that is a good thing!

 

[Telemark]

I'm also guilty of biting off more than I can chew and over-extending myself.

 

[Freeborn]

Build all box stands on skids...period

Way too hard to move otherwise. Working on one right now.


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Can you share a photo? I have thought of this but never attempted the build.

 

[144]

Build all box stands on skids...period

Way too hard to move otherwise. Working on one right now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can you share a photo? I have thought of this but never attempted the build.

I don’t have any wooden box stands with skids at this point, but I believe I’ve seen a few pictures of some on this forum. Here’s a picture of a couple metal frame stands that I put out this year. Pretty simple design that works:

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[Native Hunter]

Don't give up on an apple cultivar too quickly just because it doesn't seem to be producing big crops or you think it is dropping too early. I had 3 Yates trees and the oldest one just seemed to drop too early and not be as the cultivar is advertised. That caused me to topwork the other two younger trees. The very next year the older Yates started making loads of apples that hung late into October and really drew in the deer.

It just takes a few years sometime for a young tree to get leveled out and start doing what it is supposed to do. Give it plenty of time. I topworked what would have likely been great trees.