Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
technology is not my cup of tea in the outdoors but a good buddy had been wanting to take the drone to my place so I was on board. I would definitely not use it anywhere close to season but I figured post season educational purposes was fine with me. That out of the way here’s what I saw-
The tale of three farms. I have three separate parcels that showed some interesting things. The two I just bought with zero management and zero food had very few deer. Granted there was some operator issues and the sun peaked out a bit which made it tough. But both of these of roughly the same size had about 15 deer total on them. My main place which is about 120 acres bigger than those and has had food plots and two full protein feeders and some timber work had every bit of 75 deer. It was problematic!
Deer have zero issue being in the hardwoods. I would say the bulk of them were in that habitat type. Granted some of the hardwoods had been cut some years back it was a thinning and still relatively open. Also deer stacked up in cedar thickets. I know those can get a bad name by the like of grant woods, and maybe rightfully so, but deer will absolutely bed in them.
Sorry to say there’s not some secret herd of bucks hiding on your property! I’ve said this before as my assumption about trail cams and their effectiveness. If you run cams for a season in halfway decent spots, you will see everything you have. There wasn’t a racked buck I didn’t know.
Large swaths had zero deer within hundred of yards. Little discouraging. Granted it’s Feb but there was some areas I was certain would have deer and they were devoid of life.
Lastly, deer avoided high stem count, unmanaged cut ground like the plague. I have about 40 acres in two different blocks like that and there wasn’t a thing in those.
That’s all I have. Pretty cool and definitely think they should be illegal during the season. Way too effective.
The tale of three farms. I have three separate parcels that showed some interesting things. The two I just bought with zero management and zero food had very few deer. Granted there was some operator issues and the sun peaked out a bit which made it tough. But both of these of roughly the same size had about 15 deer total on them. My main place which is about 120 acres bigger than those and has had food plots and two full protein feeders and some timber work had every bit of 75 deer. It was problematic!
Deer have zero issue being in the hardwoods. I would say the bulk of them were in that habitat type. Granted some of the hardwoods had been cut some years back it was a thinning and still relatively open. Also deer stacked up in cedar thickets. I know those can get a bad name by the like of grant woods, and maybe rightfully so, but deer will absolutely bed in them.
Sorry to say there’s not some secret herd of bucks hiding on your property! I’ve said this before as my assumption about trail cams and their effectiveness. If you run cams for a season in halfway decent spots, you will see everything you have. There wasn’t a racked buck I didn’t know.
Large swaths had zero deer within hundred of yards. Little discouraging. Granted it’s Feb but there was some areas I was certain would have deer and they were devoid of life.
Lastly, deer avoided high stem count, unmanaged cut ground like the plague. I have about 40 acres in two different blocks like that and there wasn’t a thing in those.
That’s all I have. Pretty cool and definitely think they should be illegal during the season. Way too effective.
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