Habitat mistakes

[j-bird]

Mistakes I have made.....
#1 - believed QDMA actually was about deer hunters. I thought they actually cared about deer, hunters and related issues. QDMA won't fight the DNR's and they only care about "their message" and if that doesn't start in a "Q" they are not interested.
#2 - I put off major habitat improvements like tree planting, WSG and timber harvests. These things take time, require some next step investment and to be honest be seem scary. However they tend to be the most rewarding and beneficial.
#3 - I bought into the "plant it and they will come" message that the foodplot industry pushes.....that isn't true. Foodplots are a minute part of what it can take.
#4 - Hunting in the real world is NOT like what you see on TV.
#5 - many hunting gadgets are for getting hunters moneys, not getting deer!

 

[*Hawaii5joe*]

Mistakes I have made.....
#1 - believed QDMA actually was about deer hunters. I thought they actually cared about deer, hunters and related issues. QDMA won't fight the DNR's and they only care about "their message" and if that doesn't start in a "Q" they are not interested.
#2 - I put off major habitat improvements like tree planting, WSG and timber harvests. These things take time, require some next step investment and to be honest be seem scary. However they tend to be the most rewarding and beneficial.
#3 - I bought into the "plant it and they will come" message that the foodplot industry pushes.....that isn't true. Foodplots are a minute part of what it can take.
#4 - Hunting in the real world is NOT like what you see on TV.
#5 - many hunting gadgets are for getting hunters moneys, not getting deer!

All rock solid points j-bird!

 

[SmallTime]

When I first started. Did my soil samples and found that the price of lime and fertilizer was way beyond my meager budget.
Halved everything and put some on all my spots. With half assed results.
Should have concentrated on getting one spot perfect then on to the next.

LIME, LIME , Lime before fertilizer. PH is the first most important.

Plant what the soil wants, not what looks good in the magazine.

 

[mglenn005]

1. Buying buck on bag seed
2. Not doing soil samples the first year. Doing the Box store kit next. Finally on the third year, sent in to a professional (7 plots). Professional kit says I'm low on K, so I basically have been spreading 0-0-60 with all plantings
3. Not a mistake - but I have shoveled 10 tons of lime in one day twice in the Alabama summers.
4. Not walking every inch of your property before getting the bull dozer in for food plots. Wish I would have moved a few spots. Transitioning those to clover stands as we just finished logging. Track hoe and dozer coming in a week to clean out new spots.
5. Plots smaller than 1/3 acre are easy to get busted in. My stands don't have the best cover (young timber) and I stick out like a sore thumb. Deer spot me before I spot them. Tough to get in shooting position or draw a bow.
6. Control erosion, control erosion. Soil is so precious. We cut pines and lay in ruts.
7. If you have a dozer come, install water bars and turnouts on sloped roads. Add 1-2 more than the dozer recommends (if feasible). It takes the dozer 30 min and saves you hours in the future. Control the water velocity to stop erosion.
8. Stand entrance is critical. Don't waste time on a location that requires luck to hunt.
9. If you have camp at your place, always have a backup to your critical items. That for us is a water pump for our water system.
10. Putting stands near near property lines where neighbors arrive late. Can use it to you advantage.
11. If hinting close to partners (10 min walk), always get down 2nd. They could bump a deer your way. Happened to me, but I had already lowered my bow. Big 8, smh
12. If you aren't enjoying it, you are doing it wrong.


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[yoderjac]

My biggest mistake was using a 2-bottom plow when I started and thinking a clean field was a good field.

 

[Weasel]

I'm fortunate to be on year 3 of this new farm and I'm 41 years old. Good Lord willing, I'll be healthy enough to enjoy some of my improvements over the next few decades. I owned a smaller piece prior and have been managing property for deer for almost a decade now.

A few things I've learned:

Start planting trees, shrubs, etc. on day one or as soon as conditions allow.

Protect those trees & shrubs with quality tree cages. I buy welded wire fence by the 100 ft roll, worth every penny long term.

Buy fewer, bigger, healthier trees instead of thousands of twigs. Less trees allow you the time to care for and protect every single one. Plus the larger trees will establish and produce quicker. I once planted hundreds of 12" pines. The deer literally ate every single one.

Soil tests

Buy the right equipment for the job. ATVs were made for pleasure riding, not planting. Good used equipment is everywhere.

Don't be afraid of ag herbicides. I was the new farm owner from the suburbs who thought I'd be a better landowner by avoiding herbicides. After many struggles, and doing research ON MY OWN, I discovered how safe most herbicides we use for food plotting are when used properly.

Be a little selfish. It's my nature as a Christian to want to share what I have and turn the other cheek. I've learned that if I want to enjoy the property I bust my butt to pay for and work year round to improve, I can't allow everyone I know to hunt it. Especially those who are too busy to help all year but miraculously have all the free time in the world come hunting season. I used to let many things slide with my neighbors but I figured out I can still be a helping, kind neighbor while telling them in a nice way what I allow and don't allow on my property.

ACCESS, ACCESS, ACCESS This will be the first year that me and the only 2 other hunting buddies hunting my place will be strictly adhering to dedicated access paths for tree stands. No more walking down the back field access road through the middle of the property to hunt a stand a half mile away. I left a dead zone of mature maples & black gum trees along my east border/power line where there is little deer activity. This is downwind of my property for the prevailing W/NW winds. Strategic paths through here to stands should improve our hunting.

Test all of your equipment, new & used, before the day of said project. Murphy's Law applies here. You've been warned.

Let the deer tell you what they want, not the bozo on TV who kills 200" deer at a deer farm.

Avoid the commercial food plot blends from sporting goods stores. Find a local seed dealer, even if you have to go a little out of your way to go there. Nobody should be paying $10/pound for clover seed.

Get a decent chainsaw and make a timber stand improvement plan. Know the difference between hinge cutting & clear cutting and use each where appropriate. Know your tree species so you don't accidentally cut the wrong ones. Cut, cut and cut some more. I have acres of useless maples and black gums that choke out the understory. This was a result of bad logging practices that took every single oak & cherry out of my woodlots without a single seed tree left behind. I'm slowly changing that by hinging/clear cutting the maples & gums, releasing the oaks, apples & cherries I do find and planting as many desirable trees as I can. Oh, and safety first, cutting trees can be dangerous if you don't understand the basics.

Take time to stop and enjoy your property. (Still working on this one) While the work is enjoyable to me, I try to fit in a few multiple day stays during the work season to enjoy a campfire and the amazing sunsets & stars. And keep your hunting fun. (Still working on this one too). I put a lot of pressure on myself every season but I'm fortunate to have plenty of deer that I take a mature doe every year for the freezer. I pass a lot of immature bucks each year so it's nice to get a deer down at least once a year if it doesn't work out on a mature buck.

 

[wiscwhip]

When your soil starts out as beach sand, don't keep up yearly tillage until it turns to talcum powder. Very bad idea my old man picked up from my uncle's, who farmed great dirt, and it took me years to convince him to stop plowing and discing that sand.

 

[fshafly2]

I've been plotting well over 20 years, and planting plots on the local Navy Base for over 10 years. The best thing I ever did was to plant trees from the start (on my farm and the Base) - my sawtooths, chestnuts, crabs, etc are a mature & productive part of the landscape. (As has been said, "the best time to plant a tree is yesterday").
One of my worse mistakes was planting eleven pears 9 yrs ago in a field where the closest pear was just 30' away from black walnuts. I only have a few healthy pears left, they rest died or are dying a slow death likely due to bw poisoning. (The pears closest to the tree line succumbed first and so on. I did hack&squirt the closest bw's to try and save the rest of the pears after I realized what was happening).

-fsh

 

[WTNUT]

Have not read the responses, but I have been doing this for 15 plus years and here are some of mine:

1. Not planting fruit trees in the first year or two, and learning how to properly grow them when I did plant them by reading before buying and planting.
2. I laid out many 1-2 acre plots that were north south plots so the sun did not dry them too much each day, but I made the mistake of placing them on the east side of slopes so that if I hung a stand on the upside of the plot the deer were downwind of me in the plot on a west wind our dominate wind.
3. Not planing road screens (conifers early).
4. Starting a great 45 acre sanctuary that stayed as such for 10 years and then hanging one stand in it year 11 and 12.

Things that I did right.
1. Buy properties with lots of big woods. It is easier to push trees over with an excavator and make plots then it is to get a tree to grow large enough to hang a stand in when you start out with an open field.
2. Create a great road system first.
3. Lay out lots of plots that are 1 to 1.5 acres.
4. Take soil test and follow the recommendations for lime and fertilizer before planting.
5. Buy equipment that was a little larger than I really needed. A little too big is great if you don't need it. A little to small is never good.
6. Create sanctuaries.
7. Be very very strict with regard to what could be harvested the first five years.
8. Lots of variety with regard to crops grown in plots. I tried them all at one point or another.


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[Steve Oehlenschlager]

The biggest mistake I ever made was wasting my time and money trying to grow fruit trees. I can grow apples in my yard at home by the garbage can. But in bear country and vectors for disease present. It was the biggest waste of time and money ever. We sprayed, we prayed, we wrapped, we fenced, we did everything you could do and they almost all are dead.

 

[bueller]

My 41st year on the same property. Biggest mistake was converting 34 total acres of ag into NS spaced 12x12 for bedding. It created an insane dpsm and doe factory. It's not possible to shoot your way to a lower dpsm. Some of these stands can be cut and converted back to ag I suppose. Putting all the ag into a 15 year crp program was also not a bright move.

It sounds like this ^^^ was the best move short term, but the worst move long term.

 

[BuckSutherland]

The biggest mistake I ever made was wasting my time and money trying to grow fruit trees. I can grow apples in my yard at home by the garbage can. But in bear country and vectors for disease present. It was the biggest waste of time and money ever. We sprayed, we prayed, we wrapped, we fenced, we did everything you could do and they almost all are dead.

Where is your land Steve? We own some ground in Cass county and have lots of bears around too. I worry about them shredding our trees once they start producing fruit.

 

[bat man]

Where is your land Steve? We own some ground in Cass county and have lots of bears around too. I worry about them shredding our trees once they start producing fruit.

I had 30 some bearing fruit trees in Onamia with lots of bears and no real issues.

 

[Steve Oehlenschlager]

My land is on the Wadena/Cass county line in Lyons township. The Bears will ignore your trees for years and then when they are big enough so the deer ignore them and can't damage them.......then they really start producing fruit. Then one day the bear decides to climb you 3 to 4 inch tree .....or more......and breaks 75% of all the really nice branches and Leaders off that you spent 8 years growing. It just plain sucks. It has happened to 95% of all our trees that have gotten big enough to produce fruit. I can produce more than enough food in my fields for them to sustain themselves thru the winter. I normally have 14 acres in corn, beans and a few acres in beets. The amount of food my apple trees produced would still be pale by comparison. Yes the variety would be nice though. From the future on.....the only fruit type trees we will plant are ones that the grouse will directly benefit from. Although it is always nice shooting a grouse or 2 from the corn every few years!

 

[Steve Oehlenschlager]

By the way.....my land is Bear PARIDISE. I got 6 different ones on ONE camera in 20 days. Yes one was a sow with 3 cubs......but all that means.....is she's not leaving this 200 acre section of woodshed this summer or fall

 

[Jameson]

Any idea what rootstock those trees had? Just thinking maybe an early fruiting variety like b-118 would not be as good as a choice as a later fruiting standard rootstock. Maybe it would make no difference in the end, only making the bears wait a couple few more years.

 

[Steve Oehlenschlager]

We planted every type that was hardy to our zone. Had the best luck with Dolgo crabs. Nothing killed them except the Bears. You will never truly win in bear country.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Yes, bears are a pain. We have plenty of them too. The one saving item for us is we have GOBS of oaks. When the acorns start dropping, the bears ( and deer ) are spending most of their time in the woods garfing down acorns. That takes pressure off the apple trees ( bear-wise ) - deer still hit the dropped apples every evening. We also have fields of corn to keep the bears off the apple trees. If we didn't have the oaks, we'd be S.O.L.

Probably our camp's biggest mistake (s) have been not planting fruit trees, hawthorns, and serviceberries 20 to 30 years ago. Not having year-round food sources - AND -
Not having a forest plan for long-term management years ago. The woods were just left to grow up and the trees got too mature for good deer habitat. Certain areas became monocultures and diversity was lacking.

 

[Dennis Duffy]

Ok here is one I just did recently. I spent $1000.00 dollars on gravel and $400.00 on pipe. Spent a day hauling the gravel by bucket load because i could not get the dump truck back to where the ditch was that I was Fixing. (or at least i thought i was lol). The ditch is a run off from the neighbors farm fields onto my property. It got to deep for me to be able to drive my tractor with farm implements on the back without them getting damaged from scraping when going through the ditch. Anyhow, After completing this project I went down to the farm a few weeks later to find out they had the worst flooding they have ever seen in the area. Well you guessed it, all the gravel was no where to be seen! But the pipe was still there. Uggh! Lesson learned!!

 

[Bowsnbucks]

DD - Ouch !! Ma Nature took a grand and washed it away. Not fun. Sorry it happened to you.