Need help!! What should I do.

[Black Swamp]

Ok I need your guys help! I’m trying to decide what to do with the black area it’s about 5 acres. I want to make this a thick nasty area for deer cover. How do I accomplish this? The white area is my house. The green lines are a double row of pines. Red line is Diogo crabapples about 50 of them. (My wife likes the looks of them) that’s why they are right there. Yellow out line is a clover plot and the orange is about a 5 acre corn or bean field that I let stand until January. The blue is a ditch. The ditch has CIR switch grass on booth sides about 50 feet wide on both sides for about 250 yards. Again I need something to do with the black area.

Thanks

 

[Mortenson]

What's your time horizon? The three best ideas I've had so far for myself have been wild plums, spruces, and now I'm going ahead with miscanthus in a block of 8'x8' or slightly tighter. I have switch too, but don't think it'd get nasty enough for you. I'll let you know in ten years what was best.

 

[j-bird]

Kill any and all cool season grasses and invasive plants in that area...turn the dirt over and let mother nature do her thing. In a few years it will be a thick nasty tangle of briars, golden rod, cedars and saplings. You can plant a few trees you specifically want (like oak or chestnut) for a mast source if you want. I would also plant a wall of conifers or some sort of screening plants along the edge toward the house. A strong visual barrier and something to temper any noise and the like from the house will help promote deer use. Also check with your DNR and see if they have sapling sales as you may be able to get a good mixture of bare root trees for planting for a reasonable price to help things along as well. Might even consider a small water hole....just keep it away from the house so to not increase a skeeter issue at home. You want to give things a kick...collect seeds from the woods behind you or from a local park and just scatter them in the area or even put up a few bird wires and let the birds plant the area for you.

 

[yoderjac]

First, I'd question "Why?". From my perspective, I want separation between food and cover. This causes deer to be forced to move between them. I prefer to hunt between bedding and food, but even if you hunt the food plot, this becomes difficult. How do I approach the clover plot without deer bedded in the cover making me, even with wind in my favor? I don't know where your property lines are, but if it were me, I would want my cover/bedding on one side of that hardwood lot and the food on the other. It doesn't take much hunting pressure before deer just wait until after dark and then move a few yards to get to the clover.

J-bird provides good advice. I'd suggest controlled burns, but perhaps not if the house is too close.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Mortenson]

Those ideas would surely make it nasty and provide some cover. I wouldn't do it in my part of the world because it'd unleash a wrath of thistles, poison hemlock, locusts, etc. I have enough of those kind of things without promoting more.

 

[Bill]

Can we see a more zoomed out picture?

Jack is onto something. Rather than a 5 acre block that's hard to Hunt, I might go with three and some kind of funnel that goes with natural lines of movement. Looks like it could be a great N something wind hunt.

Lots of shrubs would work but not fast.

Dappled Willow, elderberry, plum, button bush etc. but they need care in the beginning.
MIscanthus may be a good option but you'll never hang a stand from it.

 

[buckdeer1]

Shrubs,shrubs and some more,I think fragrant sumac may be one of the best to plant,I bet they are 8ft tall on my bad dirt.Plant 6-8ft apart

 

[jsasker007]

Where I'm at in Minnesota if I leave any part of my property alone for a year it will be overgrown with all kinds of things naturally. I don't know what you have bordering that area but maybe let nature take it's course?

 

[Bowsnbucks]

If it were me, I'd do as J-bird said (post #3) - kill all cool season grasses, then scratch up the soil. Nature will sprout a batch of stuff, and I'd supplement that by planting some clusters of spruce and Washington hawthorns. Between nature's seed bank and some selected planted tree clusters, it'll get plenty thick. If I were starting from scratch like you are, I might keep a couple mower-width paths open for easy deer travel / ambush locations. You can steer deer with such paths !!

 

[Black Swamp]

better pic

 

[jsasker007]

I don't want to be "that guy" but with the small amount of woods shown in the zoomed out photo I wouldn't think you get to see very many deer? Farm country like pictured usually does not provide enough cover for deer to feel safe at all. Unless when zoomed out even farther there are some big woods near by?

 

[Bill]

Do you own that patch of timber?
I would agree with jsasker if I never saw the deer H2O gets going through his small chunk on the land tour. Seems like his place is an oasis in the middle of crop ground.

If you own that timber I would do something different than making that black area a tangled mess.

 

[H20fwler]

Thanks Bill.

It’s hard to really say from the pics you posted, even further out showing how the whole block looks would give everyone a better idea of what your situation is. So far it looks like your in a very heavy ag area... if so and you have the time shrub strips loaded with the right type of trees/shrubs would be a big draw along with a good clover mix with chicory as a ground cover and let natural weeds and things grow up in it. Tying up ground planting corn and beans if there is already thousands of acres of it around you doesn’t seem like best use of limited ground.
You want to offer wildlife things they can’t get on other properties, from the pics it looks like you need cover. With the house right there it will make it tougher to stay low impact. The smaller the property the more careful you need to be with any disturbance. Do you own the woods?
Have you ever considered putting in a small shallow pond?

 

[Mortenson]

What are you leaning towards? I like the idea of leaving the other 5 ac section in standing beans/corn every year, like you said. On a normal year, I'm assuming all those neighboring crops are out by Oct? So that 5 ac of crops for 3 or more additional months could be a game changer for killing deer. Is your goal to get deer out of the timber (which I assume you don't own), and moving towards the 5 ac of crops? If so, maybe just go a bunch more of the CIR/Kanlow switch and let cedars grow up in it.

Nice map. Looks like nice, productive farmland. That Ray the soil guy video from over on the Lime thread would not like all that freshly worked ground with no cover crops on it! LOL. And the big ol 120' sprayer in the lower left corner.

 

[Black Swamp]

I own the area in the white box. Its mostly farm land. The woods in the picture are some of the bigger ones around that general area. I ve killed two of my biggest deer back there. My uncle owns the smaller one that my property butts up to.

 

[pinetag14]

I like Jack's idea of separating the food and cover, but not knowing how the deer utilize the area, take this recommendation with a grain of salt.

Yellow - your existing clover
Black - your proposed bedding area
Orange - Your standing corn but i would decrease the amount you plant to allow for a transition zone of Native warm season grasses.
Brown - Native warm season grasses. I would plant a shorter variety so you can see into it and maybe throw in a few shrubs here and there. This should give you some separation between the food and cover allowing for shot opportunities.
Green line - Some sort of screen like miscanthus giganteus or eqyptian wheat
Red dots - tower stand or box blind locations. Assuming up is N, you should be able to access the stand by the clover plot by going around the southern end of the corn and coming up through the ditch and allowing the CIR to hide your movements. You would be able to cover the plot as well as catch any deer working that edge headed toward the corn. For the more centrally located stand, the new screen should allow you to access that stand without detection and you would be able to cover the strip of NWSG's between the bedding area and the clover and corn.

You might could even shrink the black area along the western edge and leave an open strip (or create another small plot) between the pines and cover, to give a possible third stand location. Good luck!

 

[Bill]

Not owning that block of woods and obviously needing to pluck deer that come out of it I would concentrate on stand setups and steering the deer where you want them. I like where pinetag has stand locations particularly the NE stand. Good spot for a NW and a SW wind. I’d concentrate on SW wind. If it were me and mister big was in that block I’d want him on the ground in September on the first afternoon that had a 15 to 20 degree temperature drop and that usually means dealing a S something wind.

Fence it, use miscantus, brush piles anything to funnel deer by you. I’d screen the ditch with the field to the east and you house. Your lot is the perfect setup for a staging area. Any other direction and they are standing in the wide open in daylight. I’m amazed at how much activity we get away with at the farm house with deer right behind us in the field because it is screened with miscanthus. They tolerate hearing you much better than seeing you.

I’d also plant trees, miscanthus something for cover on the N side between your uncles block and yours at the ditch. Mid October bucks are more likely to cruise cover then bust out across an open field. That corner could be a good easy access sit.

I like your setup but you won’t be able to hunt it hard. Low pressure and it looks like a Gem.

 

[yoderjac]

I own the area in the white box. Its mostly farm land. The woods in the picture are some of the bigger ones around that general area. I ve killed two of my biggest deer back there. My uncle owns the smaller one that my property butts up to.
View attachment 22734

I would consider connecting those two woodlots with cover and run the cover strip down to the south. I'd put my food at the south end of your property at the end to the cover strip. I'd hunt the cover strip and catch deer moving from those woodlots to food. This presupposes the ag crops have been harvested and there are now wind direction access issues. I could also consider a visual block around the perimeter of your land.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[MickT]

Jack beat me to it- connect the blocks of timber with some sort of permanent cover.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[greenhorn]

What's your time horizon? The three best ideas I've had so far for myself have been wild plums, spruces, and now I'm going ahead with miscanthus in a block of 8'x8' or slightly tighter. I have switch too, but don't think it'd get nasty enough for you. I'll let you know in ten years what was best.

I own the area in the white box. Its mostly farm land. The woods in the picture are some of the bigger ones around that general area. I ve killed two of my biggest deer back there. My uncle owns the smaller one that my property butts up to.
View attachment 22734

Blackswamp
I know your property. Have been seen you working on it for a while. You have been very busy with it. I only live 5 to 6 miles away. Would be happy to meet with you or even show you what I have done to my property. This is my first time posting on this site and not vary familiar with how it works yet. Not for sure how to contact you.