My Habitat Plans

[krekelly]

Hello gentlemen!

First and foremost, I appreciate all the help y'all have given to us newbies as we navigate this journey! It's been invaluable!

Attached is a rough (really rough) sketch of a habitat plan I'm looking to put into place. Yellow circles are doe bedding. Small yellow circles are buck bedding, green circle is food plots, orange lines connecting them will be travel corridors, the red lines will be how I approach the stand. The wind is predominantly S and NE with more S/SW than anything else.

The pond is already there as well as the northern food plot. The eastern food plot was in use this year but didn't see much action. I plan on expanding and adding edge feathering to it.


What are your thoughts? Suggestions?

Here’s the larger picture of what’s going around me.

Topography

Finally wind history October thru Jan

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Please don't take this as snarky...not my intent..but did the deer get the memo about where they will bed and where they will travel? Sometimes when I see plans like this with all of the lines and circles and colors and can't help but think that this, of course, is how hunters visualizing the habitat and deer behavior, but what deer do is something quite different.

Sounds like you've hunted it this past season? Have you hunted it for many years? If it were me and I only had one season in I think I would be patient and watch what the deer do naturally before doing anything. Your plan sounds too much like a Jeff Sturgis video or book...the does will bed here at point A and the bucks 100 yards away at point B and they will all travel every night to point C and I will ambush them at point D. That makes for great reading and lots of thumbs up on Youtube, but unless you have the exact perfect situation for that kind of nice and neat scenario, I don't think his recipes for success are all that universal.

Just getting the conversation going and thinking out loud. I am not a big believer that you can get bucks and does to bed where you want, especially in habitat like yours.

In the big picture is your land the blue icon at the bottom of the page?

 

[j-bird]

First thing that jumps out at me is the topography... This is something that is going to be a MAJOR factor in how the deer use and move across the property as well as to what you can and can't do as well.

As for your plan.... I start with more questions than suggestions... Do you know where the deer currently bed, feed and their routes back and fourth? Do you know where the deer enter/leave the property and what motivates them to do so? Do you have adequate bedding or food sources currently? Now would be a very good time to be looking for old scrapes and rubs, deer beds, clusters of deer poop, signs of browsing, worn deer trails, locating mast sources and soaking up that knowledge about the property.

I don't want to make many suggestions because your land is VERY different than mine..(i'm a flat lander). All I do know is that deer relate to topography, cover, safety, food and human pressure regardless of where they are. I also know it is far easier to work with what you have vs trying to force the deer to do something they don't want to do. I have beat my head against that wall enough as it is....

I see 2 things in your plan.... #1 - I create bedding areas and let the deer figure it out. Trying to make specific beds has never worked out for me. I find they need to be at least 1/2 acre in size and the bigger the better and tend to be a higher stem count. #2 - Where you have bedding...they seem to have an elevation advantage over your possible access route. I would be concerned about the deer sitting in those beds and watching you move to and from your stands. If the cover is thick enough it might not be an issue, but once leaf drop happens...it may put you at a disadvantage. Here in flat land...deer will set 50 to 100 yards back in the woods and watch hunters cross open fields to access stands and will slowly slip away should that hunter start to get a little too close...

 

[TreeDaddy]

The topo is interesting to me

Check out Mapping Trophy Bucks by Brad Herndon

i see multiple saddles,pinch points , and funnels,etc

As stated, work with the terrain and dont "force " a plan....

bill