A good place to die - your most successful locations.

[j-bird]

I was working on another post and I got to thinking I have 2 places on my farm where we have really good success. The common factor in these locations is terrain and habitat work. So I thought I would share my "killing trees" with you all and maybe give others a place to share theirs.



This is my "south" set-up. In the location of the white square I have a 2-man ladder stand. It obviously over looks my foodplots, but it also sits in a real interesting spot. The white lines should the major elevation change and the stand sits in the bottom area and the deer use the "point" that you see as a "on-ramp" so to speak to get to the higher elevation. Typically the deer come from the are where the creek makes the sharp bend just north of the stand location or just south of the stand location just opposite the point. I implemented CRP and NWSG to increase the cover and also have a small clover plot and a larger annual plot - typically planted with corn and soybeans. The three bucks pictured have been taken either from the stand noted of very near it. As you will see we had a real good year in 2013. Now the cover is best on the neighbors place east of my stand, but I can't hunt that - so I hutn the stand when the wind comes mainly from the west. I very seldom get busted and the deer don't like to cross the creek behind me because it is a real steep bank. The area marked "natural regen" south of the stand is a habitat improvement waiting to happen - I want to convert this area into conifers at some point, but is currently an "off limits" area and the deer liek to bed on the south face slope just into the woods.

 

[j-bird]

This is essentially a repeat of another post of mine, but I am putting it here as well.



This is on the north end of my place. I have a shooting house - white square east of the plot and a bow stand - white square west of the plot. Again I have a perennial and annual plot setup. The deer typically come from the neighbors - which is a 15 year old oak plantation (sanctuary) into my ag field in the shallow swale and then turn north thru the open field or along the cover to the plot. The deer also come up a small ravine from the creek that is north and a little west of the "steep cliff". The thing is once again this area is productive because terrain feature are dictating deer movement. Again you can see we are not shooting monsters, but we are getting some respectable bucks from this set-up as well. Unfortunately stand access is from the south and either along the edge of the ag field or across the open if it is harvested.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

looks like some very good set ups you have there! terrain features are a key to consistent success for sure! my land is not flat....I am able to use the point where it goes from sloping to steeply sloping as a place to get up the tree and have my scent blow out over the steeps...especially when combined with morning thermals. I can usually have deer within bow range around me 360 deg without them being able to scent me. the thermals take my scent up first before the prevailing wind catches it and blows it off the ridge and out over the valley below....plus i'm a scent control freak as is..so i'm sure that helps a bit too.

 

[j-bird]

I am in flat ground (relatively speaking) and I still have seen the thermals work for and against me, especially in the early season.

Don't just talk about it - I'm sure have have at least one "go to spot" Phil - lets see it and explain why it works so well for you. I would like to see this turn into a "show and tell" sort of thread. It may help some of us be a little more observant and see a spot we have been walking past for years.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

I am in flat ground (relatively speaking) and I still have seen the thermals work for and against me, especially in the early season.

Don't just talk about it - I'm sure have have at least one "go to spot" Phil - lets see it and explain why it works so well for you. I would like to see this turn into a "show and tell" sort of thread. It may help some of us be a little more observant and see a spot we have been walking past for years.

once i get some time to draw on a map i'm in!

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I don't have a map handy, but one of my best deer stands for seeing & killing deer I picked by looking at a topo map. It was the intersection of 3 hollows with only about 80 - 100 yds. of flat " saddle " at the juncture of all 3. The terrain intersection just said " hot spot " and it was, for both bow and rifle. Topo maps are my 1st order of business when deer hunting.

 

[wiscwhip]

I totally agree Bnb. They are indispensable to me as a public land hunter. That said, they go hand in hand with up to date aerial photos. They may not tell you the whole picture, but they can eliminate large chunks of an area where deer patterns are hard to pinpoint, especially in relatively flat, wooded terrain where a 20' elevation change can make a huge difference. The large, mostly flat, county land sections near where I hunt are covered in vast expanses of red pine plantations. Find a 20' rise in the terrain, and there are likely some type of oaks or other plant species growing there that are not on the flatter terrain. These"edges", both terrain and plant life, can mean the difference between a barren "pass thru" area and a well traveled path that deer follow somewhat consistently. Even though we no longer own the old place I will put together a map at some point showing the "hot" setups on my dad's old place, including the spot where I shot both of my mounts.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I agree on the aerials Whip. The problem around my area of hunting in N. Pa. is with all the gas well & pipeline work being done, up-to-date aerials would have to be shot every month !! I'd LOVE to have updated aerials, but we're in too much flux currently to be able to keep up. But you're absolutely correct on aerials.

 

[wiscwhip]

The elevation change on your place badger is about 4' total. 2' drops from the country road down to your land and then it drops off your place about 2' more into the river.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Whip - you said above you're a public land hunter. I am also occasionally. On the thread topic, I found a great deer watch on a ridge top of pub. land that involved a flat " bench " that ran around the perimeter of the ridge just below the highest ground. On that bench, someone had planted Norway spruce maybe 15 years before in kind of a random line that followed the contour of the bench. What a concentration of buck sign along that line of spruce !! Rubs, scrapes, droppings - and I just blundered onto it while hunting one day. What a find !! I think it was a combination of terrain edge AND plant life edge as you mentioned above that was the big draw. It proved to be a very good deer watch. Elevated watch looking down over a good expanse of bench w/ spruce as the focal point of probable travel.

Edit: The whole area is oak, hickory, maple. The spruce were a dark line after the leaves were down.

 

[shawnv]

When it comes to bow hunting just when I have a property dialed in the land has either been sold, the landowner passes away or the landowner's friend's find what I've shot and I'm given the boot so not one of my bow kills has been out the same stand, plus I've killed a number of my bucks on public ground which changes from year to year.

I had a lease once in Buffalo County where I shot three 3yr old 10pts and a 4YR old 10pt and came close to a number of other mature deer but no clear shot was offered plus my partner killed a 4-5yr old 10pt with the bow right there too. It was basically a wooded valley where my side was South facing and had been select cut so some pockets were really thick. In the middle of the thick stuff was a deep cut but it had a spot fill in right in the middle where the deer could cross without going to the top so that is where I sat. The thermals in there allowed me to set up lower than the main trail and never get winded and thick enough that I was never spotted only being 17ft up.

 

[wiscwhip]

Bnb, when I dig up the topos and aerials of our old place, I will post a map of our old place and I will point out an area much like you describe. It was a naturally occurring area, no one had planted or manipulated anything, but it was a buck bedding area for sure. I am pretty sure both the larger bucks I shot from my stand had their home areas at the base of the high spot on the side of the 20' high ridge, it was so thick with young conifers that there was no way one could walk anywhere near it and not get busted before the deer blew out of there.

 

[dipper]

I'm guessing you don't have neighbors stacked up every 100 yards on the property line like a wi set up?

 

[j-bird]

Dipper - if your comment is aimed at me you are correct - I have neighbors who hunt but not like you describe. I simply don't have the deer numbers to warrant that sort of situation. My state record harvests where 126,248 and my county record is a hair under 800 - both in 2012. Success rates are 2.14 deer per square mile in my county, and 3.57 deer per square mile as a state wide average and those where record years. There are much better places to hunt in my state - nobody in their right mind seeks out a place where the average success rate is 1 deer in 320 acres. It's just the hand I was dealt.

 

[wiscwhip]

Finally got some time to throw some maps together of our old place with some markups of stand locations and such.

 

[bueller]

It's sad to see what has happened to that area Whip. From complete wilderness to sprawling development in matter of a years :(.

 

[wiscwhip]

Preaching to the choir buddy! ;) You should have seen it 30 years ago. You could just about hunt anywhere from approximately Hog Island Road east to Castle Rock, from about Meredith Road/43rd St almost to the new Necedah High School. Sure there was a ton of private land in there, but there was just about as much land open to the public via permission or actual public lands. WP&L owned tons of land over there, pretty much all the lake frontage. It was in the "contract" when they built the flowage that most of it had to be sold for development after 50 years. We had hundreds of 40 to 240+ acre properties to hunt in the area. Now it is 1/10th that amount at best. We had so much area to hunt, we didn't even have to think about coming up your direction until the early 2000's.

 

[bueller]

We are lucky to be just far enough away from the lakes and the development, at least for now. In the last couple years we have actually had large wooded parcels in our "neighborhood" bought out by farming outfits who then cleared the land, installed the famous center pivot irrigation systems, and planted away.

 

[bueller]

Back on topic, whip do you contribute the north end of your old place to be so successful because of the terrain and habitat in that area or because it was an escape route from other hunters accessing that area from the north, east, and west?

 

[wiscwhip]

The terrain and habitat was typical for wooded uplands in that area(Clearfield) before the whole 9 yards was clearcut. Mixed oak/pine in most areas, 1 to 2 acre patches of heavy young pine growth throughout, mostly oaks on the slightly higher ground, aspen, paper birch, and mixed conifers in the low spots, also the fact that it was a 1/2 mile from the road to our north border. It was really good when they cleared the first 80 acre section from the road in the north to our north border. The 3' ruts and tangled mess kept many guys from walking all the way back from the road for a while. Once it was cut, the clearing forced deer moving east and west to either cross an 80 acre open clearcut or move right to the north edge of our place to stay hidden and away from the road, thus the reason for my permanent stand 30 yards off the north fence. I think it was mostly due the location of the property in relation to the pressure from the east and north, occasionally from the west, but other than guys walking in on the snowmobile trail which ran from the road south to our north border and then turned east in front of my permanent stand, it was all private directly on our west border. We had permission to hunt the 10 acre section directly to the west of our border on the north side of the river from many of the owners of that property, it changed hands several times over the years we owned it and only 1 owner was a hunter. If you look at the topo I posted, you will see black arrows coming from the residences in the east, that was the main pressure that moved deer our direction.