MN Slick
5 year old buck +
A buddy of mine looked at this farm spring 2014. He really liked it overall but ended up buying a different farm. The farm to the east was owned by an outfitter at that time but was for sale. Hopefully it sold as he had quite a bit of ground around there leased up.
Good looking bedding points and ridges in the timber. How mature is it? What I found on my MO farm is that once the leaves fall my mature timber just didn’t bed many deer even though the points and ridges set up real nice for bedding and we did not pressure the ridges. We got our timber cut last winter and did a bunch of hinging on the ridges and points. Too early to see how much bedding its getting but the direction a very nice 8 is traveling in the morning makes me think he has set up camp on our ridge.
Cedars bed a lot of deer down there IF they are not too thick. Too thick and blocking sunlight is no beuno and I’d take the chainsaw out in the spring and thin them out allowing sunlight to do its thing. I have also had success cutting the lower limbs off the cedars on ridges on the downwind side of the tree. Gives them a place to lay with a canopy and nice block on their upwind side. Works if it’s a pretty flat spot to lay.
The cedar patch on the south side looks pretty good on the aerial, not crazy thick. I’d figure out how to get to a stand for a north wind on the downwind side of that cedar patch but not hunt it until the rut really gets going. AM entrance and hunt all day. Knob on the SE side looks good for bedding too if it’s not too mature. I’d be figuring out some stands locations around it too for prime time rut hunting.
I would not plant it all to beans myself. I’m mainly a bow guy so having 1 huge food plot causes nothing but frustration for me. Great for gun and muzzy but hard to know where they are going to come out for a bow shot and accessing for hunting gets trickier. Normally you can put up to 10% of a crp field into a food plot but I doubt they check if you have 11%. I’d go with a few smaller plots in strategic places. Is the CRP warm season grass? I’ve had good luck cutting trails through our WSG to direct travel. I also mow the CRP right along the edge of the timber to encourage them to make scrapes. Short grass makes it much easier for them to get down to the dirt. They mark the H out of the edge of my CRP fields now that I mow…..not much at all before.
I’m east of you but here are my prime dates for hunting. A late October Halloweenish cold front is great like most areas. Mature bucks move during daylight on my farms at this time but only for a few days. After the late October burst of mature buck movement mature buck movement slows for me. I’m not certain if they lock up with the first few does or figure out it’s too early and tuck it back into their pants for a short time but I just don’t see them in very early November during daylight and neither do my cams. For sure a bunch are shot in early November and you will see a bunch of bucks but it’s is just a bit slow on my farms for mature bucks. For me things get good again around Nov 5th or 6th with the peak for movement a day or 2 on either side of November 9th or 10th. Really good movement all day around the 9th/10th.
Great looking farm. Good luck.
North MO farm tour road trip next spring anyone? I know I could benefit having some experts from this group tour my farms.
Good looking bedding points and ridges in the timber. How mature is it? What I found on my MO farm is that once the leaves fall my mature timber just didn’t bed many deer even though the points and ridges set up real nice for bedding and we did not pressure the ridges. We got our timber cut last winter and did a bunch of hinging on the ridges and points. Too early to see how much bedding its getting but the direction a very nice 8 is traveling in the morning makes me think he has set up camp on our ridge.
Cedars bed a lot of deer down there IF they are not too thick. Too thick and blocking sunlight is no beuno and I’d take the chainsaw out in the spring and thin them out allowing sunlight to do its thing. I have also had success cutting the lower limbs off the cedars on ridges on the downwind side of the tree. Gives them a place to lay with a canopy and nice block on their upwind side. Works if it’s a pretty flat spot to lay.
The cedar patch on the south side looks pretty good on the aerial, not crazy thick. I’d figure out how to get to a stand for a north wind on the downwind side of that cedar patch but not hunt it until the rut really gets going. AM entrance and hunt all day. Knob on the SE side looks good for bedding too if it’s not too mature. I’d be figuring out some stands locations around it too for prime time rut hunting.
I would not plant it all to beans myself. I’m mainly a bow guy so having 1 huge food plot causes nothing but frustration for me. Great for gun and muzzy but hard to know where they are going to come out for a bow shot and accessing for hunting gets trickier. Normally you can put up to 10% of a crp field into a food plot but I doubt they check if you have 11%. I’d go with a few smaller plots in strategic places. Is the CRP warm season grass? I’ve had good luck cutting trails through our WSG to direct travel. I also mow the CRP right along the edge of the timber to encourage them to make scrapes. Short grass makes it much easier for them to get down to the dirt. They mark the H out of the edge of my CRP fields now that I mow…..not much at all before.
I’m east of you but here are my prime dates for hunting. A late October Halloweenish cold front is great like most areas. Mature bucks move during daylight on my farms at this time but only for a few days. After the late October burst of mature buck movement mature buck movement slows for me. I’m not certain if they lock up with the first few does or figure out it’s too early and tuck it back into their pants for a short time but I just don’t see them in very early November during daylight and neither do my cams. For sure a bunch are shot in early November and you will see a bunch of bucks but it’s is just a bit slow on my farms for mature bucks. For me things get good again around Nov 5th or 6th with the peak for movement a day or 2 on either side of November 9th or 10th. Really good movement all day around the 9th/10th.
Great looking farm. Good luck.
North MO farm tour road trip next spring anyone? I know I could benefit having some experts from this group tour my farms.
