BLB land tour topic; what we have to work with, and what to do going forward

Yep I do remember that Art.

The buck that my son shot in 2009 was bedded in my 3 acre corn plot along that large slough with a doe. My dad came over to check to see what we saw and did the swing along the corn plot.

If he hadnt bumped him out, who knows if we would have ever even seen him.
 
Put the big plot in soybeans, with a strip of corn on the edge.
Plant corn around the buildings so the deer will have corn for after hunting season.
Put other foodplots near alfalfa/corn or near soybeans of the north.
Hope that deer start to bed near the buildings/corn and retreat when you enter your land.
Use pink lines for hunting access.
Be weary of deer bedded on the neighbor's property to the NE watching you use the far east access line.
When accessing from the west park a bit to the north or south.
One year try doing all your archery hunting on the SW portion of your property.
One year try doing all your archery hunting on the NE portion of your property.
Come rifle season, forget sanctuaries. Or wait until second weekend if you can to hunt them.


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biglakeba$$ said:
We are not in the midst of large ag country. If you go 4 miles west, it opens up into vast wide open terrain with vast majority being ag land.
We dont have a neighbor with 40 acres of corn. In fact the closest crops to our south is 1.5+ miles. Closest crops to the west is 2+ miles. Closest crops to the north would be just under 1/2 mile, but we have that large slough between us and that property. Closest crops to the east would be 2+ miles as well.
There is a LOT of pasturing in this area. Crops adjoining us or even close to us are non-existent. We dont have that competition going on for sure.
When you look at the aerial photos on page 1 and see larger open areas, it is mostly cattle pasturing. Not crop production.

Very good stuff. It does a lot to open up different thoughts, where I have been locked into a mode for years for reasons unknown.:)
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This is affecting the DPSM in your area. I have to believe a higher percentage of deer are going to be near AG. Two miles is not that far and those large AG areas which have similar cover will pull a high percentage of the deer.

You have quality food for your area I would focus on increasing the number of doe groups on your property which requires improving your bedding. On my place I have seen an increase in carrying capacity but I need to improve how I segment the deer and I am going to do that by adding 2 smaller food plots in addition to my large centralized plots.

I would determine where your best bedding potential is located, establish the bedding area and then add a food plot near the bedding and that combination should hold deer.
 
BLB--Without re-reading all your posts, you are a bowhunter correct? My strategy could work in your situation. Plant a lot of food plots, do the habitat work, and then try to score on your buck before the gun season hits. Meaning spend a lot of time in the tree just prior to the gun season/early season over food/acorns. It's worked for me 4 times in the last 6 years. Mostly on 3 year old bucks (one 2.5 year old that looked better than he was :))

Once the gun season hits, buck movement on my farms really changes and a good portion get shot by neighbors. Just something to think about. I have not bought a gun tag the past three years due to tagging out and I refuse to shoot more than one deer in MN.

With intent pressure the bucks either get shot or go nocturnal (until late late season). So it makes it difficult. Unless of course you get one during the 9 day gun season, which is possible.
 
100% agree with bwoods post. The reason I began bow hunting was because I grew tired of not seeing (nevermind harvesting) bucks during out annual gun season. I saw more bucks and had more harvest opportunities in my first two years of bowhunting than the previous 15 years of gun hunting. Same exact property and tree stands.
 
^ Agree with posts above on nocturnal and bow hunting. I bought a crossbow this year for that reason. I wonder if the deer have learned to go nocturnal with the onset of the rut? For sure opening of rifle slow slows daytime activity.
 
bwoods11 said:
BLB--Without re-reading all your posts, you are a bowhunter correct? My strategy could work in your situation. Plant a lot of food plots, do the habitat work, and then try to score on your buck before the gun season hits. Meaning spend a lot of time in the tree just prior to the gun season/early season over food/acorns. It's worked for me 4 times in the last 6 years. Mostly on 3 year old bucks (one 2.5 year old that looked better than he was :))

Once the gun season hits, buck movement on my farms really changes and a good portion get shot by neighbors. Just something to think about. I have not bought a gun tag the past three years due to tagging out and I refuse to shoot more than one deer in MN.

With intent pressure the bucks either get shot or go nocturnal (until late late season). So it makes it difficult. Unless of course you get one during the 9 day gun season, which is possible.
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I have a buddy that does almost this, but he plants soybeans and corn and hunts the late season mostly. Maybe the first weekend of MN Bow. His whole 160 acres becomes the sanctuary during rifle. It sure seems to work well for him. But makes for some cold bow hunting.
 
smsmith said:
I don't think its the rut that makes them nocturnal, I think its a few hundred thousand new sets of boots, smells, and sounds in the woods that does it. :rolleyes:
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Yes, but you still want to build a resident set of doe groups that stay on your property and then it is up to you to minimize their disturbance. Depending on your neighbors, your property and the hunting pressure your opportunity to harvest a deer for most of us is probably a couple of days in a 9 day rifle season. However, the doe groups will stay on your property as long as they can bed and visit food plots unpressured. This should bring a higher percentage of bucks cruising for does.

I like Steve’s recommendations that you need to make improvements but your property needs to be huntable. I would not put food and improvements everywhere as hunting your property becomes unpredictable.

I go back to the basics; segment the deer by focusing on quality bedding, quality food plots; add lines of movement linking them and stand placement that work under varied wind conditions. The bedding, food plots and line of movement need to make the deer feel secure so they will use them during hunting hours.

If you do this and then stick to a strict code on wind and hunting conditions I think you will keep does on your property, attract more bucks and make the best of your property.

I am trying to do the above and think one of the most important parts of seeing and harvesting a buck is you cannot pressure your doe groups so they leave your property. This means if the conditions are not good for a location you stay out of it until the conditions improve. For example, if the woods are silent in the morning and you sound like a buffalo walking to your stand, give up the morning hunt. I will be adding a couple of stands very close to my hunting shack just for this reason as I want hunting spots to go to when my desire to hunt over-powers my skill and I screw up my hunt.
 
I like FB's reply and feel the shortage of doe groups is a big part of my problem.

Not hunting gun or bow, take your pick, will make a difference in the long run.
 
We leave two parcels alone during the gun season and deer move in and then stay when pressured by neighbors.

I have two bucks (nothing huge) maybe 125-130 inch that moved in and they are still on my land.

Food/cover and very limited hunting really helps when it's cold!! I do check cameras (just can't help it)!!
 
smsmith said:
Yup, the more I think about it...the more I think if a guy wants to shoot a mature buck in MN and skip a season...the season to skip is firearm.
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Not necessarily. ;)
 
sandbur said:
These critters are driving us nuts. Maybe like Steve says, we are making it to complicated.

This year, my neighbors have over 160 acres of standing corn that is 1/2 mile west. !/4 mile to the SE is about 20 acres of standing corn.

Deer do not bed in my two corn plots, but they did come to them right before dark and in a few instances earlier in the day with the cold weather. A little finger of corn tucked back into the woods attracted the most attention before dark. BLB-maybe you remember the spot by my house. Not lots of deer, but about the only deer we saw. and there are also a few crab apple trees back there in both locattions.

The deer sure have different preferences over their range!
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No question deer from different areas act differently. I was more saying that when things aren't working, do something completely different from what you have been doing. That goes for everyone, not just BLB.
 
Some updates....
I plan to take the "hiway plot" and make that a permanent corridor instead of doing corn from hiway to woods every year.
Green blocks are pine tree plantings, the 3 rows north south will be pines and the black box will be a food plot.


Here is the high level view. The area above used to be plot #1....
 
Also going to do some clear cutting, leaving 8 to 10 fully mature oaks per acre of clear cut.

this is in a fluid state as far as spots, but pretty sure this will be part of it.


The area to the far west and the furthest north one are on the neighbor ladies property. I am confident I can get her to do it, as she did logging when I set up an aspen harvest several years ago.

I have a logger lined up. He will take everything. Pays at $15 a cord, averages 15 cords per acre roughly.
He is the same logger we had do our aspen harvest and we were VERY happy with the work he did. He did not leave us with an area that looked like a bomb hit it.

The sizes of these areas are under 4 acres at the largest. Since our woods are limited I really am leary to take too much out, but the long term gains will be great. Not sure what I want to do.
 
Make that black plot a 'V' shape with pines filling top of 'V' and surrounding plot. Then point bottom of the V at that swamp so North wind can blow across the swamp.
 
Really like the logging idea. Really don't like the redesigned foodplot, especially the first couple years after the logging considering the food the logged areas will produce (and the low deer numbers.) Also think that foodplot is going to make leaving some of the stands in the evening undetected very difficult.
 
I think its a perfect spot for a plot with a new shape. Nw wind makes access from the building site bullet proof.
 
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