Enjoying my property

Jaxon Holler

Yearling... With promise
Got into a discussion the other day with a few buddies. One guy stays completely out of his property except to carefully access stands during hunting season. Only in ideal circumstances does he go into his woods. I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I am in the woods basically every day. Cutting firewood, doing habitat work, checking my trap line on a quad, the kids ride their 4 wheelers on the trails or play and explore.

We have similar size parcels in the same neighborhood and see about the same number and quality of deer.

I guess at the end of the day, I feel I get way more value/enjoyment from my parcel. I kinda feel like the deer adapt to my families presence in their world. When I hunt I usually hear the kids playing in the yard and the deer don't seem to mind or pay attention.

Trying to get a sense of what others experience at their place. I obviously think to each their own and do what makes you smile. For me that's being in the woods as much as I can.
 
I bought it to use not look at. Have cookouts and gatherings. Run around on 4x4 w the kids. Would have killed biggest deer of my life of I didn't miss last year. I don't run Around the timber right now but once season is over its fair game.
 
I think it really depends on the neighborhood. My old place that was very isolated, the deer wouldn’t have stayed around with the daily disturbances. They would move to the quiet neighbors place. On the flip side, my house property has more cover and isolation compared to the neighboring properties that I am the quiet property even though it’s way noisier than the old hunting property. It’s all relative.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I think it really depends on the neighborhood. My old place that was very isolated, the deer wouldn’t have stayed around with the daily disturbances. They would move to the quiet neighbors place. On the flip side, my house property has more cover and isolation compared to the neighboring properties that I am the quiet property even though it’s way noisier than the old hunting property. It’s all relative.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I think this makes a difference also. We're in farm country with lots of activity and many parcels are less than 100 acres, most are 40 or smaller.
 
I don’t live on my property so they are use to it being quiet. I’m not going to go in there like a wrecking ball when I’m there, that would be counterproductive. Now post season I will do whatever, except use it as a dirt bike/4 wheeler track. That’s just a huge scar on the land when they get done ripping it up.
 
I enjoy my property, but I try to stay out of known bedding areas except perhaps during shed hunting and hanging cameras in the spring. The closer I get to hunting season the more careful I am.

This spring and early summer I had a real problem with a neighbor that decided to let his dogs run. One of those types...bought 5 acres and felt his dogs had the right to run 500. Approached it as diplomatically as possible but finally said I wasn't going to shoot his dogs, but I was a couple intrusions away from picking up the phone and making some calls to make his life difficult. Dogs finally stopped running in late July; prior to then I had a MAJOR drop off in deer pics on my Cuddelink system versus prior years. Deer had basically cleared off. But by hunting season I more or less had a full recovery.

Just last night Cuddelink was sending me pics of a 9pt buck chasing does around within 20ft of my cabin for 4 hours. This was far from the first time.

Bottom line, I don't think you have to abandon your property all year to see deer.
 
I own 30 that I actively manage for deer, turkeys, and grouse. I am on the land just about every day doing non-hunting activities from January 1st until about mid-Sept...logging, snowmobiling, skiing, mtn. biking, walking the dogs, trail running, sugaring, etc. I make my land as attractive for does and young deer as I possibly can. I am on the land so much that the resident deer acclimate to my presence to the extent that I can pass by them fairly easily with little alarm. They usually just watch me go by whether I am on foot, ATV, mtn. bike.

In the fall, the result is that I can hunt my stands relatively safely with little risk if spooking my local deer. When the bucks begin showing up right up about this time of the year it makes for some great hunting.

Not sure if this would work for everybody. I do get why on some properties it's best to stay off or tread lightly. I don't hold big bucks, nor do I want to. I just want to hold and feed does, and let them do the work for me in the fall.
 
I am also a small land owner, and I just moved to my land. The last couple years I have been here pretty much every weekend running air nailers, running saws and pounding with hammers, talking, sometimes yelling. My grandson comes up and he has a small track he rides atv on for hours, I ride atv to do foodplots, and check on the food plots throughout the year. It’s my land, and I will share it with wildlife. But come the beginning of October, until the end of November, I try to limit activity outside my yard, and I try to limit loud noises during prime times.

I have an apple orchard about 75 yards from my house, deer don’t seem to care if I am in my yard doing stuff at all. It is pretty thick between my yard and the orchard, and you would need to look hard to see into it.

So 10 months of the year, it’s my land, and I use it as I want to. 2 months of the year, I am mostly focused on deer hunting anyhow. The exception to this, I do have a deer sanctuary of about 10 acres, that is no man’s land. I have only been in it 3 times in 19 years that I have owned the land. I think my neighbor has been in it more then me. Not with permission I will add.
 
I am similar. My property is absolutely horrible for prevailing winds. Winds come from the the north, south or west. Our property lays out west to east as house, soybeans, timber. There is just no way to get around walking through areas you really should not based on wind in order to get to the stands..... unless, you just don't hunt. I hunt anyway. We also have a 12 acre lake that we use throughout the year for fishing.
 
Our camp is 90 acres of scrub and timber in steeply hilled farm country. I get down there once a week or so, and traverse 50% of it on ATV, cutting, planting, and just puttering around. The other 50% is steep timber which I don’t usually bother with. The deer really don’t seem to mind the ATV too much because they can hear me coming – and going – so if I don’t stop, they just watch me go by. During deer season, I drive the ATV to the stand just because of location, terrain, and frankly, age. I have to believe walking in is better than driving in, but driving in is better than sleeping in!
 
One of the best properties I’ve seen is a 40 acre parcel on the edge of city limits of a town of 2400 people . People walk around on it, there’s a lot of traffic In the general area.

It is just great habitat and a great location !

It produces a trophy or two every year, including one over 200 inches.
 
Last edited:
I live on my small acreage. The bulk of the land is to the east of my house, and with prevailing winds being west to south the deer just get used to smelling us.
This past weekend i was in a tree trying to rattle up something the whole time listening to the wife in the back yard trimming and lead blowing.
I think the deer just get used to all the commotion to a point. But you still have to be very careful with pressure. To.muxh and they clear out in a hurry and it takes a long time for them to come back. I try to take all the precautions, scent control, try not to over hunt srands etc.
 
Got into a discussion the other day with a few buddies. One guy stays completely out of his property except to carefully access stands during hunting season. Only in ideal circumstances does he go into his woods. I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I am in the woods basically every day. Cutting firewood, doing habitat work, checking my trap line on a quad, the kids ride their 4 wheelers on the trails or play and explore.

We have similar size parcels in the same neighborhood and see about the same number and quality of deer.

I guess at the end of the day, I feel I get way more value/enjoyment from my parcel. I kinda feel like the deer adapt to my families presence in their world. When I hunt I usually hear the kids playing in the yard and the deer don't seem to mind or pay attention.

Trying to get a sense of what others experience at their place. I obviously think to each their own and do what makes you smile. For me that's being in the woods as much as I can.

Recreational properties and hunting properties are 2 different things with conflicting objectives.

Enjoy the property anyway you want, just have expectations & goals adjusted for each of the above.

A recreational property with lots of activity visible to the deer is unlikely to draw/hold a mature buck.
 
Daily Trapping and mature whitetail deer are probably not going to co-exist however .

I prefer to leave as much of my land as a sanctuary as possible, but I’ve found that others are not doing that and still having similar success?
 
My hunting property is 37 acres and I'm on it about once a week from the end of hunting season until September 1st. Then only in while hunting. There are certain bedding/ cover areas that I stay out of year round. For the most part, I have to enter from the upwind side. It still works.
 

Attachments

  • image000001.jpg
    image000001.jpg
    328.5 KB · Views: 25
There’s a difference between deer and mature whitetail bucks. Deer (does, fawn, yearling bucks) will tolerate a considerable amount of intrusion that they don’t consider an immediate threat (tractors, ATVs, chainsaws). Especially does typically have limited options as they can be very territorial, and access to prime bedding is limited.

Mature bucks are much less tolerant of human intrusion and can bed wherever they want within their home range. You drive through your property every day, and he ain’t gonna live there. That doesn’t mean you can’t kill him. If you provide enough bait (does and food) for him to be lured during that special time, you can get away with intrusion during the other 10 months of the year. But hunt it too much and he’ll figure you out quick.

So striking a balance is fine.

I’m going towards intrusion only during habitat season for a few years to see if it makes a difference. So far so good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You're right G... striking a balance is key. I gotta believe deer, and especially mature bucks, want to find a secluded spot to spend the daylight hours. But during the rut, the bucks seem to lose their minds!

This morning a nice 8 pt. buck literally strolled through the back yard, all the lights on in the house and I am standing in the window, and he walks not 15 yards away… seemingly clueless! Other times though, deer will spook at 200 yard, or they seem to go underground. But until the deer start paying the taxes, I gently enjoy my property and seem to see the biggest bucks when I would least expect it… often without a gun! Who said deer weren't smart.
 
I own two pieces of property, 8 miles apart. One gets visited once a week - at most - even during hunting season. The surrounding property is basically the same. Very little human activity. I live on the other piece of ground. I am out on it every day - cutting firewood, working on trails and food plots, coon hunting, trapping, frog hunting, crawfishing - I feel bad if I dont get out on it everyday. I have gone through a food plot at night with my coon dog, in front of a camera, where the biggest buck on the place was on the camera when we got there. Thirty minutes later, he was back.

I see absolutely no difference in occurrence in mature bucks on the highly used property compared to the lightly used property. On both properties, the mature bucks are fairly active during daylight hours up to about the first week of October. When the bachelor herds break up, they become almost wholly nocturnal - doesnt matter if there is human activity or not.

On both properties, the mature bucks have to be hunted like mature bucks anywhere - you have to hunt the wind. They are most likely to be killed early bow season when they are still able to be patterned in their summer pattern, or in Dec, after the rut, when they start thinking about food again. This is true on both properties. I would not go onto the property that doesnt get visited much and rip around on a four wheeler, build a campfire, and set up a deer camp and expect the deer to ignore it.
On my home property, which has ground one mile from the nearest road, we are more likely to kill the biggest bucks where we can hear kids hollering and dogs barking as we do way back in the woods. Deer get used to what they hear, see, and smell everyday. The biggest buck I have ever killed, I was sitting 31 yards from the guard rail on a U S Highway. I always just quietly smile when I hear someone say you have to get away from the roads to kill the big bucks.

I dont visit the non home ground property often just because I dont have a need to - not because I am keeping out of it so as not to disturb the game. If I thought I had to largely keep off of a property to maintain decent hunting - I wouldnt own it in the first place.
 
One of my best spots was right next to a trailer park, and between 2 roads with houses on them. I could see, and hear kids playing all day, starting at day break, the mature bucks had no concerns with them at all. I had shot several mature bucks from this spot, I totally agree, deer, young or old get use to their surroundings. Another spot, about a half mile away from this spot, was a large dog food mill, that was right next to a main highway, the food mill had loud noises, and trucks going in and out all day and night, between these 2 spots, it was the best hunting I have ever had. Then the city came in and claimed it has city limits, and declared no hunting. After a few years of trying to fight the liberal city board members, I gave up, and the property was sold off.

While I agree if you go into the backwoods, where deer dont see humans for 10 months of the year, and you start wandering around, and driving atvs, deer will move out, or bunker down. But if your land is used, and you live on it, deer get use to their surroundings.

Just like humans, if you take a thug from the inner city and put him out in my area, people will be very cautious, just like if you dress up in all your camo and go walk in the downtown metro area, you will get their attention as well.
 
My home place is 35 acres three kids two dogs 4 ATV’s many ATV trails and shoot at least one good Buck on that place a year.
Farm is 640 acres cattle operation. running fence, building fence, checking cattle, moving cattle, bulldozing, spraying bailing hay. A lot of commotion all the time. There are a couple areas that see very intrusion I have 25 acres in a strip half mile deep along the property line that has a creek running down it. This area sees very little almost no human pressure except hunting season. Another half mile of creek bottom I own is very near the center of where two of my 160 acres parcels join. We move the cattle out of that pasture Nov 1 threw Dec 15 for hunting purposes. A lot of nice bucks taken from this property over the years. I do wish I had some other heavy cover areas but that’s near impossible running cattle so I’ve been more focused on adding a great deal of mast producing trees to hold the doe population on the place. This in turn brings in the bucks during the rut from neighboring properties. I’m my experience on this property human intrusion isn’t an issue. Growing up in Northern Wisconsin literally owning ground that border the Chequamegon national forest we where much better off leaving the properties alone but it’s a completely different sort of human deer dynamic.
 
Top