Greta&Gus
5 year old buck +
Short backstory first, the neighbor to our S/SE used to be an old farmer that did not hunt much. We shot a number of bucks coming from his property into ours and were quite successful doing so. In 2003 he died and his family put his land up for sale. There was a chance it was going to get developed and a road was going to be put in on our eastern and southern boarder.
In order to combat this my grandfather installed a 1.25 mile 8 ft fence. The property was sold to a heavy machinery school which does not allow hunting and was never subdivided so it worked out in our favor. A portion of the fence was removed but there was still at least 3/4 of a mile intact which made great funnels for us. From 2003-2010 we shot 1 six pointer, 2 eights, 3 nines, and 2 tens. We were consistently taking 2-4 year old bucks.
Between 2010-2011 we got access to plant some of the machinery school's property straight south of us so we moved the fence back to its shortest distance of 3/5 of a mile. It became where 10 out of our 14 acres of food plots were on our southern boarder and we started to see a trend of much more night activity. From 2011 to 2015 we have only harvested 2 eights, 2 sixes, a fork and a spike.
We are getting nice bucks on camera but never seeing them during daylight. I went back to my catalog of old trail camera pics and this is what I found. When the fence post was up on the eastern boarder and the food was in the northern portion of our property we got daytime movement and killed nice bucks. When the fence post is on the southern boarder we see all of the bucks leaving before daylight.
It took a few years to figure out this pattern but now, to me, it is clear. The only negative is that we have invested a lot of time/money into our southern food plots and the fence is out. I am proposing we return the fence to its old position but it is being met with opposition by some family members. Regardless of what we do it is not 5 years of throwing good money after bad and we are stuck with needing a major overhaul in our property.
The moral of the story, plan everything before you do the work and make sure to factor in all of the negatives that go along with it.
In order to combat this my grandfather installed a 1.25 mile 8 ft fence. The property was sold to a heavy machinery school which does not allow hunting and was never subdivided so it worked out in our favor. A portion of the fence was removed but there was still at least 3/4 of a mile intact which made great funnels for us. From 2003-2010 we shot 1 six pointer, 2 eights, 3 nines, and 2 tens. We were consistently taking 2-4 year old bucks.
Between 2010-2011 we got access to plant some of the machinery school's property straight south of us so we moved the fence back to its shortest distance of 3/5 of a mile. It became where 10 out of our 14 acres of food plots were on our southern boarder and we started to see a trend of much more night activity. From 2011 to 2015 we have only harvested 2 eights, 2 sixes, a fork and a spike.
We are getting nice bucks on camera but never seeing them during daylight. I went back to my catalog of old trail camera pics and this is what I found. When the fence post was up on the eastern boarder and the food was in the northern portion of our property we got daytime movement and killed nice bucks. When the fence post is on the southern boarder we see all of the bucks leaving before daylight.
It took a few years to figure out this pattern but now, to me, it is clear. The only negative is that we have invested a lot of time/money into our southern food plots and the fence is out. I am proposing we return the fence to its old position but it is being met with opposition by some family members. Regardless of what we do it is not 5 years of throwing good money after bad and we are stuck with needing a major overhaul in our property.
The moral of the story, plan everything before you do the work and make sure to factor in all of the negatives that go along with it.
