Input on my new plan ?

[nrowles]

Please read through as I really value your input and want to do this the best I can. My 15 acres gives my many challenges with this.

I read the Extreme Deer Habitat e-book in 4 days. I binged out. I got a lot of info but some of the fine details were left out. I have some pictures below for reference. Again, this is all jack pine. Not sure if I should have separated the different concepts to keep your attention but here is my full plan.

Some of the concepts the book mentions that I feel apply to my micro plan are as follows: bedding in back, plots near house, many small plots with separation, nice transition areas with brushy growth and browse, make a few barriers to determine deer movement.

I want to stay off the southern edge for now since my neighbors create some disturbance there.

The red is definitely getting cleared for our view from the house and I plan to plant fruit trees and bushes or just brush hog once a year for now.

The west end of the property with the small plot I plan to set up for turkey since that is where I have noticed most turkey activity.

Blue. The north and west edges of my property are where I see the most deer activity. On the north edge they travel east/west and on the west edge they travel north/south. Sometimes they round the corner and use both. These trees are much more mature and spread out. There is very little annual growth during the summer but I didn't make note of what it was. I plan to thin this a bit more to get sun to the ground and create some more native growth.

The yellow is 1 acre that I want to make bedding. I have a picture below of how I plan to do it. This will be done on the only area of my property where the trees are "rowed up". The black is standing tree. The white is open, creating growth and browse. The gray is where I am going to hinge cut my trees high to create bedding (I know the trees won't live or create much browse since pine). After 4-5 years when the original beds are useless I can cut the remaining trees for another 4-5 years of bedding. At the very beginning I can plant some spruce in the white area so after the 8-10 years they will be mature bedding.

Now this is where I am having more difficulty, the food plots. The area between the house and bedding is SOOOOO thick with trees that deer don't use it and I can't even walk through it. I'm thinking of putting 2 hourglass shaped plots of 1/4 acre each for a total of 1/2 acre. At the pinch point of the hourglass I would like to plant something like switchgrass to separate the ends and create what almost seems like 4 small plots in total. Cut a couple paths between the plots and my fruit trees. If I don't cut any paths between the bedding and the plots, the deer will come out the north end of the bedding and travel the same areas they travel now. They would then come into the north end of my plots. I can direct their travel a bit this way. Even if the deer aren't bedded in my bedding, their current natural movement would bring them in the north end of my plots. The only thing I'm worried about is creating too much restriction around my plots, so the deer may feel confined with no escape if danger comes. The restrictions would be the thickness of the current trees and windrowing of trees cleared.

Anybody still with me?

Will the plots area make the deer feel too confined or is it big enough with enough paths that's not an issue? I was thinking of clearing the entire area and planting brushy/browse/grassy stuff around the plots for transition areas. Of course that will cost me a lot more.

Are 28 20x30 beds too much or too big?

Bedding Layout

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Your making them actual bed....beds?

 

[nrowles]

Your making them actual bed....beds?

I'm planning to actually make beds. Hinge cut trees shoulder height and clean the areas underneath the hinged trees of sticks and debris. This is the gray shading. The white is cleared which should grow natural browse. Black would be standing existing trees.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

I don't know how they will take to it or use it set up that way. But keep in your plan a escape route for the deer in several directions. That may help them be more comfortable when using your beds.

 

[nrowles]

I don't know how they will take to it or use it set up that way. But keep in your plan a escape route for the deer in several directions. That may help them be more comfortable when using your beds.

Do you have any suggestions on how to make bedding with what trees I have, which is "rowed up"? When I say this, they are 5" average trees probably only spaced 12" apart. 20-25' tall. Rows spaced 10'.

 

[John-W-WI]

I didn't read the whole post, but will when I get a computer.

As drawn, only does will use those beds. Too much social pressure for bucks that close together.

I'll try to give you a better response soon.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Well...math ain't my strong suit so maybe I've miscalculated

28, 20x30' beds = 28 x 60' = 16,800 sq. ft. of bedding.

Maybe it's just me, but that seems like ridiculous overkill on 15 acres. Not even to mention my opinion on making actual "beds"

I think he meant inches, not feet? 20"x30"

 

[MoBuckChaser]

It more than likely wont work. That many does living that close together.......NOT!

 

[nrowles]

I didn't read the whole post, but will when I get a computer.

As drawn, only does will use those beds. Too much social pressure for bucks that close together.

I'll try to give you a better response soon.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

With the acreage limitations I have, getting even a group of does to bed consistently would be a Win.

Well...math ain't my strong suit so maybe I've miscalculated

28, 20x30' beds = 28 x 60' = 16,800 sq. ft. of bedding.

Maybe it's just me, but that seems like ridiculous overkill on 15 acres. Not even to mention my opinion on making actual "beds"

Your math is correct. I'm obviously not good at this and my trees make this even more difficult. I don't have "normal" woods that can be manipulated easily. If you are saying that many beds is overkill, do you think the method of creating the bedding is ok if I just reduce the number of beds? The trees are 20-25/30' tall, so that's where the 30' part of each bed comes from. I was going to drop about every other tree in the row for about 20' of the row (where the 20' came from), and try to drop them towards a center point. So on the 20-30' length they can only use maybe 1/3 because the end of tree will come to the ground. Therefore, let's say I drop the 20' side down to 8', that would create an actual bed of roughly 8'x8'. I don't know how to word it that it makes sense. LOL.

I don't understand how the amount of bedding matters if I have hundreds of acres of woods around me. I obviously can't contain deer. So if I can give them a spot to bed and a spot to eat and they actually use either one in a given day, that's a Win. ??

It more than likely wont work. That many does living that close together.......NOT!

I could reduce the number of 8'x8' beds to 12 rather than 28? Would that be better?

 

[wiscwhip]

Posting a topo map of your property would be nice. And pretty good advice by Stu above as well. Steve Bartylla's website has some other good videos of how to prepare a hinge for bedding as well, you might want to check that out also.

 

[nrowles]

ok let me try this again. Thread derailed already....LOL. Below is an ugly visual probably not to scale. This is my hinged tree. Let's say I do this for 8' of the row, dropping them to the same point, or just dropping them straight out, whichever is better. This would create an 8'x8' bed. The book I read said to hinge trees for bedding but didn't say how big or how many.

 

[Jeff23]

Hopefully I can make it down to your place- after all these ideas, I would like to see it in person to further visualize things. The bedding areas in pines in our area are just fallen trees that create walls/screens/windbreaks and the deer lay next to them. I suspect what Stu and MO are suggesting is that you don't need to go overboard creating actual beds- it is more important to provide the types of places they will like to bed.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Hopefully I can make it down to your place- after all these ideas, I would like to see it in person to further visualize things. The bedding areas in pines in our area are just fallen trees that create walls/screens/windbreaks and the deer lay next to them. I suspect what Stu and MO are suggesting is that you don't need to go overboard creating actual beds- it is more important to provide the types of places they will like to bed.

Bingo!

 

[nrowles]

Oh boy...I'm not really sure where to start.

Is your plan to have these hinged jackpines survive and continue to grow? Have you ever attempted to hinge cut a 20-30' jackpine?

I don't expect them to survive. I have cut hundreds but haven't hinged any yet.

 

[nrowles]

Well I guess at this point I'm really frustrated. I implemented everything the book recommended. I wasn't expecting this to happen overnight and understand it may take a couple years. I understand there may be issues with the methods of creating the different areas (bedding, transition, food, etc), but does anyone see a problem with the locations of them? The only thing really mentioned is the method of bedding, so I'm hoping everything else seemed ok and I need to figure out the method to make bedding.

Hopefully I can make it down to your place- after all these ideas, I would like to see it in person to further visualize things. The bedding areas in pines in our area are just fallen trees that create walls/screens/windbreaks and the deer lay next to them. I suspect what Stu and MO are suggesting is that you don't need to go overboard creating actual beds- it is more important to provide the types of places they will like to bed.

I was considering cutting every 4th row as suggested by some other reading I did on habitat in plantation pines. This allows the sunlight to hit the ground creating the growth. If I were to cut every 4th row, do you think that would provide similar to what you have or would that be too uniform?

I was trying to provide the types of places they like to bed by doing the hinge cutting. That is what the book suggested, and if I'm remembering correctly, Bartylla's Youtube video suggested the hinge cutting for bedding as well. I have watched many of his Youtube videos.

 

[shawnv]

While an hourglass plot design is very useful in many situations, I don't see it being as effective here how it's drawn up. You are far enough from big food sources where some does are going to make it their primary place rather than just a staging plot as they traverse to other areas. I think this is going to concentrate does and make it hard for you to get in and out without bumping something. Totally eliminates morning hunts when that happens.

My suggestion would be to make it so you are not hunting over where there main plot(s) are but rather fingers coming off as they transition out. Hunting those fingers with good access routes will make it less likely you bump deer and will make your place hunt larger.

Having a neighbor that makes a disturbance that the deer are used to can be to your advantage. It will be helpful to use them to align access routes.

As others have stated, maybe study some of what other's have done in their threads before making a change that is hard to undo.

With that said, what you have drawn up will be better than what you got now.

 

[wiscwhip]

You may be better served with a few smaller bedding pockets(1/4 acre) than one large 1 acre area. Alpha does do not like competition in close proximity to one another. You may be able to bed a couple groups on your property if you make more than one area, what you have will likely house only one doe group and if any others were to try to call it home it could lead to conflict and extra stress for your deer herd. Do you have a topo or is your place essentially flat?

 

[Jeff23]

I was considering cutting every 4th row as suggested by some other reading I did on habitat in plantation pines. This allows the sunlight to hit the ground creating the growth. If I were to cut every 4th row, do you think that would provide similar to what you have or would that be too uniform?

It would definitely be more uniform, but I think it may accomplish many of the same things. And for the record, I'm not saying making actual beds won't work, I just think creating the habitat is 99% of the battle. Even just dropping a few pines here and a few pines there in clusters can allow for very important changes: 1) Sunlight reaching the ground which will hopefully facilitate browse growth, 2) Bedding structure ie. the horizontal lines, windbreaks and screens that make them feel secure and also 3) Can help create blockades and encourage/discourage movement in certain areas as desired. Also, deer love edges, so don't do everything uniform- you are definitely going to accomplish this with any version plan being discussed here.

 

[nrowles]

Southern border of my property is the east to west dotted line by the 971.

This might help. Southern 2/3 is pretty flat. Northern 1/3 varies from 10-14% grade going down as you go North.

 

[wiscwhip]

All those "benches" to the north on that topo look like prime locations for bedding, but I think they are all on the adjacent property, so not much you can do there. That said, I would still try to encourage a few smaller bedding locations as opposed to a single large bedding area. Maybe don't take out so much of the "red" area(remove only the right half) and put in a bedding location to the WSW of the pin marked "920" in the top right?