MNFISH Land Layout

[Steve Bartylla]

Sorry if someone already wrote this, as I didn't read all the posts. The biggest thing that jumps out at me are all those ponds. Your plan doesn't tack advantage of them for funneling or creating fool proof wind options for stands. All you need to do is shift the plots net to the ponds and you can hunt them with your wind blowing over the water. at the same time, you can position them to blockade deer into your ponds...Here's just one easy example, with green being the plot, tan some fruit trees, red dots as stand and black line a blockade and edge feathering around the plot and dark green as hinge cut bedding:


Now, I'm not saying I'd suggest you do this exact thing. I just winged this quick to give a general idea of what I'm talking about. If I did this, I'd offer a different food source in the narrow portion of the plot and slap a couple scrape trees and a water hole within shooting distance of that stand, to encourage deer down there to that bullet proof stand location. That said, those ponds can be used to your advantage. Trying to show an example of how was my real point

 

[Steve Bartylla]

Steve- Using the water holes as a scent protector is a great idea!

Question: Let's say I'm 16-18' in a tree and the wind is 5 mph with comfortable relative humidity, how long would the body of water need to be to have the scent dissipated. In other words, I'm in a stand on the N end of a pond with a N wind. How long would the pond need to be so animals on the south end would't wind me (this, of course, would be a worse case scenario)?

It'd take someone a lot smarter than me to answer that ?. how seriously one does or doesn't take odor control to begin with would have a huge impact on it. Also, you're going to get thermals from the ponds, as well. When the ponds are warmer than air temps, they'll carry the odors blowing across them up, meaning a deer 30 yds downwind on the opposite shore won't ever catch a whiff of you, when the water is warmer than the air. On the flip side, when it's colder than air temps, it will try to keep your odors low for longer, meaning deer further away will smell you.

 

[wiscwhip]

When you sell property the way I do you post away. That is how I sell a lot of these properties without a Agent. The pictures are called advertizing! But what would you know about that, not having any land and all!:eek:

Touché MoBuck, Touché. You ARE the man when it comes to flipping deer properties. And you make a valid point about me not having any land, I suppose you are right. What the hell would I know about any of this without currently having a place of my own( or 3 or 4 places like gurus such as yourself)? I can't imagine what the hell I was thinking posting habitat advice on a website full of landowners. Who the hell do I think I am anyway? I suppose I should just delete all my posts on here, because how could anyone want advice from someone who doesn't own their own land. What valid habitat advice could a person who has been hunting and walking with our group on drives since 1978(4 years before it was legal for me to carry a gun), food plotting with their dad since 1981, and has worked on farms since 1984, possibly give when they don't currently have a place of their own? By the way, the point I was making in that prior post was that there are a lot of guys with awesome places that COULD post photos of deer just like you have, but given the fact they do not flip properties like you do, they are not willing to post photos of those deer for fear of others trying to trespass and kill them. But I suppose you are 100% right, N MO is the place everyone else should buy land(and I hope they do, there would be more land up for sale in WI), their DNR is better, they have no real predators other than a few yotes, winter-kill is a non-factor, deer make it through to spring healthier, no where near the numbers of hunters that many other states deer herds must support. N MO = Win-win!

Jeff, I am very sorry if I have derailed your thread in any way. I am through now and I just wanted to say that I think you really do have a great looking piece of property, and I think once you figure out how to set it up to hunt it the best way possible, you will start seeing and killing more deer on it. You have gotten a ton of great advice on here from some real landowners, so I don't think anything else I have to add as a non-landowner would be worth the time to type it out.

 

[wiscwhip]

Wow, I kind of figured I'd get that kind of response from someone who didn't even finish high school. I won't have to worry about that MOBuck. My daughters will finish college in about 3 more years and I can move my funds to other endeavors. C-O-L-L-E-G-E I spelled it out for you, would you like a definition or for me to use it in a sentence?

 

[bueller]

Breaking news: deer season is over and a cold front is ushering in artic air across the Midwest. If you don't watch the weather you can gather all the above information by monitoring the mood on deer forums this time of year.