perimeter trails

[wiscwhip]

So far I love the ditch. It adds a water hole and natural funnel to my place and acts as a moat to keep the two legged creatures away :D! I need to check the trail that runs near the ditch and if it gets enough light I may go ahead and plant this section. This section also happens to be the furtherest from the house :). I've already located one place the deer cross the ditch and will be searching for additional crossings.

Our old place actually had the Little Yellow River cutting it in half, not the straight walled ditch, but the 200 yard wide bottoms full of islands and oxbows. Lots of great areas down in those bottoms for bedding and sanctuary, which is exactly how we used it after we realized the importance. Had to give up jump hunting ducks back there which kind of sucked though.:(

 

[foggy]

Thanks foggy. I remember seeing posts you made in the past showing your beautiful trails. To be honest those posts are one of the main reasons I started this thread. At this time I don't intend to hunt over my trails so I'd like to keep my food offerings to areas I will be hunting. Right now I'm leaning towards experimenting and leaving most portions as is, and maybe planting the trail near the moat.

No problem Bueller. I wonder myself if what I have is the right, or best thing. Sometimes you have to go with what the land gives you.....or work on the low-hanging fruit. In my case developing old logging trails provided the path of least resistance. I know there are folks that want one big food plot in the middle of their land. That would have been difficult for me.....so I did trails with the wide ones in the middle and better fall food mixes in the middle. I keep clover to the outside. The clover goes dormant about now....and is usually quite diminished by rifle season. I feel like I'm providing a "counterpoint" to lots of the advice given above. I don't think either way is right or wrong.....so long as the deer use the area.

The other night......I watched an old doe as she traveled between 3 of my food plot trails. Probably was around for about 45 minutes in total. One trial had clover, another had chicory, and another had turnips and old soybeans. Sometimes out of sight for a few minutes....the reappearing again. She spent 1/3 of the time crossing thru timber.....where she also browsed some......and always stayed close to the edges. Numerous rifle opportunities and about 5 minutes of perfect bow opportunity due to the travel she did. This is representative of how deer use my trails.

 

[bueller]

No problem Bueller. I wonder myself if what I have is the right, or best thing. Sometimes you have to go with what the land gives you.....or work on the low-hanging fruit. In my case old developing old logging trails provided the path of least resistance. I know there are folks that want one big food plot in the middle of their land. That would have been difficult for me.....so I did trails with the wide ones in the middle and better fall food mixes in the middle. I keep clover to the outside. The clover goes dormant about now....and is usually quite diminished by rifle season. I feel like I'm providing a "counterpoint" to lots of the advice given above. I don't think either way is right or wrong.....so long as the deer use the area.

If I didn't have a power line right a way running through the center of my property which will become my centralized food plot I'd 100% be planting the trails. You made another excellent point which I hadn't considered. I could consider planting summer crops on the trails which would without a doubt hold more deer on the property and the food source would be depleted come fall hunting.

 

[foggy]

foggy, your planted trails look great. Let me ask me this. If your tract of land was only 20 acres and your trails were very near the property lines, would you still plant them with food?

Just re-read your post. If I had a trail ON the perimeter.....I would plant trees on that trail. None of my trails are "on" the perimeter....but many are within 20 yards or so. There is THICK cover between my trials and the property lines.

 

[bueller]

Our old place actually had the Little Yellow River cutting it in half, not the straight walled ditch, but the 200 yard wide bottoms full of islands and oxbows. Lots of great areas down in those bottoms for bedding and sanctuary, which is exactly how we used it after we realized the importance. Had to give up jump hunting ducks back there which kind of sucked though.:(

The bottoms for the Yellow are just a couple hundred yards on the other side of the ditch :D. Hopefully after a couple years of improvements those moat crossings will become even more heavily used, especially during the rut.

 

[NWWI]

Do you guys ever have any issues with deer crossing your perimeter trails during gun seasons when pressured a little? Around me everybody has a million trails, the deer always approach them carefully. It usually works well to get a deer to stop before crossing, but I don't want them pausing too long coming on to my property.

 

[wiscwhip]

That is why you put your trails 20yards inside the line, they are already on your property when they pause before crossing.

 

[bueller]

I took a nice walk around the trails this weekend to get a better feel of what's going on there. It appears to me these wide trails are somewhat of a funnel creator. There are several clearly defined "crossings" that the deer are utilizing. Follow those deer trails into the interior of my property and they quickly branch out in various directions. This should play very well for treestand and camera placement.

My best funnel spot on Pop's place is about 50-75 yards in the woodline on the trail the deer use to cross the rural road that serves as our east border. In our 1/4 mile stretch of road frontage on that property I would say with confidence that well over 50% of the deer crossing the road cross at this particular spot.