Spike_Horn_Shooter
5 year old buck +
With hunting seasons closed or winding down, I figured it would be a good time to have us all do a post season property assessment. I’ll start, feel free to critique my assessment and / or add your own assessment.
We killed two bucks this year, mine (small 8, 2/3 yr old, rifle) and sons (4pt, 1.5 years old, youth rifle) Daughter put a bad shot on a big doe during late muzzle and never found deer. Dad was busy at work and didn’t hunt much.
Hunting / Hunting Pressure
1) Less time hunting plots and more time hunting cover. This year was my first time ever hunting food plots and I kinda got lazy and over hunted our solid blinds. It was fun seeing deer, but only once saw a decent buck (which I shot) during daylight.
Plan is to clean up some access trails along a property border and have new hang on stand locations prepped early in spring / summer.
What is everyone’s thoughts on 4x6 elevated blinds in the heart of the cover/woods? I think it would be interesting to have these fairly airtight blinds in the cover to be able to hunt deer more in the day and where they were at, and keep some pressure off my food plot blinds. Thinking about building 2 or 3 and getting them in the woods in the spring. Access to these would be fairly easy and wouldn’t bump a bunch of deer on the way in. They would be all day sits and would be getting in around 2 hours prior to shooting light. Has anyone done this with success??
Food
1) Beans: I had 3-4 acres of drilled beans over-seeded with brassicas after last spraying (July) and rye/wheat over-seeded (Sept). Deer were in these every day (just not really close) and I had beans left during the last day of the season. Also in Nov/Dec these beans had 20+ turkeys spending hours in this plot. One thing to improve - I need to figure a way to get deer closer to the stands - maybe a small sweet food plot of peas/oats. Or maybe an tree-coy and/or small pond Anyone done this???
2). Clover: I had 1 acre of clover that I mowed and sprayed (cleth) in Aug. It looked great in Sept/Oct but was pretty well eaten by Nov/Dec. This had deer in it every day early season and less as the season went on. I think I need more clover/greens plots.
3) Sunflowers: I had .25 acres of sunflowers, that got absolutely demolished by Oct. Don’t know if it was bears or deer or birds. I think I’ll plant about 1 acre of sunflowers next year, they are good screening early season, easy to grow and the wife loves them.
4) Mixed bag plot (brassicas, peas and rye): I had a .25 acre plot that I cut out of an old hay field habitat. This plot grew much better than expected, but was eaten to the ground by Nov.
I was hesitant about removing habitat out of the old field habitat, but sat in a blind this year overlooking this plot. There were deer on camera every night, but I mostly watched deer in my neighbors hay field (watched a nice buck come off my land to chase does in my neighbors field. The deer didn’t spend a bunch of time in the old habitat, I didn’t see them bedding in there, but do see a bunch of beds during the summer. This was really aggravating. Next year this plot will get expanded to about 1.5 acres, super fertilized, and put in the same mix with clover to come on the following spring. Has anyone experienced something similar???
Corn - Or the lack their of. My corn planted with my drill mostly failed. Everyone I’ve talked to, says “Corn is King in November”. I think having bush hogged corn might be the best way to get deer where you really want them in a bigger field setting. Plus I like the screening from the road that corn may provide.
Looking for a corn planter for 2025 to no-till corn into bean ground.
Trail Cameras: They are cool and give you a bunch off intel, but dang do they make hunting boring and or frustrating. I also think that they scare those roamer deer that show up in late Oct/Nov. I’ve got a picture of a non-resident nice buck looking at the camera obviously spooked and I never have another picture of that deer.
I also had a bunch of cameras in the cover whose batteries died and I didn’t want to blast in there and change them.
Next year I plan to only have cameras on access points where a trespasser might come in. I kind of want to be surprised and be entirely happy should I decide to harvest a buck. I think cameras take away from that. Thoughts??
Odds/Ends
My hemp rope tree scrapes were not utilized. I plan to add “tree-coys” close to blinds/stands using actual branches.
Small ponds - I think I could dig out a couple small ponds close to my blinds to act as a sweetener to get the deer closer.
Access - as mentioned above, I need to clean up some access trails, so that I feel more sneaky when I go into hunt in the cover.
We killed two bucks this year, mine (small 8, 2/3 yr old, rifle) and sons (4pt, 1.5 years old, youth rifle) Daughter put a bad shot on a big doe during late muzzle and never found deer. Dad was busy at work and didn’t hunt much.
Hunting / Hunting Pressure
1) Less time hunting plots and more time hunting cover. This year was my first time ever hunting food plots and I kinda got lazy and over hunted our solid blinds. It was fun seeing deer, but only once saw a decent buck (which I shot) during daylight.
Plan is to clean up some access trails along a property border and have new hang on stand locations prepped early in spring / summer.
What is everyone’s thoughts on 4x6 elevated blinds in the heart of the cover/woods? I think it would be interesting to have these fairly airtight blinds in the cover to be able to hunt deer more in the day and where they were at, and keep some pressure off my food plot blinds. Thinking about building 2 or 3 and getting them in the woods in the spring. Access to these would be fairly easy and wouldn’t bump a bunch of deer on the way in. They would be all day sits and would be getting in around 2 hours prior to shooting light. Has anyone done this with success??
Food
1) Beans: I had 3-4 acres of drilled beans over-seeded with brassicas after last spraying (July) and rye/wheat over-seeded (Sept). Deer were in these every day (just not really close) and I had beans left during the last day of the season. Also in Nov/Dec these beans had 20+ turkeys spending hours in this plot. One thing to improve - I need to figure a way to get deer closer to the stands - maybe a small sweet food plot of peas/oats. Or maybe an tree-coy and/or small pond Anyone done this???
2). Clover: I had 1 acre of clover that I mowed and sprayed (cleth) in Aug. It looked great in Sept/Oct but was pretty well eaten by Nov/Dec. This had deer in it every day early season and less as the season went on. I think I need more clover/greens plots.
3) Sunflowers: I had .25 acres of sunflowers, that got absolutely demolished by Oct. Don’t know if it was bears or deer or birds. I think I’ll plant about 1 acre of sunflowers next year, they are good screening early season, easy to grow and the wife loves them.
4) Mixed bag plot (brassicas, peas and rye): I had a .25 acre plot that I cut out of an old hay field habitat. This plot grew much better than expected, but was eaten to the ground by Nov.
I was hesitant about removing habitat out of the old field habitat, but sat in a blind this year overlooking this plot. There were deer on camera every night, but I mostly watched deer in my neighbors hay field (watched a nice buck come off my land to chase does in my neighbors field. The deer didn’t spend a bunch of time in the old habitat, I didn’t see them bedding in there, but do see a bunch of beds during the summer. This was really aggravating. Next year this plot will get expanded to about 1.5 acres, super fertilized, and put in the same mix with clover to come on the following spring. Has anyone experienced something similar???
Corn - Or the lack their of. My corn planted with my drill mostly failed. Everyone I’ve talked to, says “Corn is King in November”. I think having bush hogged corn might be the best way to get deer where you really want them in a bigger field setting. Plus I like the screening from the road that corn may provide.
Looking for a corn planter for 2025 to no-till corn into bean ground.
Trail Cameras: They are cool and give you a bunch off intel, but dang do they make hunting boring and or frustrating. I also think that they scare those roamer deer that show up in late Oct/Nov. I’ve got a picture of a non-resident nice buck looking at the camera obviously spooked and I never have another picture of that deer.
I also had a bunch of cameras in the cover whose batteries died and I didn’t want to blast in there and change them.
Next year I plan to only have cameras on access points where a trespasser might come in. I kind of want to be surprised and be entirely happy should I decide to harvest a buck. I think cameras take away from that. Thoughts??
Odds/Ends
My hemp rope tree scrapes were not utilized. I plan to add “tree-coys” close to blinds/stands using actual branches.
Small ponds - I think I could dig out a couple small ponds close to my blinds to act as a sweetener to get the deer closer.
Access - as mentioned above, I need to clean up some access trails, so that I feel more sneaky when I go into hunt in the cover.
