Property updates, gentlemen??

[willy]

Plan for the long game, nothing lasting happens quickly

Don't do any changes for a couple years, using that time to come up with a plan using the knowledge learned from those two years how the deer use your property and how the neighbors use their property. If not, a bit of rework will be happening.

On small properties, one needs to hunt perimeters if possible and let your scent blow into neighboring property. Big properties allow more intrusion but small will be blown up easily.

Screen stand access if possible

Screen roads and neighbors

Learn how to id trees before you decide to cut any down and plant what will grow in your area.

If you plant trees, protect them

Pear and apple trees if possible (learn root stock and learn to graft, you'll save lots and be able to plant more) Five to seven years and it will be paying off

One can take bare property and turn it into a wildlife mecca. It will take a couple decades but it gets huntable after the first 4 or 5 years

Try to get to know your neighbors in a positive way

Post your property and prosecute violators.

Be disciplined on taking entry and exit routes no matter how tough or crappy it may be.

Get some water holes established right away, my water holes the past two years because of drought turned into essentially corn piles, It's been amazing to see what has come to them to drink. Once they know it's there they will keep coming back. Try to put them in natural drainages if using tanks and not dugouts. An inch or two of rain will fill my 110 gallons easily where I have them placed but they are still accessible to drive up to, to refill if nature has shut off the valve.

If you cut down trees/brush you don't want coming back, treat them with triplocyr or some other herbicide, but read label, you don't want to kill the rest of the areas broad-leafed plants

Hold your cards close to your chest, what you have/see/kill on your land can be used against you by neighboring hunters. With that said, All this depends on who your neighbors are, get to know them before you blab all about the above.

The sooner you start on your projects, the sooner you'll reap the benefits. It's a lot of work but a labor of love to me. I wouldn't have it any other way

I recommend Steve Bartylla's books on habitat and hunting to give one some ideas and strategies. Like any of the "experts" in whitetail habitat developement, not all their ideas will work for everywhere, Glean from them the ideas that will work for you.

 

[Bill]

Not all habitat related but helped the hunting improve.

1. Screens are your friend. Wish I started my journey there.
2. Not inviting friends and family to hunt really is OK, and in many cases helps immensely.
3. Letting your neighbor continue to hay your fields rather than killing the fescue and adding food doesn't do a thing for you. (But the neighbor likes you.)
4. Planting a zillion unprotected trees is futile.
5. If you're hinge cutting for cover, cut high.
6. Rank stands of NWSG doesn't do much for you, but lightly seeded and letting nature add her own tall weeds will.

 

[PoorSand]

To assume that every tree a guy plants will die in the first year. That way, a guy ends up celebrating every tree that survived rather than focusing on the trees that did not.

 

[Catscratch]

Great thread!

1. Plant easy to grow plots as far away from bedding as possible to create long and predictable travel routes. Make routes easy to hunt with predominant winds.

2. Keep pressure the same during season as it is during the off season. It's actually easier for me to walk to a couple of my stands from the house, than it is to drive. But since deer are used to my truck going down the drive every morning for work and relax immediately after I leave I drive past my stands and walk back in. Nothing's different.

3. All trees that you care about need protection.

 

[H20fwler]

Sycamore for me. I swear you can blink and it grows an inch. And one stump will give you 10 new trees.

Black Willow here - cut a ten inch willow in a duck hole to open it up. Next year there will be 20, two inch willows, 15 feet tall

Tallow trees---straight from evil

chinaberry and Sweetgum are both of the devil

bill

Honey locust and walnut here.

They pop up like weeds in any open area that I don’t keep an eye on. Early spring I cut and spray with crossbow as soon as they leaf, then it’s just a little maintenance during summer picking off any new volunteers so I keep clippers and sprayer ready in truck at all times.
It’s not near as bad as it was ten years ago when I started managing my properties.

 

[H20fwler]

I am in a very heavy agricultural area, 90% rotated row crops. So good cover is HUGE here.
So my experience and advice is for my area.

1. Add a water source even if there is a creek or river within a mile. Dig a pond if you can afford it or use a koi pond or dig in a stock tank, unbelievable how much wildlife will use it.

2. Put in a pasture of native grasses, not just one variety mix it up. Get a blend of switch/bluestems and Indian with an understory of clover mix chicory trefoil partridge pea and weeds. It’s great if you can go big if not a few acres is better than none.

3. Create habitat strips with a good mix of browse, hard and soft mast. Use them on property edges for screening.

4. Big food plots are a bust here, don’t waste your time. Small ones of an acre or less work fine with brassicas as the draw.

5. Create conifer road screens, try to block the view into your property especially along edge of woods.

That would be my top five for here.

I also would put in fruit trees…apples and pears as many as you can manage. Not only are they a huge draw for wildlife, they are just fun to mess with. Also plant early and late dropping varieties.
And as others have said try to find a balance between low impact use and enjoying your property while not running the wildlife off. We do not go into our woods after May until hunting season, but do have trails we stay on in pasture during summer and we spend a lot of time in the orchards.

 

[Tree Spud]

I think trees & their management are one of the cornerstones to habitat management. If your property has al the right stuff then you are ahead of the game. Here is what I think can be done to improve your property nd provide long long term benefits to the habitat....

- Food sources such as browse (key wintertime food source), food (nut, seed, & fruit) production, etc.
- Screening property boundaries & food plots.
- Habitat for not just deer but also birds & other critters.
- Thermal cover during winter.
- Travel corridors as corn ethanol subsidies have destroyed fence & shrub rows in ag fields.

Another thing I have done is plant a few fast growing poplars around my apple orchards for eventually owl perch sites. Should give them good perch sites for night time hunting of rodents.

 

[gjs4]

6. Rank stands of NWSG doesn't do much for you, but lightly seeded and letting nature add her own tall weeds will.

Can you please elaborate on this one?

 

[Bill]

Can you please elaborate on this one?

I have had, and still have fields of straight switch grass and fields of straight Indian grass. Deer walk through them to get to food but don't seem to live in them, planted at 10 lbs/ acre. I did a 40 acre bottom the way Higgins promoted. 2 lbs per acre. The field grew up with some switch, natural clover, rag weed, goldenrod, milkweed, even thistle. Now there are some young cedars that I need to deal with. I call it the bed and breakfast because there are always deer in it in the fall. I think the does like hiding in it and the bucks like looking for them. Doesn't look like it from the pic but you literally loose deer in it. They somehow disappear.

 

[Ikeman]

1.) Remove grazing during season. Deer and cattle are very similar to deer and pigs… they go together like oil and water.

2.) FIRE in just 2 years the cover structure of the 13 acres we burned is DRASTICALLY different than the areas we haven’t burned. Also, the wildflowers are insane, and that keeps my parents (the owners) happy.

3.) Get the right equipment! I haven’t done this, and it absolutely shows. My food plots are typically failures because I am throw-n-mowing on heavy clay in Texas drought conditions, and I have to borrow equipment to do them. Same goes for fire breaks, have to borrow a heavy tractor to get them in (which is very difficult to come by when begging, borrowing, and pleading). Timing is never ideal.

4.) Timing. My area is transitioning from cattle grazing with a little Ag in the creek bottoms (a few miles away) to small ranchettes. Fields are being chopped up, left fallow, and ignored. Makes for better cover and food availability which leads to more deer.

5.) Feed. I spent the last 5 years of doing this avoiding a corn feeder because I, 1. Didn’t want to hunt over feed, and 2. Didn’t want to further attract pigs. I have found out that the pigs are inevitable, with or without corn. And when I finally did add a corn feeder this year it made all the difference. Bucks rarely come into it, but they will check 150-200 yards downwind of it for does. That at least brings them onto the small place (40 acres of almost entirely pasture)


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[Ikeman]

I have had, and still have fields of straight switch grass and fields of straight Indian grass. Deer walk through them to get to food but don't seem to live in them, planted at 10 lbs/ acre. I did a 40 acre bottom the way Higgins promoted. 2 lbs per acre. The field grew up with some switch, natural clover, rag weed, goldenrod, milkweed, even thistle. Now there are some young cedars that I need to deal with. I call it the bed and breakfast because there are always deer in it in the fall. I think the does like hiding in it and the bucks like looking for them. Doesn't look like it from the pic but you literally loose deer in it. They somehow disappear.

View attachment 60114

I LOVE that field!
Is that a native switch, or an improved variety?
What was your planting method? I am considering simply broadcasting 2lbs/acre on 13 acres after a burn this winter.


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[Bowsnbucks]

I guess I'll jump on.

1 - Formulate a plan. Ask questions of those who know / have experience. And do your research for accomplishing the plan. This saves headaches, wasted time & money.
2 - Screen your property from roads & other properties. Use whatever works as a screen in your location.
3 - Fill the gaps in what your property needs. As much as possible, use plants native to your area, or are adaptable to your location.
4 - Plant cover species - whatever works in your location. Consider the needs of deer, birds, small critters, and pollinators. Pollinators make things happen.
5 - Protect the plant species that need protecting as soon as you plant them. If you don't want to lose your planted things to deer, mice, or voles - screen and cage them.
6 - For food plots, go with what works in your area & your soil. For most any critter, various clovers, chicory, rye, wheat, oats, turnips and radishes will cover their food needs - and they grow in most locations.
7 - Before planting anything, consider the needs for sun, partial sun, or shade.

We learned the hard way with a few things we did at camp.

 

[PrairieShadow]

Great read. As I’ve said before I really enjoy seeing the differences we all see as important/not important based on location.

 

[Catscratch]

2.) FIRE in just 2 years the cover structure of the 13 acres we burned is DRASTICALLY different than the areas we haven’t burned. Also, the wildflowers are insane, and that keeps my parents (the owners) happy.

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I forgot to add fire! What a great tool!!! Did you do an early spring burn or late summer? They provide different effects...

 

[PrairieShadow]

For me on the open ag ground of the wind driven prairie, winter cover and wind protection are number 1. Followed closely by winter food sources. Lots of winters food is not a problem but give us a winter like last year and you simply cannot have enough food. I plant as much food as I can each year cause by the time you know you’ll need the food, there’s nothing you can do about it if you don’t already have it.

I plant as many ERC as I can stomach each summer to cover number 1.

 

[Brian662]

For me on the open ag ground of the wind driven prairie, winter cover and wind protection are number 1. Followed closely by winter food sources. Lots of winters food is not a problem but give us a winter like last year and you simply cannot have enough food. I plant as much food as I can each year cause by the time you know you’ll need the food, there’s nothing you can do about it if you don’t already have it.

I plant as many ERC as I can stomach each summer to cover number 1.

Last winter the deer around here ate the "greens" clean off the ERC, many have bounced back decent this year but they aren't near the wind block they were to start last winter.

 

[PrairieShadow]

Last winter the deer around here ate the "greens" clean off the ERC, many have bounced back decent this year but they aren't near the wind block they were to start last winter.

Interesting. I cannot ever recall seeing ERC being eaten on by deer around here.

 

[gjs4]

ERC- Eastern Red Cedar?

 

[Bill]

I LOVE that field!
Is that a native switch, or an improved variety?
What was your planting method? I am considering simply broadcasting 2lbs/acre on 13 acres after a burn this winter.


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It's realworld switch. I dared to compare once and it does indeed get taller then CIR.

 

[Bill]

Oh, also the field was soybeans the year before to help kill off the grasses. I drilled in the snow in January. Didn't put the seed in the ground, just on the ground.