Rit’s Parcel

[Rit]

When you have soil that looks like this you need every advantage you can get. Dry, rocky, and terrible comes to mind. Only I could select such a location for my first food plot. Finding this Forum and the TNM section was possibly one of the most helpful pieces of information that a guy could find.

 

[Rit]

From here on out the Hayfield will be referred to as the destination plot. I thought it would be mine to start working with around August. But the guy renting it got his last cut in early October. I scrambled to get it sprayed. I didn’t have a sprayer yet so I paid the local CO-OP to hit it for me. I disced up a 2.5 acre section to try and get something in for the rest of the fall season. I selected the wrong seed blend and didn’t get much growth. The destination plot would be a bust for 2017. I had a big open field void of food or cover.

In November of 2017 I broadcast CIR and Kanlow switchgrass into most of the field.

 

[Rit]

The 1.5 acre TnM plot exceeded all expectations. I had a green food source in mid October for the first time ever. Even without an active destination plot the deer still related to this little plot. There is a ton of edge, on SW winds no way for bucks to cruise the downwind edge, and they are forced to travel through the winding plot. Directly SW of this plot is a strip of timber that I made a mess of with hinge cuts. Directly behind those hinge cuts is a tennis court, and directly behind the tennis court is my house. Cruising bucks would have to travel 300’ downwind of my house to scent check the plot.

To make things even better the plot had bulletproof entry and exit with perfect pine trees to place a stand in. I had cut a trail behind all the cut trees and I could enter through the tennis court. The plot was located between two big bedding areas. It would soon be 3 bedding areas because I inadvertently made a bedding area just South of my new stand.

 

[Rit]

Here is a view of the stand from ScoutLook. The stand in question is the one closest to the tennis court. It’s in a large pine tree and has a large Cedar tree just in front of it for cover. My house is just to the right of the tennis court. You can see all the edge on the plot along with all of the thick bedding cover. This view is of the first 1/2 acre plot I put in. When I extended it in 2017 the plot goes down and takes a sharp Easterly turn. It’s about the shape of a boomerang.

You can also see the destination field on the left side. This has been one of my best stand placements on the property.

 

[Rit]

Wow on page 3 already. I thought I would struggle to fill pages on this thread and that is why I was so hesitant to share the info. Well that and the mistakes I have made. I am really glad I started this and hopefully some of you will enjoy it. I tend to carry on and over complicate things at times. But as I go back over all of these photos it really hits home with how much effort I have put into this. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many 8-10+ hour days behind the chainsaw I have put in to make this all come together.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank my wife for all the support. It can be a tough balancing act between your passion and family. With 4 girls (18,8,6, and 3) there is always somewhere else to be.

One of my biggest weaknesses is walking into my woods. There isn’t much outside of family stuff that I would rather do. This can be counterproductive but if you gave me a choice of walking in my woods to observe or stay out to make the ultimate sanctuary I would choose to walk in the woods every time.

 

[Rit]

Some of you may wonder how you inadvertently create a bedding area. Well fire will do the trick. This area is where my homesite ends. There is a 2-3 acre section South of my house but North of the 1.5 acre foodplot. There are maybe 15 mature oaks scattered in this area. I thought I would try to get some Oak regen going and screen the food plot from the house. The area was a little brushy and full of grass. I burned it off one fall early on when the hunting was a bust. The results were far better than I could imagine.

Soon the area would shoot up in all kinds of diversity. Some briars, multi-flora rose, raspberry, cedars, bush honeysuckle, buckthorn, dogwoods. Even managed to get a few Oak sprouts. The area is 10’ from our fenced in 50x30 garden. The last two years it has been taken up by a doe and some yearlings. Sometimes they even can be seen while in the garden. Two years in a row this new thicket has produced some chasing scenes. Not bad for no rutting actively in 12,13,14,15, and 16.

 

[Rit]

Going into the 2017 hunting season there was reason for optimism. I had a good enough looking food plot that was seeing deer traffic. I now had 2 years of growth and regen on my hinge cuts. Most of the closed canopy areas had been opened up. There were large trees down all over the place. An area once void of rabbits now had one in about every brush pile. Trails were opened up all over. Most leading to tree stands with really good exit and entries. I had 8-9 stands placed so I wouldn’t have to worry about burning a stand out.

The first picture was something that caught my eye from the treestand on an October 31st, 2017 hunt. I was sitting my best stand on the 1.5 acre TnM plot. I saw a scrape had opened up. This basically made my season. Almost 5 years of post season scouting had never turned up a scrape and very few rubs.

The second and third photos were confirmation that deer, specifically bucks were checking out the plot in November and December. I was seeing more daylight movement now but not really seeing mature deer.

Now I didn’t shoot a deer during the 2017 season but things were definitely changing. I had does, yearlings, and small bucks pretty consistent all the way up to Thanksgiving. I could have harvested a number of deer. I saw more rutting activity in November than I had saw in the previous 5 years. I was feeling pretty good going into the habitat portion of the season.

 

[roymunson]

Roy my property is flat. I used the term ridge some post back. This certainly is not the ridge that most folks are used to. I am probably classifying the terrain feature wrong but it’s exactly like a ridge just on a much smaller scale. It’s a limestone “ridge” (again might be wrong on the classification) but it is anywhere from 3-6’ higher than anywhere else on my property. It runs about 700’ long to the South of my house and terminates just before the swamp in the SW corner. Deer run the ridge to get out to the destination field. Or at least they used to before I made a huge mess.

Sometimes, those small changes make a huge difference, especially if the rest of the area is pretty vanilla. I'd get some lanes cut into it and they'll come back to it.

 

[roymunson]

also, you do a much better job documenting with pictures than I do. I get caught up in the task at hand.

 

[Rit]

As I went into the late 2017 habitat and early 2018 season things were definitely trending up. The TnM plot was a pretty big success. I had evidence of deer digging in the plot into January. Post season scouting would reveal a dozen scrapes and numerous rubs. I also found several areas deer were bedding in snow covered thickets. A lot of first on this property. We had come a long way since the rutless Novembers of years past.

Open wooded areas like picture 2 were now in their 3rd growing season and looked more like picture 3. A majority of my habitat work in the 17/18 season was spent killing buckthorn. It’s still a big focus for me. I’ll never eradicate it but I hope to slow it down.

 

[Rit]

In 2018 the destination plot was now planted into a mixture of Oats, Triticale, 4010 field peas, buckwheat, and clover.

The switchgrass that was frostseeded in November had germinated and began to grow. We managed to plant a few apple and pear trees in the fall just before hunting season. We also transplanted a handful of shrubs and cedars for screening. There was definitely some added structure to destination plot.

 

[Rit]

Mid August 2018 the TnM plots were planted and all we could do was wait for hunting season. There seemed to be more deer around than in years past. The deer were relating to both the kill plot and the destination field nicely.

In an effort to get up to current habitat work I have left out some details. There have been countless hours transplanting certain trees and shrubs. I often spend time getting a little more light to certain areas by cutting back less desirable plants or promoting growth of cedars. I haven’t covered in much detail about the efforts needed to keep trails open. Trees fall where they want and are often required to be cut up. With the guys on this forum being habitat folks you already know all of those small details.

 

[Rit]

I didn’t hunt a ton early season but saw deer every sit but 1. Things were different this year. I was covered up in deer. I had does and a lot of them. Sometimes 4-5 different mature does in eyesight at once. Almost all of them running the edge on the kill plot. Any deer that comes into the kill plot heading towards the destination plot is in bow range.

Not only did I have a significant amount of does as October gave away to November but all the doe activity brought in the bucks. A lot of little bucks, some good 2-3 years olds and on October 25th I caught my first glimpse of a mature buck late into the season during shooting hours as he checked the destination field.

This probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to most for that time of year but I can tell you for almost 5 years I experienced exactly ZERO rutting activity on my property.

On top of all the deer sightings rutting activity was going crazy. I saw chasing almost every sit after the 25th, I had 15-20 scrapes opened up in my TnM kill plot, I routinely watched does and bucks work licking branches. I also watched 3 different buck fights from the same tree.

 

[Rit]

November 8th, 2018 would be all the validation I would need that the habitat improvements were indeed working. I didn’t shoot a deer this day but it wouldn’t be long before I would seal the deal and end an almost a 4 year drought.

My normally rutless property had suddenly woken up and produced some of the best whitetail action I had ever saw. I rattled in 3 mature bucks midday another first for this property.

I went in that night after hunting and was completely satisfied with the season even if I didn’t harvest a deer.

 

[Rit]

November 9th however would be a very different finish than the previous 3 seasons.

 

[roymunson]

Now you're just being elusive and a tease...

 

[Telemark]

Yeah, what the heck!? Looks like you got bit by a wobbegong.

 

[Rit]

Now you're just being elusive and a tease...

I have been called worse

 

[Rit]

Yeah, what the heck!? Looks like you got bit by a wobbegong.

I thought that was some kind of ocean creature. Had to google that. Would you believe that was from a branch to the nose?

 

[Telemark]

Ouch.

Now get on with the story!