Steve-I see many of you stands are near the foodplots. do you anticipate seeing decent bucks on those foodplots?
With our hunting pressure, I favor hunting the trails between the foodplots or the junctions of trails like some of your stands. Plus hunters can more often enter and leave stands without worrying about deer being in view on a foodplot.
I also struggle with this screening of stands. It is easy on my better soils, but tough to do on the light soils.
Yes, because the food plots are small, surrounded on all sides with cover AND pressure on that ground would be so low impact, I would anticipate seeing mature bucks on them. Heck, the previous owner of the property I'm working on in C MN shot a 170ish buck off a food plot there this past season, somewhere around mid Oct (I don't remember the exact date).
That said, I believe there are keys to being able to kill mature bucks on food plots:
Pressure MUST be kept low. I don't mean the place can't be hunted. I mean that the deer shouldn't know they are being hunted. That has as much to do with how the property is setup as it does how it's hunted.
It sure helps when one is dealing with smaller plots (1/4-1 acre) surrounded by cover and close to where they bed. It's always easier to get a buck to hit a food plot during light when he beds 100-200 yards away than when he beds 400-500 yards away. Just an extra 200-300 yards can make a big difference.
It also helps when you have a decent number of does hitting that food plot early. If they feel safe enough to do that consistently, bucks have a higher tendency to do so, as well.
Finally, So long as they feel safe, you're training bucks that hitting the plots during daylight is OK, and daylight sightings of mature bucks should increase over the first 1-5ish years. After dispersal, that 1.5 coming out early without harm helps him feel safe and not see the threat of doing so. So, he tends to do the same at 2.5 and 3.5 and 4.5, as he's done it since he was 1.5, without feeling threatened. Over time, you train him that doing so is perfectly safe.
That last part is a key. No doubt, that's easier on a 320 than a 40 acre piece of ground, but my experience indicates that it is still more possible on that 40 than most realize. I believe most deer (exceptions to everything) have areas they feel safe moving in during daylight, even in high pressure areas. Most often. they are areas that for whatever reason (pain to get there or simply overlooked) humans don't bug them in. Few bucks are purely nocturnal. Instead, I believe they are trained that this area is safe during daylight, but those aren't. I'm going to strive hard to train them that these plots are safe, as well as most of the rest of my property. I believe the results of that are better than most would believe.
I try to use that to my advantage in other ways. If I have a neighbor I work with well, I do my best to keep that going. If we don't work well together, I try to access stands along property lines, with my wind blowing right into his property. I don't mind spooking those deer at all, even those they commonly cross back and forth between our properties. Spooking them when they are on the other side of the line tells them they are not safe there, but that doesn't happen to you over "here." "Here," you are safe as if you are snuggled in your mother's arms. You can make the case that's a jerk move, and maybe it is, but I've found it to be rather effective, particularly when that same neighbor doesn't place a high priority on low impact, themselves.
Everyone seems to love complaining about their sloppy hunting neighbors. I'd almost always rather have them than serious, good hunters as neighbors. Sloppy neighbors tend to help me reach my goals better than those that share my same goals and are good at what they do. That said, I can see how they'd drive me nuts in very low deer number areas.
P.S.
In many situations, I put far more stands off the plots than on them. The way that farm lays out, setting up between bed and feed doesn't fit well/isn't low impact. Also, notice that more than one of those food plot stands are also covering in-woods movement. That isn't an accident. I try to setup a property to create stands that cover both food and what is essentially deep woods movement when practically possible. Almost always better to kill 2 birds with 1 stone...Just did a quick count. 8 of 11 food plot stands also cover pure in-woods deer movement. I suspect the drawing doesn't show that very well, but they are covering both the food plot and the "sidewalk" in the woods.
