Looking for input on my property ideas

Hey everyone,
Decided to come over from the fishing side to get some input for my new foodplot. A little background on my grandpa’s property: Its long and skinny with good forage fields in the front forty and big woods for the last 120. We plant soybeans on about 4 acres on the front fields with the rest being silage corn and alfalfa but we are going to grow our soybean patch more because of how much they love them. The patch of woods we are apart of is pretty big for central Wisconsin so the deer have plenty of room to wander across many different properties. Right now I recognize a problem as not being able to hold any deer because there is more bedding on neighboring properties that people don’t hunt til rifle season.

The land is going to be logged in three successive years starting this past winter. But fortunately he clear cut where we had a tenth of an acre food plot. It is pretty much in the middle of the big woods so I think it would be a good plot for the deer to hit before they make their way to various fields. Deer use our front fields quite a bit but mostly make it their after dark. Here are some of my thoughts that I want to do for the upcoming year.

• The food plot now has the potential to be about an acre in the woods on our property line so I want to leave some trees grow on the fence line.
• We left some oaks grow around the food plot but there is some large gaps that the sun will hit well but wouldn’t really be beneficial to try to plant yearly so I was thinking of planting tall native grasses to create a nice edge habitat that is about 15 feet wide.
• We are going to start using just the south property line in hopes to leave the deer a large sanctuary area where hopefully they will bed on ours and work the way to the soybeans up front.
• The woods will grow up eventually and hopefully thick enough for good bedding in the next few years.
• Not sure what I want to plant on the food plot yet.

I guess right now the problems I am seeing is the food plot is too small to have the larger bucks use more regularly. The mature bucks are there but we have little success shooting them because they only use the back part of our property as travel corridors but not regularly and after dark. I think the holding potential will be there if I stay off a majority of it once things grow up and get this food plot growing.

I would be happy to explain more or even send a screen shot of what I am talking about but I am just looking for some advice on what actions to take to get these mature boys sticking around more.

A screen shot of the property with property lines would be helpful. In the mean time I can say without a doubt making the north area a sanctuary or at least part of it will be a huge help. It might not seem like it in the early season if they have a lot of area to travel without being hassled, but come gun season if they have a place they know is safe they will pile in.

I would make the food plot in/near the sanctuary a clover plot. Deer love to graze and giving them a good staging area to graze before they get to ag fields would be a good starting point. Another good thing about clover there is it won’t require much maintenance and will last 3-5 years without replanting. This keeps you out of that area for most of the year.

I am not a food plot expert by any means but I can relate to your situation and have learned a few things along the way. I hunt 200 acres and we have less than an acre of food plots. Fortunately for us, the bedding cover is thick and holds deer but the food supply is limited. What we have learned is over the years, once the plot(s) get established, deer get accustomed to them being there. Grow a late season food (turnips are #1 where we are) along with some clover mixed in. After a few years, deer that have grown up using these plots (think does) are using the plot regularly. Late Oct and early Nov you want to find the does anyway. We know every year that it’s very unlikely that we kill a mature buck (ala lakosky’s) while feeding during shooting light, but during the rut anything can happen and if you have an area the does like to frequent, the bucks will find them. my two cents worth good luck!

As sticker says, a screen shot from Google earth would help.

A couple of ideas:

– I would work on improving your holding cover first. Hinge cutting, planting fast growing species like dogwood, grasses, etc.

Basically, the goal would be to make property that you own the BEST and most undisturbed option for hiding out from all those guys in orange crawling all over the landscape.

My personal theory is that a given buck, when he is alarmed my human presence in areas where he’s not used to encountering it (ie “hunting”) will go to the thickest, most undisturbed place he can find and stay there. For as long as it takes for the disturbance to go away. So if you make your property that place…

– What do you really know about the movement patterns on your property? Not just places where you see deer, but how they move around?

If you’re not already, I’d get the trail cams out and really start trying to find out how the deer are getting from point a to point b.

I’m not saying I’m an expert in this, BTW, this has been my ongoing project on my property and bottom line is that after 2 years, what I have discovered is the deer are NOT moving the way I thought they were. I’m still looking for more defined areas of movement.

– Last related thought is that the “plot watcher” or “field scan” time lapse functions on trail cams can be tremendously helpful for finding out where deer are entering a food area from. In your case I could see this being helpful even if you’re watching property you don’t own. Again, just to try to figure out the movements, where are the deer coming from in the AM and PM and where do they seem to wander off to.

Grouse

Pine trees may be an option to hold deer at all times of the year. I hate Pine trees personally Bordering our property the neighbors they planted pines. 2.30 this afternoon 12 deer just came out of them to use our hayfield. In a tough tough winter the deer will actually eat pine needles not that they can survive for long periods but it can get them thru a really bad winter. Pine trees and food plots may hold the deer for you.

Thanks for the responses guys! I did my best to lay out what i thought was pertinent. Like i said we are really the only ones that bow hunt around us. Right now i think we are really trying to utilize too much of our land so i may be walking in the way east portion too much (picture is laid out as top being north).

I wish they had an updated view but they dont. Half of the land was logged this year on the south portion of the big woods except for where it is too wet. The northern portion will be logged next year. So realistically I think in a few years there should be great cover all over the place. Normally most of the bucks we have on camera are in the far east portion. We believe from trail camera pictures that they follow the blue lines to the food sources. Which is why i hunt towards the east part of the property. Problem is i walk from the road on the far west…

Right now on the map i laid out a section to the east of the white line that i think would be great to leave as a sanctuary. or at least leave it free from any human intrusion besides during hunting season. Right now that is the only way to the back of the property with a fourwheeler. So i believe with a new road on the south (the pink line) I think it would be a little better and defintely not disturb as much of the big woods portion.

They left a lot of big hemlocks stand for “thermals” for wildlife in winter but i am worried how the underbrush will grow but i will have to wait and see that. Currently the wet section that they will never log is open to hinge cutting so i may start that in hopes to attract them to bed along that creek bottom more (the purple section). I obviously could get into more detail for you guys but this will be a great jumping off point. I guess my hope is to get them to bed more on my land which i think i can accomplish with staying off of it in the future and more food.

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Sorry forgot to mention the red bedding section is the only area we really leave alone because we know how good the bedding is. There is normally a family group of does that hide out in there but to stay on the property and get to the back to hunt we normally jump some. the section is bigger than i made it on there and the most bucks we see are normally skirting the outsides of there during the rut but like you know you never know when they will be there.