Stand locations

Here is a screen shot of our farm. The yellow is food sources, the red is bedding areas. The large ag field in the middle is rented and in alfalfa. The sanctuary is the largest bedding area on the northeast corner of the property and is about 17 acres. NO ONE goes in there except maybe me in the spring to hinge cut. The woods consists of a few pine plantations and the rest is white and red oak, a lot of maple and some basswood and elm. Since I have hunted here for 40 years I have my favorite spots and I think I know the farm quite well. I am looking for a few other perspectives on key places to hunt for someone who hasn’t been influenced by knowing the land. Pretend you are going on a one time hunt to a new place and all you have is a overhead shot of the property like this one. The whole farm is 240 acres if that matters. The elevation is high in the middle and drops off in every direction. There is water on the east side(a lake) in the north property line in the center is a swamp, always wet.

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It may be just me, but in picking stand locations, the “in theory” ideas I generate from maps/the air have NEVER, and I mean NEVER actually played out in reality.

So with that preamble, “in theory” I like the idea of getting between that big bedding area in the NE and the food sources back to the S/SW. I also like some of your isolated food plots up in the NW and south part of the property as I would think bucks would be less hesitant to utilize these when hunting pressure went up and them might at least be on the move to/from these areas in daylight hours.

I don’t see any obvious bottlenecks, etc, but again here’s where the areal view tells a lie because there are ALWAYS bottlenecks and movement paths of least resistance. Even if they are man-made. So the on-the-ground view is the only one that really matters.

You’ve certainly got a really nice setup for a wide variety of hunting situations.

Grouse

My first question is, will you adopt me?

After that, what are the various food sources? Are they natural in acorns, apples, etc or are they food plots in which you planted?
Trying to figure out at what point the deer would be gorging on each type. Clearly something like apples, acorns etc the deer are going to be pummeling early on for archery I would think, but if you have turnips, radishes, etc in some food plot those would be good getting close to firearms season and first snowfall.
Playing the wind would be a big key and where are the natural areas to access the property from. It appears there are access roads on the West and SouthEast sides, but nothing from the North or straight South.

The yellow circles are all food plots. Clover, brassica, corn and beans. The largest one in about the middle is rye. Acorns are all across the entire property both white and red oak and they are dropping like mad right now. I have 2 small orchards started also, but they are too young to produce apples yet.

On the new picture in blue are the atv trails we use to access the food plots and deer stands.

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In a property like this, I’m 100% on knowing the contour lines between the key elements – Sleep, Eat, Sex, and Escape.

I took a wild guess on what looked like contour changes and habitat density. Possible some old logging lanes???? From there, I put the pink lines in what I thought may be viable travel routes. Circled the areas I would scout in and look for potential stand locations. For peak rut, I like sporadic cover along the fields where they sneak along from one brothel to another

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Thanks for the map Randy. You have hit most of the travel corridors spot on and the rut locations have been very successful spots. I am curious why you didn’t mark anything in the southeast corner? Maybe its hard to read contour there, but that is a hillside that slopes down to the southeast from the field edge to the pine stand. That hillside is actually a very busy travel corridor.

sticker wrote:

Thanks for the map Randy. You have hit most of the travel corridors spot on and the rut locations have been very successful spots. I am curious why you didn’t mark anything in the southeast corner?

I’m between dealer visits and in a hurry. Marked what I could in 30 seconds and tossed this back up here. BTW – I only marked what I visualized as the contour line. Usually whitetails run partially above/blow that line. But it gives you an idea on how I look at a new place. If I had the ability to zoom in, I mostly would eliminate or add more spots. YES, the SE had some potential, but I only glanced at it.
Weird, I look at image like you posted and see something like this with subtle elevation changes in it

Maybe I get a little analytical about things…am I the only one?

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Sorry, didn’t mean to call you out on it, was just curious why nothing was marked there. You gave me a lot of info and I appreciate it.

Here is a google maps angled image( i can’t find contours just yet) of part of the property. This is from the west, so you can see how the southeast corner drops pretty sharply to the stand of norway pines.

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Here is a map of where the mature bucks have been harvested from. Just the mature bucks which is all we have harvested in the last 10 years except for youth hunters taking their first deer.

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If you need a designated shooter to help you out

Nice looking piece of land