Ilbback -

Thanks, The stand is about 20 ft to take advantage of the natural cover where the tree splits into 4 - its a little higher than I usually hunt.

The red clover does have quite a few weeds. I did not spray roundup, I plowed and planted it with oats last fall. The oats were combined, and had quite a few weed seeds too. The clover came in pretty well anyhow, its about a 60-70% stand. I haven't mowed it only one time, the reason for the planting was to rotate it with the corn every two years, and of course to supply some good nutrition, and attract deer.

The red clover does not attract deer as well as the ladino or white varieties, but it definitely brings some deer into the field every night. I want to leave it high this fall, if it'll stay green. I usually mow back the clover to 6-8" this time of year in the other fields, I'm curious what difference it'll make - if any.

Dan O. - Thanks, We make due with the fields as they were. I'd prefer them not to be so "square", to get more corner action and daytime usage, but the corner where my stand is is a low spot that you cannot see from anywhere else in the field - so it stays pretty hot.

We do have alot of apple trees. On the 170 acres, we have 5 distinct orchards from the 1800s ranging from 1/2 acre to 2 acres in size.
There are literally 100s, maybe even 1000s of "wild apples" in the hedgerows, and the woods that made up the old pastures and fields in the 1930s-1950s. This is an awful apple year for us, but its bittersweet. In years of good to great apples, we cannot begin to pattern the deer. Years like this, we can concentrate on areas where the apples are, though it looks like there will not be many this year.

We have no oaks - go 10 miles in any direction, and you get them, same with cedars. Our hardwoods are Hard Maple, Ash, Cherry, yellow birch and Beech in that order. The mature hardwoods are also full of mature hemlocks that stand a good 60 ft plus. The oldest woods was last logged in the 1940s, so there are plenty of big trees - My father is still against logging it - he really likes the open woods. The old woods only make up about 25 acres of our land - the rest were fields in the 1950s - and they are still plenty thick.

The deer seem to prefer maple browse where they can find it. The next best native browse here is Red Osier Dogwood, and we have alot of that in the thickets and creek bottom.


Edited by - farm hunter on 09/03/2002 21:25:50