ok here it goes. I own about 23 acres. I practice strict QDM. but with people all around me that think the have to kill anything with 4 legs is it goin to pay off for me. I have even quit rifle hunting of any kind on this land to create a "safehaven" for the deer from the other hunters. No rifles no shotguns. archery only.

Am i wasting my time with this or should i keep goin.
Maybe i should start playing the lottery and buy all the land up and kick everyone out.
Thanks in advance

It's rough on 23 acres. 1- try talking to your neighbors and see what they think about it. 2- I don't think 2 acres will hold deer by it's self.3- You can only do what you can with what you got so make the best of it.Good luck.

with 23 acres it is kinda tuff! i mean there are definatly going to be deer, that stay in your area of the woods, and might not venture in front of your neighbors stands. i hate to say it for your sake but i really am not sure on what kinda results you will see! i think you will see slight improvments every year but, i think it will take much longer to get the results you want than it would for someone else! i think it would be best to try and talk to your neighbors and try and get them on board with your plan.

best of luck! hope it all works out for you.

There is a regular poster on the forums on www.qdma.comthat has been practicing QDM for years on 42 acres in Michigan so it can be done. You will need to probably adjust your goals and there is no doubt that having like minded neighbors would be a significant benefit.

I would be inclined to say that you are wasting your time if the contiguous landowners are shooting everything that walks out. Put in a large foodplot and try to draw them into the area.

rifles!

Tough on 23 acres unless it is all thick and used as a bedding area. If this is the case your tactics will work to provide them a safe haven. The only trouble is that during the rut all bets are off. Those bucks will roam far more than your 23 acres. Like a few of the guys have said try to slowly work with your neighbors to get the point across. Have informant from QDMA to give to them if they are curious as to what it is all about. I used to hunt an area in central NY that had most of the surrounding landowners practicing 8 point or better with significant doe harvest. They started in 1996 and you could see the change in the antlers nailed up on my friend’s garage from year to year. In the beginning, lots of spikes and fork horns were taken. It went to mostly 6's and 8's and now they are all 8 or better. My friend started it on a small piece of land and gradually more people saw it working and did it. Today there are about 15,000 acres covering many plots of land all practicing one version or another of a selective harvest. There are still a few pockets of camps that shoot any buck but the results of the majority of the land owners have proven it works. You have to start somewhere and I think you are on the right track.

It does sound like it would be pretty tough with only 23 acres unless it is a heavy bedding area or something of the sort, however, having a sanctuary seems to be very effective so once the deer have patterened other hunters and learned they have a safe haven on your land i'd say your efforts will pay off a bit...i don't know the relationship you have with your conjoining landowners, but you could try to speak to them explaining the effectiveness of QDM and how much healthier the deer will be if it is practiced, but that all depends on their perogative about deer hunting...best of luck in your QDM

All but 2.1 acres of my land is heavily wooded. My main hunting area has one large "gulley" a we call them, and is loaded with the biggest acorn tree I know of.Every year they produce a bumper crop with acorns tthe size of almost silver dollars. So i usually key in on this area after the crops have been harvested.

I forgot to say that I started my program 3 years ago. I may be getting lucky though the other landowners are getting up there in the years and I have noticed a dramatic decrease in the amount of time they spend in the woods. One guy I dont think I'm really gonna have to worry bout cause he makes fishing lures and concentrates more on that than anything.

Last year I sat in my stand and watched 5 bucks come into a rattling sequence and let everyone of them go considering the best one would have only went about 120". But so far this year I haven't seen sign one of a buck yet. I am goin to go check my trail cam pretty soon and am hoping at least one survived and is just being nocturnal.

Well even if it doesn't help much i'm still not gonna start killing anything that moves I'll just have to find some more land to hunt or maybe start hunting public land. Wish me luck.