private land
 

I have been having problems with the private land I am hunting.I haven't been seeing anything!!! Except for a couple of small bucks. I know I have huge bucks in the area so since deer season is almost over I was wanting to know what might hold the bucks on this 40 acres.

Similar issues where I hunt...

I'm thinking all the young bucks we've passed on are perhaps older now, and way smarter, and I haven't upped my game as much as they have in order to see them...

Though this year we mostly saw young/dink bucks, when we saw a buck, and definitely more does, gonna hopefully take another doe or two this weekend, and then we'll see what happens next year?

Food plots..............

food plots, water source, bedding areas.

I totally agree.

If they have these they wont leave. Maybe a food source has dried up and they are living somewhere else. Maybe a neighbor has a feeder out.

If you have food, water and good bedding they will stay.

If walmart closes for the season then shoppers will go somewhere else.

First of all, 40 acres is very little land. It won't hold that many deer period, bucks or does. If there is no food,water, and cover, then it won't hold squat. If you had a couple of nice bucks on the property, they may be dead now. During the rut, bucks will travel many miles. Maybe another hunter killed a buck or two that was living on your property. Some properties hold bucks, while others don't. That's just how it is. Like some have said, maybe planting year round plots can help. The problem is, everybody else is also feeding their deer, so it may be difficult to draw them away from other properties, but if you give them the right combination, they will come. You have to remember, a bucks natural home range, not including the rut period, is 2 to 3 square miles. A does natural home range is 1 square mile or less. This means your 40 acres probably isn't going to hold a ton of deer. It's not capable of holding too many.

Food sources all the way. I only have one piece of private land that I hunt and it's only about 15 acres. I have seen 1 x 3.5-4.5 year old buck, 3 x 2.5 yr old one of which I killed, 2 x spikes, and countless doe/fawns. I basically just hunt the inside corner of the field about 80yds in and that's it as I am limited to morning only hunts there.

How much time do you spend scouting and putting up game cameras to pattern the deer and then actually sitting in the stand?

You might be on to something there buddy. Also the big bruisers may take the best habitat in the area and run the juniors off to land with not as good food,water or shelter. I really don't know, all I know is to make it hospitable to does and the big boys will come in eventually to talk nice to them. Those slick heads will make even the weariest nocturnal buck loose his marbles and mess up.

thats what I was thinking