Deer Management help
 

I recently purchased 124 acres off my girlfriends grandfather it's mostly crop fields but it has 22 acres of woods on it I'm wondering if there's any way I can mange the deer on it and help build a better herd of deer there's three stands already placed on it and while I was scouting it after I bought it I found several good areas for food plots I'm just looking to get some input on if it would be worth it or not

There are lots of things you can do and if you are not planning to farm or lease the farmland to a farmer you can not only use the land for food plots on the edge of the woods but you could put in some fast growing pines for thermal and hiding cover. You don't say what kind of trees the woods is or if it is mature trees, you could contact a forester for some info on how to manage the woods for trees and shrubs that deer like. I wish I had 122 acres to work with. There are people here who already manage their land for wildlife but I suggest you give them more info about the woods and land so they can help.

I don't really know how to tell different types of trees but I know they are all mature and there's a 15 acre field that's on the same side of the road as the woods that I plan on planting some trees on I have a picture of the land but I can't figure out how to upload it

If they are on your computer sign up to photo bucket and transfer the pics to it then attach and send here. You will have to be able to ID trees or get a knowledgeable person to do it for you and learn from them. You have to know deers preferred foods before you manage the woods, which trees to keep to produce food and which shrubs deer like and which trees you want to help reproduce for both browse and acorns etc. Part of the reward of managing a piece of land is what you learn about wildlife while doing it.

I just called one of my buddy's who works for the dnr forestry department and he said he'd come out and show me how to ID trees next week so that should be a good starting point for me. Would cutting the fallen trees help anything I have a lot of down trees in the woods from a storm that went through this summer

Having your buddy who works for dnr view your land and teach you how to ID trees and shrubs will be a great resource for you. If your woods is a big downed trees tangle you might want to clean it up some, but I wouldn't make it so cleaned up it looks manicured, downed trees are part of the habitat. You may want to ask your friend to recommend some leaf, bud and bark reference books and a leaf and bud key that you can use to teach yourself. Sounds like you are going to have some fun managing your land.

I'm hoping to have a blast managing it. I plan on going out tomorrow while I'm at work and take soil samples from the spots I have in mind to put plots so I can get them sent in and back so I can start doing fertilizer and lime recs at work. Do you happen to know if putting any 28% on a plot while its growing would help or hurt it any?

I don't know and I would wait till your soil samples come back and then ask either your buddy or the farm extension office for advice on what and how much to use and when to apply. Good luck.

I work at a fertilizer plant so I'll do my fert and lime recs I just didn't know if anyone has used 28% on it

Just the way I do it. I don't put out mono culture plots. I step my planting from the forest edge out. I start out with thickets and bushes, then high weeds, then my actually food plot.

It is a multi year project and is rewarding for me. I think small instead of big and plant different plots in likely spots.

I plant for a variety of game and think of cover a much as I do food.

Ok I plan on doing little plots in the woods along with a big one on the edge of it I want to start planting in spring

Not much is going to grow in the woods, you need some light. Berries can be the exception, some need little light to do OK. Raspberries and Gooseberries do OK in low light. The trees tend to suck up all the moisture.

I usually start planting from the edge of the woods out towards the open, when possible. I always figure the roots spread as far as the crown does and start there.

Some plants do better in the dry season than others. One reason I favor Rape, it tolerates dry spells well. Grows up tall and provides cover and it is frost hardy. Young Winter Rape can be good winter feed.

You also have to think about how you are going to protect your planting, especially bushes and trees until they get established. The Deer will eat them as fast as you plant them.

As far as the fallen timber and other forest trash goes, you have to decide about the fire hazard. All that stuff laying around is good cover for many animals. It will also burn easily.

Read as much as you can. I picked up a lot of stuff by trial and error. My Sorghum plot this year was a failure.

My best successes have been Blackberries for Rabbits and Pheasant. Sunflowers for Dove. Dogwood in the wetter places for Deer, half sun. Blackberries and Dogwood will spread quick if you bury some branch or cane ends in the soil. Mixed plots with Corn and Beans was also a big hit. The Beans climb the Corn stocks and then flower, it is actually really pretty,.

I planted Wild Plumes, Vetch and Jerusalem artichoke this last spring. I planted the (Crown) Vetch on naked steep slopes. The Jerusalem Artichoke on the south and west side of a field. Wild Plume does OK in half sun. All of these come back every spring. I've been favoring perennials over annuals for a long time.

Every spring I start hundreds of new plants from the parents in my home garden and plant them on the lease. Or plant seeds I've saved from the previous Autumn.

Jerusalem Artichoke was a big hit with the Deer. The down side is it dies off in the early fall, but comes back from the roots the following spring. You almost have to fence it to let it grow up high enough to survive long, Deer love the stuff.

I've had mixed results with Clover. Rye is OK, but you almost have to mow it.

Have fun with it. Think in years and multi years, even decades. You have a lot to learn if you are a beginner.

If I leave some of the down trees and brush piles would it help bring rabbits in for hunting too? I would love to make it a great place to hunt all legal game but I don't know how possible that would be

Different kinds of Rabbits or Hare (Jackrabbit) have different habits. Jacks and Cottontail will dig a shallow bunker, sometimes in the open, mostly in the brush. European Rabbits dig burrows and do well in thorny thickets, so the Fox and Yotes have a hard time digging them out. Don't discount Jackrabbits, they are thin and built for speed, but are actually tasty.

If you have grass, Clover, deep brush,hedges or thorny thickets you will likely have Rabbits. Some Alfalfa plots will also help. They seem to thrive where deep thick cover meets abundant food.

Pheasant seem to prefer tall weeds or hedges, but have learned on my lease to nest in Blackberry (thorny) thickets.

Your woods sound like good Turkey habitat, but you'll have to ask somebody more knowledgeable than I.

Small game draws predators. Thinning out the predators can be man hour intensive. In an average year my (personal) small game harvest and my predator count is about equal. "If you build it they will come" and so will the predators.

Deer often prefer someplace elevated to sleep, often hedges or deep brush with a view.

I've found some good stuff here.

https://www.qdma.com/articles/know-y...-american-plum

Thanks for all the info you guys have gave me so far. I went out and soil tested all the land today I broke it down so I took a sample from ever 2.5 acres over the whole property

Daniel, see my pm to you in the upper righthand corner of your screen.

Hey Daniel, I see you are in Indy. More than likely I would think hard about putting in White Clover and Rape for your food plots. I've been pretty successful with alternating winter wheat in a few of my plots as well. You aren't that far from me so your property probably has mostly the same topo characteristics as mine for the most part. I would also check with your local feed store/CO-OP and see what they have to say about what grows well and where in your area. They are a wealth of information that goes dang near untapped by the hunting community for some odd reason.

Where at in Indiana are you? I'm not quite in Indy I'm about 30-45 minutes north west from Indy and I work at Ceres solution if you know what that is but I've never have seen or heard of anyone coming in for food plot help

Could you provide us with an aerial photo so we can see the way the land layout is? It would help everyone out a little bit more.

Off the top of my head a few things I would do if you plan on having this property years down the road 10+ years:

• Try and get an inventory of your predators.

• Get a soil sample done on the places where you will be adding plots.

• After you do that consult a state biologist

• Establish a "sanctuary" that you won't even hunt. If you can and can afford I would plant some pines in some of that open area you have. Establish your sanctuary with some kind of tall grass planted into the mix of pines. Plant it next to the woods or plant multiple patches throughout all the open land and on the border of the property to give them some kind of seclusion especially if you are drawing them from other properties. Gives them a place to feel safe while they travel.

• Limit your hunting pressure and honestly I would not hunt it for at least one season unless you have a bunch of does over bucks and shoot a few does and of course trapping or hunting predators. I have just started on the whole predator scene so there are guys on here that could chime in on that. Use a bow only (personal preference) just because I have hunted both bow only places and places with guns and the deer activity always seems higher with bow only places.

• If there is not a creek running through it build a "small pond" if you don't have one. I would personally put it near the sanctuary

I have a picture of it I'm just trying to figure out how to up load it I plan on doing one or two small ponds and making a creak to connect them

That sanctuary Brandon brought up is a good idea. All three of the leases I've hunted had one. On two leases it was near a border, one the lease I have now it is right in the middle.

One reason is when the game feels stressed from hunting or whatever they have someplace to go other than your neighbors place.

And another reason is if TSHTF you have a spot where you know there is a meal to be had.

Mostly the safe havens are bedding areas. Tall bushes (hedge rows) with good overhead cover, good view (at least in one direction) and multiple escape routes. Hogs will burrow into the thick stuff. Deer often prefer someplace with a little elevation and good fields of view to bed down in. The exception being Doe with young Fawns, they seem to prefer someplace lower, out in the open, but with tall grass or weeds, away from the normal bedding areas.

Spring mowing can be a dangerous time for Fawns, the Doe flee, the Fawns hunker down and won't move.

I would upload pictures of it with all the bounders but since I don't have a computer or access to one I can't post any. I have it all mapped out including where current tree stands are where I want to put more stands at where I want food plots at where I want to plant trees and do the two ponds but until this becomes iPhone friendly or I break down and buy a laptop and get wifi at the house I can't upload pictures of it

Send it to my email [email protected] and I will upload it for you.

Ok thank you I'll send it your way

No problem

The red is the property line the black is what I don't own the purple is where I plan to plant trees and tall grass the green is where I plan on one pond being and the rest in that little field I plan on being good plot and I haven't decided about the big field yet

I was playing around with the picture me I would do something like this well from where I live. I put the NE corner as the Santuary because most winds during hunting season come from the North. So putting it away from most human pressure and traffic will be best plus there is that small parcel of trees next to it.
Green= cover. I would do something like pines mixed with oak trees.
Orange= a tall CRP type grass, or make a few of them standing corn. CRP would probably be cheaper
Blue= food plots
and of course pick where you would want the two ponds to go. But this is like a ten year mangement plan that I put together off the top of my head. Biologist, forestry, etc would be able to give you a lot more information.

Thank you for that information I'll use it and mine when I talk to my boss about suggestions now my next question is today is the last day of fire arm season there's a week of no hunting before muzzle loader season starts but no one in my girlfriends family hunts muzzle loader so they are done hunting for the year but I want to know how many trail cams should I put up and about how far apart?

None, let it rest.

Just like oldtimr said leave it alone for a while. Then start sticking trail cams out during the summer and early fall.

Appears to drain to the Southeast. Southeast corner is the lowest spot on the property and a slight slope that direction all the way to the river/creek.

I don't know what the soil experts have to say, but IMO compost is your friend. Composted organic material over sand seems to be a good growth medium for most everything.

Good read. http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/2014/NA...ForestsWEB.pdf

Ok I've taken your guys advise and I haven't touched the land since firearm season has closed. But now I want to know if it'd be alright to go shed hunting on it to see if there's any monsters dropping them yet? And I also bought another 13 acres of woods today I know it's not much but it's bored by my family's campground on one side a horse farm on the other and it sits 1/2 mile back off the road behind a hay field anything I can do to prep this land for next year?

A little off topic but February is my month to thin out the Fox (or Yotes). I usually set up between a bedding area and a feeding area so as to stress the Deer as little as possible. A twofor, it spares some fawns, limits the predator spring litters and the intensive hunting the predators do in the spring to feed their litter. And the best pelts are often in Jan/Feb.

When the Doe start to drop fawns, they often pick areas with tall grass or weeds away from the traditional bedding areas.

Not mowing the weeds or tall grass can be beneficial.

The areas that must be mowed or mulched in early spring, I often work with my dogs to move the Does out before they birth and/or the farmers mow. A newly born fawn will just lay there and cower as the mower cuts it into hamburger.

It has been a pretty mild winter, but traditionally most managers try to limit spooking the game in late winter and especially during early spring and birthing months.

Sheds are often found in bedding areas. If you move through slowly and with as little ruckus as possible, it is unlikely to spook them much. Repeated visits, dogs or a general hubbub can stress them when they are at their most depleted and vulnerable.