Habitat Improvement, It worked! Sort of...

[Chuck R.]

So all the effort wasn't for naught..food plots, feeder, planting fruit trees, letting the CRP grass grow, clearing my buck bedding area.

So, last night we had one heck of a windstorm. My Jon boat managed to travel 60+ yards from our pond edge , through our picnic area, taking down a rosebud tree enroute and getting a whopper of a dent in it's side on another tree. One of my two cupolas on my barn will have to come off or be repaired. A big old cotton wood branch came down a squashed a young oak.

Pretty much a minor bummer overall, but when I drive the UTV up into the 'Deer Engagement Area' to check my elevated box blind this evening, I run into one of the prettiest 10pts I've even seen with a doe. Without a doubt Nicest deer I've ever seen on my place, and he was out in daylight!

Obviously a result of my land stewardship and engagement area planning. Now IF only he'd have shown up during the season..

So I tell my wife, her only comment is "You spent how much and did all that for the deer to show up a week too late?"

Normal spousal sarcasm. It will not deter me however, this winter I'll continue my bedding improvement efforts, in the spring I will double down on my tree planting efforts.

This year I was only off by 4 days, next year I may be able to cut it down to hours..

 

[Armored farmer]

It will only get better brother.
we're about 20years in on our property.
That is my elevated blind in the background.

If you want to hold deer, you must have bedding areas.
the view from one of our stands

I used to farm this property!

 

[Ranger99]

Can't say for other regions
Around here, deer stay where they feel safe.
I've hunted at other parts of the state where
there wasn't any kind of activity until September, then the trails and pathways
got worn out by ATV'S and such until after
the first of the year. If they can get food and water and cover where they feel safe, they
don't roam too awful much. I've seen em
run away until they feel safe, then turn around and study where they just ran from
If not for their curiosity, they'd be nearly
impossible to kill

 

[Chuck R.]

It will only get better brother.
View attachment 1045242we're about 20years in on our property.
That is my elevated blind in the background.

If you want to hold deer, you must have bedding areas.
View attachment 1045243the view from one of our stands

I used to farm this property!

It's what I'm working towards, converting what's basically burned out row crop fields into habitat. Every year it seems like it gets a little better and I see more activity..

 

[Armored farmer]

It's what I'm working towards, converting what's basically burned out row crop fields into habitat. Every year it seems like it gets a little better and I see more activity..

I could have done better planning our area.
I basically walk through much of our cover to get to the blind.....not smart.
The blind is between the bedding and feeding areas....that's good .

 

[huntsman]

My deer management is simple, cut everything 10” and up every twenty years.

Let nature make the “food”

 

[mcb]

We have been working on our hunting property for 8+ years now and the quality and quantity of deer has improved noticeably. We have added several small food plots (3.5 acres spread out over 10 plots), we feed in the spring and summer and have several salt blocks out year round. We have take several 200+ lb bucks off the property in the past three years and most of our mature does are going 130+ lbs. We also have a healthy turkey, armadillo, coyote and bobcat population too.

 

[BigBlue 94]

Here is my 80 acres. About 50-60 miles west of you guys that are in the Tongie area. House is down by the "pond" by the road. Clearings and path was done by Whitetail Properties before we bought it. They left a 1000lb capacity corn feeder which I run from October until the green comes back. Its at the back of the big clearing. The big brown patch at the back is the neighbors.

I also keep a 50 lb livestock mineral lick out year round near the feeder. I suggest putting the mineral block directly on the ground. The minerals will leech into the soil, which the deer come back to and it becomes a scrape. They eat the dirt if there isnt a mineral block. They dont bother with it much in the winter, but do go to town on the block during the summer.

As you can see most of my land is heavily forested. Mostly cedar (good for making Holy Black), locust, and osage orange. Not a nut bearing tree in sight! The second clearing was becoming overgrown with locust younglings up to about 15ft tall. Ive gotten about 75% of them cleared out by hand, and stumbled upon a beautiful sycamore, about 10ft tall. I left it standing about 8 feet from the yet uncleared locust scrub. A buck used it as a scrape. Towards the back of the property is did similar to another tree. Left it as the only tree in an 8ft radius. It too was used as a scrape. Coincidence? Im beginning to think not!

I have a camera out when the feeder is running. Does, fawns, racoons, turkey, oppossum, bobwhite, and squirrel all visit the feeder, as well as other birds. I had about 10-15 different bucks show up last year; from yearlings to a lopsided 14 point monster. Ive seen a bobcat out my window and evidence of an active badger den.

I plan to add more smaller trails, a couple smaller clearings with food plots, and do some general maintaining. The big clearing is beautiful native grasses and I mow it once a year. Then mow random paths once it is seeding; to distribute the seed and clear paths for the covey of quail.

 

[Ranger99]

Here is my 80 acres. About 50-60 miles west of you guys that are in the Tongie area. House is down by the "pond" by the road. Clearings and path was done by Whitetail Properties before we bought it. They left a 1000lb capacity corn feeder which I run from October until the green comes back. Its at the back of the big clearing. The big brown patch at the back is the neighbors.

I also keep a 50 lb livestock mineral lick out year round near the feeder. I suggest putting the mineral block directly on the ground. The minerals will leech into the soil, which the deer come back to and it becomes a scrape. They eat the dirt if there isnt a mineral block. They dont bother with it much in the winter, but do go to town on the block during the summer.

As you can see most of my land is heavily forested. Mostly cedar (good for making Holy Black), locust, and osage orange. Not a nut bearing tree in sight! The second clearing was becoming overgrown with locust younglings up to about 15ft tall. Ive gotten about 75% of them cleared out by hand, and stumbled upon a beautiful sycamore, about 10ft tall. I left it standing about 8 feet from the yet uncleared locust scrub. A buck used it as a scrape. Towards the back of the property is did similar to another tree. Left it as the only tree in an 8ft radius. It too was used as a scrape. Coincidence? Im beginning to think not!

I have a camera out when the feeder is running. Does, fawns, racoons, turkey, oppossum, bobwhite, and squirrel all visit the feeder, as well as other birds. I had about 10-15 different bucks show up last year; from yearlings to a lopsided 14 point monster. Ive seen a bobcat out my window and evidence of an active badger den.

I plan to add more smaller trails, a couple smaller clearings with food plots, and do some general maintaining. The big clearing is beautiful native grasses and I mow it once a year. Then mow random paths once it is seeding; to distribute the seed and clear paths for the covey of quail.

View attachment 1045847

JMHO- I'd be clearing a good sized portion
to plant some oaks and hickory or some
kind of mast trees. If the cedars are big
enough you should be able to make a
few dollars from selling them to these
artisan type sawmills that specialize in
milling stock for these woodworkers.
I pass 3 of them on the way down.
The middle one only buys and mills
cedar and builds and sells tables and
chairs of different configurations.

Plant some food sources and the game
will beat a path there especially if there's
water and cover, but especially cover

 

[Random 8]

I have heavy coniferous mixed forest in Northern MN. For the second year now, a neighbor has let me manage and hunt her 60ish acres of similar cover adjacent to my North property line in exchange for cutting her 2 cords or so of birch spruce tamarack mix for her fireplace and sauna. Pretty sure I'm in her will, as she likes what I've done with the forest. She doesn't want permanent stands there, so I've done limited hunting from ground blinds. Seems the more I run the chainsaw, the more deer I see. Food plots of any sort are near impossible, so I'm left to manage natural browse, cover and improve travel corridors. Check, check, and check. I've been fostering my white pine which makes fantastic winter cover and have managed to get several stands above deer browsing height in the 6 years I've owned the property. Those will make awesome foul weather bedding in areas already used for that with mature WP overstory. Openings I've created and artificial "blowdowns" are becoming populated with desirable browse species and some grasses for bedding. Many does have begun taking full time residence and rearing fawns, and just this year, a couple of bucks regularly joined them. I missed a golden opportunity at one of the largest bucks I've ever seen while hunting. I've maybe done too well, as I had my first cougar on the game camera 2 weeks ago.

Right now I have a lightning caused peat fire burning under the snow deep in the interior. We'll see what that does. Might create a meadow, might create a duck pond, might create dog-hair jack pine regeneration. It's crawling through some brush, balsam fir and spruce/tamarack that I have little use for forestry or wildlife wise, so I'm taking no action for now. If it gets significantly larger or continues burning as we get near spring thaw I'll have to notify the DNR, for now it seems like BMP to let it crawl and do it's thing.

 

[Chuck R.]

Here is my 80 acres. About 50-60 miles west of you guys that are in the Tongie area. House is down by the "pond" by the road. Clearings and path was done by Whitetail Properties before we bought it. They left a 1000lb capacity corn feeder which I run from October until the green comes back. Its at the back of the big clearing. The big brown patch at the back is the neighbors.

I also keep a 50 lb livestock mineral lick out year round near the feeder. I suggest putting the mineral block directly on the ground. The minerals will leech into the soil, which the deer come back to and it becomes a scrape. They eat the dirt if there isnt a mineral block. They dont bother with it much in the winter, but do go to town on the block during the summer.

As you can see most of my land is heavily forested. Mostly cedar (good for making Holy Black), locust, and osage orange. Not a nut bearing tree in sight! The second clearing was becoming overgrown with locust younglings up to about 15ft tall. Ive gotten about 75% of them cleared out by hand, and stumbled upon a beautiful sycamore, about 10ft tall. I left it standing about 8 feet from the yet uncleared locust scrub. A buck used it as a scrape. Towards the back of the property is did similar to another tree. Left it as the only tree in an 8ft radius. It too was used as a scrape. Coincidence? Im beginning to think not!

I have a camera out when the feeder is running. Does, fawns, racoons, turkey, oppossum, bobwhite, and squirrel all visit the feeder, as well as other birds. I had about 10-15 different bucks show up last year; from yearlings to a lopsided 14 point monster. Ive seen a bobcat out my window and evidence of an active badger den.

I plan to add more smaller trails, a couple smaller clearings with food plots, and do some general maintaining. The big clearing is beautiful native grasses and I mow it once a year. Then mow random paths once it is seeding; to distribute the seed and clear paths for the covey of quail.

View attachment 1045847

As far as hunting goes I wish I had that to work with!!

Here's a pic of my 80:



As you can see I've got a little bit of a drainage problem in the middle, about 9 acres worth. We've also added a smaller pond that hasn't made Google earth yet. The place is more of an 80 area 'multi-purpose recreational complex' than pure hunting area. The 9 acre pond has been sculpted with coves and channels for retriever training. Along the dam is the rifle range (200yd) with the graveled in area a pistol range. Behind the pistol range is another set of berms with steel at 307yds from my bench. There's berms and tgts that go out to 760yds.

We're often hosting either shoots or way more frequently retriever training groups (Wife's hobby). With the amount of activity going on the place will never be great deer hunting. I'm also not tied into any other wooded areas, the place is surrounded by open ground/pasture and other hunters. I can shoot does and young bucks pretty easily, mature bucks in daylight is a whole different thing. Luckily I've got access to my neighbors 480 acres and his place is pretty good deer hunting.

Here's what I'm working on anyway (one of my hobbies). I get to play with the back 40:



Red arrows are rows of oak seedlings I put in last year.

For now I'm adding hard and soft mast trees, while trying to compartmentalize the open areas into bedding areas while maintaining the native grasses. I've got about 4 persimmons stands that I'm trying to augment, 3 of which are in the engagement area. This years focus will be 5 more fruit trees (Arkansas Blacks and Dolgos) and as many Walmart Nutall Oaks as my wife will let me get away with (and I can keep watered). I'm leaning towards more late season mast production. Every oak tree we find get's cleaned up and competition eliminated.

Definitely a work in progress.

 

[BigBlue 94]

JMHO- I'd be clearing a good sized portion
to plant some oaks and hickory or some
kind of mast trees. If the cedars are big
enough you should be able to make a
few dollars from selling them to these
artisan type sawmills that specialize in
milling stock for these woodworkers.
I pass 3 of them on the way down.
The middle one only buys and mills
cedar and builds and sells tables and
chairs of different configurations.

Plant some food sources and the game
will beat a path there especially if there's
water and cover, but especially cover

The plan is to definitely get a bunch of the cedars thinned out and better trees planted. They are so thick that they grow straight as an arrow. But unfortunately this stand is fairly young. Most are not more than 4-5" diameter, many under 3. But they are tall. No direct sunlight penetrates them and the ground below is nothing but cedar "needles". Since the cedars are so small, they would make good rustic furniture or charcoal for making BP. Or walking sticks lol. 30 years ago there were cows grazing this land.

We are also thick with lespedisa in areas. I sprayed most of it this year before flowering then mowed it down once dead. Hopefully that took care of a lot of it. Gonna be a nonstop battle.

The neighbors with the north 40 and dark visible patch has a small pond they redeveloped. About 30% of it is on our property. But its a constant water source.

I have a small JD 1025R compact tractor with front end loader, box harrow, and a single bottom plow I need to adapt. Its a nice tractor but kinda small for what I would like to do with it.

A note about the corn feeder... Its from Outback Feeders in TX. The distribution motor on it was not functional. I called em up to get a new distribution unit, and they sent it to me FREE OF CHARGE! A $600 motor and spinner. It shoots out whole corn 5 times a day to make sure the crows, turkey, birds, and deer all gets some. Otherwise the racoons pig out.

There is plenty of cover, and my patch of trees is the largest and thickest in a 5 mile radius. I tried planting some deer food a year ago but didnt get to kill the weeds and got the seed down a tad late. I am considering planting some wheat somewhere here, along with sunflowers.

 

[buck460XVR]

Ma Nature is great at providing habitat. The big storm

So, last night we had one heck of a windstorm. My Jon boat managed to travel 60+ yards from our pond edge , through our picnic area, taking down a rosebud tree enroute and getting a whopper of a dent in it's side on another tree. One of my two cupolas on my barn will have to come off or be repaired. A big old cotton wood branch came down a squashed a young oak.

Obviously a result of my land stewardship and engagement area planning. Now IF only he'd have shown up during the season.

Ma Nature is great at providing habitat. The big storm you mentioned may create bedding areas in one spot by taking down mature trees and creating cover with the debris and new growth, while at the same time flooding or just time marching on will reduce those same areas in another spot. Many times after a storm, especially in the winter months, I find deer in areas where blowdowns have created browse by bringing down new growth and buds, that were before the storm, out of reach. At the same time, I see old mature trees that once housed owls and wood ducks, were favorite roost sites for turkeys, laying on the ground, no longer good for anything. I see old deer trails, now made into a gully, because they were worn down without anything to hold the ground in place and the heavy rains washed the unprotected ground downhill. Deer now move their main trails to a easier traveled spot, but may still use the new gully as an escape route. Ma Nature can be fickle, but her plans are of a much longer time frame than ours.

I applaud anyone who does work to improve wildlife habitat. Generally what helps deer also helps gamebirds, turkeys and other types of wildlife. Cleaning up blowdowns and creating brush piles make for more rabbits and more predators that feed on them. Unfortunately, many times folks focus too hard on deer and destroy crucial habitat, beneficial to other wildlife that is struggling more than the deer. True stewardship not only looks out for deer, but everything that resides in the ecosystem of the area. This includes plants and their growth. I too have struggled for many years with trying to improve things on my son's acreage. While the property is a great place to bow hunt in early season because of the varied Ag crops surrounding it and really shines during the rut because it is a main travel corridor between those Ag lands, during the regular gun season, it can be tough unless you are not picky about what you shoot. Hard to get into without pushing the deer out and they need to get past too many other folks first to get back home. They tend to go to much larger areas of heavy cover and stay there. All the food plots in the world do not keep them there during daylight hours till weeks after the gun season ends. Come late December, they are on the food plots all day long without much of a care in the world, because they haven;t felt any pressure for weeks. The property is just too small to make be able to make a difference. This is true for many folks. While we can do everything in our power to make things better, there is no promise we can make it exactly what we want.

That buck may have very well been there during the gun season, just not vulnerable during hunting hours. He could have been pushed to your spot because of the storm and the some of the resulting consequences of it. Could be the "hot" doe brought him there from 2 miles away. One stand I have for bow season gives me a view of the whole valley we are in. The valley is several miles long with open fields alternating throughout it length. Many times I see bucks chasing a doe half a mile a way, only to watch them cross several of those open spots, before ending up below my stand. Not locals, but there because of the travel corridor. Sometimes you have to live with what you have.

Keep up you good work. If nothing else, attempts at improving one's property does improve one's confidence in the spot and increase the motivation to get out. Many times, this works more than the improvements we make.

 

[BigBlue 94]

My main focus is quail. Ive got deer and turkey for days. Heres a video of me sneaking up on a flock of turkey at the feeder. The 1 minute mark is where things start.



Ive got one great covey of quail at least, with over ten birds in it. I hear and see them quite often. Kinda surprising since we are lousy with coons and there's that badger den too. Need to have a neighbor bring the coonhounds over some night and have some fun. He used to run em on this property years before we bought it.

Kinda neat, I grew up on a 40 acre watershed a mile northeast of this property. I drove by it every single day for the first 22 years of my life. Then one day i see its for sale, for under 200k. Jumped on it so fast. Used to see a grizzled gray old man whitetail going in and out of these woods. He was the most beautiful deer I have ever seen in person. Had massive moose shape paddle antlers. I am pretty positive he evaded lead every single year and died of old age. Saw him for probably 10 years. Plenty of time to pass them genes on.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

Sure looks to be a real nice property there BB 94.
I hope you have fun improving it over the years. Oh, and in the "old days" those ceders would have been cut for fence posts at that size or used for rail fence. Though your interest in making BP I find commendable.

Edit: Just watched your video, that's a nice flock of turkeys.