Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

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Singing Bridge
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:13 am

Black Squirrel Wrote: Just make sure you protect them from rubbing and browsing. I'd recommend those tubes, also help them grow alot faster.


I'm with BS on this one (I love saying that :mrgreen: ). The fruit trees are really in harms way from the bucks, everyone hears the danger of browsing but forgets about the damage rubbing can do. Two year old bucks are the worst, and routinely plow small diameter fruit trees in the middle of the night with their racks in my area and they don't care where they are... I have my house about 50 yards off the road with the usual front and back lawn/yard. I have two mature dwarf apple trees in my front lawn right next to the ditch which butts up to my road. The bucks rubbed them so bad they plowed one of them over at a 45 degree angle and rubbed the crap out of the other one. I managed to treat and save the bare / gouged bark of the trees and had to put in a fence post to stabilize the one that got knocked over- remember these are mature trees with 3" diameter trunks. :roll:


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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby wappkid » Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:05 am

I have 40 acres that I plant food plots on ect. There are some good bucks that pass through my property but I dont hunt it very much I try to leave it alone for my family to hunt. I hunt several public places and and a couple of private places. I am going to hit it hard after season scouting. Hopefully I will connect on a mature buck next season.
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby headgear » Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:05 am

The group I hunt with has some small acerage in Northern MN that is surrounded by 1000's of acres of public land. I invested a lot of time and $$$ to put in a few foodplots thinking it was a cure all. We did see more deer but it didn't really increase the mature buck sightings. It also didn't help that half the guys I hunt with shoot young bucks. Not to mention everyone hunting around us also shoots young bucks so I was really just making things easier for other hunters and probably the wolves too. In my situation it's much better to target a mature animal by doing lots of scouting and hope a few more deer reach the age class I am looking for.
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby huntinnurse » Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:44 am

Black Squirrel wrote:Backwoods, great idea with the fruiting trees. Just make sure you protect them from rubbing and browsing. I'd recommend those tubes, also help them grow alot faster. If it's just a small number of trees, try to give them water at least for the fist year too.



Great idea with fruit trees. Plant some persimmons if you can. The deer love them as much or more than acorns!!!!!! But do protect them as the deer will get antsy waiting for the fruit!!!!!
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:46 pm

headgear wrote:The group I hunt with has some small acerage in Northern MN that is surrounded by 1000's of acres of public land. I invested a lot of time and $$$ to put in a few foodplots thinking it was a cure all. We did see more deer but it didn't really increase the mature buck sightings. It also didn't help that half the guys I hunt with shoot young bucks. Not to mention everyone hunting around us also shoots young bucks so I was really just making things easier for other hunters and probably the wolves too. In my situation it's much better to target a mature animal by doing lots of scouting and hope a few more deer reach the age class I am looking for.



Between not being able to shoot does in our Unit the past 2 seasons and the more scouting time we've put into the land our buck sightings have definitely gone up. Larger bucks, not necessarily mature bucks, but larger bucks have been appearing than we've seen in years past. I know a big part of this is that the public land across the road and surrounding private peices don't recieve pressure from drives because of the restrictions on shooting does. A lot more does as well as young bucks are surviving.
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BackWoodsHunter
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:47 pm

huntinnurse wrote:
Black Squirrel wrote:Backwoods, great idea with the fruiting trees. Just make sure you protect them from rubbing and browsing. I'd recommend those tubes, also help them grow alot faster. If it's just a small number of trees, try to give them water at least for the fist year too.



Great idea with fruit trees. Plant some persimmons if you can. The deer love them as much or more than acorns!!!!!! But do protect them as the deer will get antsy waiting for the fruit!!!!!



I've heard good things about them but pretty sure they don't jive with our hardiness zone in the northwoods... :(
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby gjs4 » Fri Jan 14, 2011 1:23 pm

Great thread

My gramps got me into hunting despite having two bunny hugger parents...miss him more with every experience i have afield

first off- do nothing w/o a plan/conviction. Teh ole measure thrice cut once deal

my advice, and i have been in your shoes is this...
hang a few observation (only stands)..see what you have to work with.

If youre going to work your ground- go to tony lapratts boot camp. i plug this guy often for he was thee best learning i have ever had with building whitetail ground. i have all the books (i mean all of them), weeks on the qdma forums, meetings, etc..... trust me here. Alot of the qdma guys have resources most of us do not.

Long story short- i had 14 ac of plots in 09, and 0 this past yr due to some big homelife drama. I also saw more bucks this year. Was their movement as defined- nope- but once you know how your deer work, and moreso your neighbors- the ball is in your court. Hunt the edges, with the right wind and based on what rut phase the patterns have deer moving in those places.

Could go for days bro. Will help you anyway i can. Good luck- make good moves even if theyre slow ones.
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby DMiller6868 » Sat Jan 15, 2011 7:21 am

I think a combination of the two is necessary to improve future hunting of the property.

A lot of times I find myself spending more time making a property "more huntable" for me than improving the habitat and land itself.

But I do enjoy taking the chainsaw out and going to town to knock down certain trees to create cover for the deer. I think it's important to provide the 3 main essentials for deer on your property if you want to hold them (water, food, and cover). I have found a combination of this and less pressure=more deer sightings and deer on our property. We don't have a "sanctuary" but we have bedding areas that aren't disturbed because they're hard to get into. If a deer can't get what it needs from your property it will be leaving to find it and that's when things are out of my control (such as passing on a young deer).
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gjs4
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby gjs4 » Sat Jan 15, 2011 1:50 pm

Do everything with a big plan in mind and monitor, and adjust, based on the success/failure.
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Re: Scouting harder vs, Improving Habitat

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Mon Jan 17, 2011 1:52 pm

Thanks for all the helpful responses I agree making small improvements as long as they are in the right direction is a good plan. We have hit a road block in the purchasing process of the land. Of course related to family drama. Grandpa and his 8 brothers/sisters own 120 acres together left to them by their parents. one of the brothers doesn't have the money to pay their ABSURD asking price while grandpa does but the brother seems to think the same 40 we want to keep is more his than the rest of theirs. He has put his foot down and put a halt on the buying process. The land is publicly for sale so when someone who isn't a relative comes to buy it, he can't be such a jerk.

That being said:

We wanted to put in 2-3 acres of food plots this year as well as the 100 trees I already ordered. I walked the land this afternoon plotting in my head then got the phone call that it doesn't look too promising that the land will be solely ours anytime soon. I still want to put plots in but working up a few acres of ground that haven't been planted in over 50yrs is absurd on a piece of ground that could sell a month after the plots are in. Any smaller plots will be demolished before they get big enough to support anything. That's where we are at now...maybe we'll just frost seed clover on some old plots and wait for the best. :shock: I can promise that I will make uncle asshat's fall hunting season the worst he's ever experienced :twisted:
"The history of the bow and arrow is the history of mankind." Fred Bear


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