As far as locating the buck beds I will need to leave that up to all the pros on this site as although I've been confirming what I've learned here, I've only been locating beds for 5 years myself. It sounds like you have a good grasp on some credible sources for expanding your knowledge. If you have identified what you think is quality bedding habitat you are lacking then that is a great place to start. I personally have experienced similar things on my farm that had cattle grazing for 15+years prior to my purchase. It was a 5 year proposition to build quality bedding/fawning/turkey poult rearing habitat location dependent on the way it is typically used. Cattle and horses by nature eat all early successional growth in and around fields eliminating edge and leaving fenced woodlots biological deserts for whitetail. I decided on the diversity route which was planting CIR switchgrass, establishing sanctuaries, taking mature timber areas that bucks would typically like to bed and hinge cutting the exterior edge of 3-5 acre pockets creating exterior blocking cover and cutting specific gaps in the exterior edge which would funnel deer past my stands exiting bedding areas. I'm in hill country so I would typically leave many gaps at the lowest elevation around point so bucks could enter J-hooking into bed as others here have pointed out. After completely dropping timber inside the interior of that area allowing sunlight to reach forest floor, I cut up what I could leaving the treetops intact and bolstering the windrow effect along the outside creating a type of living hedgerow with the still growing hinge cut trees growing through the dead cut treetops. I would typically leave a few entry/exit/escape routes out of the area for slightly different winds and also to allow deer to evade predators. I would also hang trail cameras high in the tree on each of those predominant entry and exit routes and pull them once every 6 months(February-August) then going back to wunderground.com to analyze and see if I could confirm/determine correlation to wind, food sources, weather patterns, moon events in that order IMO.
Food/Deer Numbers - I'm not sure what your food rotation is or if you are providing true year round food sources never clearing the plate but if you are seeing the most activity on your clover fields I would assume deer are finding food there during spring and fall when clover is actively growing. These peak draw times are most likely correlated with pre-Ag growth after planting, harvest of Ag, pre drop of acorns, maturation of pasture bolting, going to seed/drying down. I would also recommend running a trail camera survey in late August (https://www.qdma.com/run-trail-camera-survey/). I had major issues getting any bucks to bed on my property until I built bedding habitat directly next to year round food sources stacking the does close, dropped the deer density on my property and better balanced buck to doe ratio(2 does:1 buck = realistic in my area). In WV's traditional deer management allowing 3 bucks to be harvested on a base license and charging extra for doe tags during gun season we have had 20 years of higher buck harvest than doe harvest skewing our buck to doe ratio. Each individual area is dependent on harvest practices but YOU CAN'T MANAGE WHAT YOU HAVE NOT FIRST MEASURED. I also moved one of my supplemental feed/mineral stations off of the ridge and focused all food down low plus never going up on the ridge for any reason other than to hunt and pull cameras once a month. Within a couple months my ridge travel corridor cameras completely switched from 75% does to nearly 75% bucks. Because I failed to be scientific about it and only change one thing at a time I'm not entirely sure if it was the removal of food that caused doe traffic to relocate which made bucks more comfortable to bed on the boarder of my place or the lack of human traffic that caused it although I attribute it to a combination of both actions.
Buck Habitat Management Plan
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- blueKYstream
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Re: Buck Habitat Management Plan
lmurray1080 wrote:As far as locating the buck beds I will need to leave that up to all the pros on this site as although I've been confirming what I've learned here, I've only been locating beds for 5 years myself. It sounds like you have a good grasp on some credible sources for expanding your knowledge. If you have identified what you think is quality bedding habitat you are lacking then that is a great place to start. I personally have experienced similar things on my farm that had cattle grazing for 15+years prior to my purchase. It was a 5 year proposition to build quality bedding/fawning/turkey poult rearing habitat location dependent on the way it is typically used. Cattle and horses by nature eat all early successional growth in and around fields eliminating edge and leaving fenced woodlots biological deserts for whitetail. I decided on the diversity route which was planting CIR switchgrass, establishing sanctuaries, taking mature timber areas that bucks would typically like to bed and hinge cutting the exterior edge of 3-5 acre pockets creating exterior blocking cover and cutting specific gaps in the exterior edge which would funnel deer past my stands exiting bedding areas. I'm in hill country so I would typicallyleave many gaps at the lowest elevation around point so bucks could enter J-hooking into bed as others here have pointed out. After completely dropping timber inside the interior of that area allowing sunlight to reach forest floor, I cut up what I could leaving the treetops intact and bolstering the windrow effect along the outside creating a type of living hedgerow with the still growing hinge cut trees growing through the dead cut treetops. I would typically leave a few entry/exit/escape routes out of the area for slightly different winds and also to allow deer to evade predators. I would also hang trail cameras high in the tree on each of those predominant entry and exit routes and pull them once every 6 months(February-August) then going back to wunderground.com to analyze and see if I could confirm/determine correlation to wind, food sources, weather patterns, moon events in that order IMO.
Food/Deer Numbers - I'm not sure what your food rotation is or if you are providing true year round food sources never clearing the plate but if you are seeing the most activity on your clover fields I would assume deer are finding food there during spring and fall when clover is actively growing. These peak draw times are most likely correlated with pre-Ag growth after planting, harvest of Ag, pre drop of acorns, maturation of pasture bolting, going to seed/drying down. I would also recommend running a trail camera survey in late August (https://www.qdma.com/run-trail-camera-survey/). I had major issues getting any bucks to bed on my property until I built bedding habitat directly next to year round food sources stacking the does close, dropped the deer density on my property and better balanced buck to doe ratio(2 does:1 buck = realistic in my area). In WV's traditional deer management allowing 3 bucks to be harvested on a base license and charging extra for doe tags during gun season we have had 20 years of higher buck harvest than doe harvest skewing our buck to doe ratio. Each individual area is dependent on harvest practices but YOU CAN'T MANAGE WHAT YOU HAVE NOT FIRST MEASURED. I also moved one of my supplemental feed/mineral stations off of the ridge and focused all food down low plus never going up on the ridge for any reason other than to hunt and pull cameras once a month. Within a couple months my ridge travel corridor cameras completely switched from 75% does to nearly 75% bucks. Because I failed to be scientific about it and only change one thing at a time I'm not entirely sure if it was the removal of food that caused doe traffic to relocate which made bucks more comfortable to bed on the boarder of my place or the lack of human traffic that caused it although I attribute it to a combination of both actions.
Our properties sound very similar. We have a lot of CRP/NWSG fields. My experience has been that they are deer deserts. They don't provide any food and the deer don't bed in them for the most part. The other connecting property is worthless fescue (with cattle) but deer can at least feed on clover and other things within the fescue. I'm in the process of doing what you describe in blocking field edges. I'm pretty sure I understand what your plan is and hope to do the same. Just to be clear, I highlighted the areas I'm not exactly sure what you're saying. Are your fields up top or down low where you are creating hinge cut edge/screening with a couple exit trails? When you say you leave gaps below ridge points so bucks can J-hook, do you mean you make trails down low going into bedding or clear cut areas below bedding? Are you dropping trees within the inner portion of the cover or leaving that go?
In the buck beds I've found, I've noticed that they were lower on the hill than I expected. I have fields up top (about 25-33% of the hillside). I've found the buck beds to be about 50-60% down from the peak from the few I saw. I'm not sure if that's common or not. I would love to do the trail camera analysis you are doing, but I think I'm going to have to create some funneling or trails before it's remotely effective. There's too much random movement to feel confident I'm getting pictures of most deer in the area.
What really puzzles me is that I'm not getting many buck pictures during Late September - October and movement in November seems random. Bucks might visit food plots after September but it's not often. There's no Ag by me, so I know that's not drawing bucks away. I know a couple of the neighbors bait, so maybe that's picking up. The only other thing I can think of is there is some mega oak grove they know about that I haven't found. I've gone to great lengths to walk every square inch of ground in years past just to find beds or jump bucks from their beds mid-day in October (I don't do it often, but I was willing to sacrifice a year potentially to gain future knowledge). It's a mystery to me where they go or where they hide. I haven't kept tabs on the food plot rotation unfortunately. With respect to the clover fields, one field in the middle of the property gets a lot of action most years from July-September. After that it's 2 or 3 pictures a month tops and it could be day or night. The others do not see mature bucks except a passerby. Interesting enough, the plot closest to buck bedding gets almost no attention from bucks
I feel like I'm starting what it sounds like I should be doing with creating screen/edge feathering, bedding and trails over the next few years. I am also planting some trees not real common around me like persimmons/chestnuts/pears. I trapped last year hoping that might help but it hasn't really. I suppose I'm hoping this plan will work, but I'm not confident or I'm not sure I'm doing it the way it ought to be done. I could think about this for 3 years and not be sure though. I probably just need to stick with it and see what happens. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It's been helpful!
Harvest History for what it's worth:
2012: 3 bucks, 3 does
2013: 2 bucks, 5 does
2014: 3 bucks, 6 does
2015: 3 bucks, 10 does
2016: 3 bucks, 9 does
2017: 5 does (I was the only hunter this past year for the most part)
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Re: Buck Habitat Management Plan
Sorry for the confusion but yes your property layout looks more like a property I manage in southern Ohio. On the southern Ohio property they have Ag fields on top of the hills and I've found quite a few buck beds below the fields in elevation and most of them were approximately 200 yards off the field edge but this is an extremely low hunting pressure area. On my farm the and most of the property in my area of WV the fields are in the valleys instead of being on the hill tops as the soil has been eroded up there on the narrow ridge tops. All the quality top soil ends up in the valleys. In your highlight above I was referring to building bedding areas on the ridge tops and spurs coming off those ridges on the easterly facing ridges/points/spurs. The elevation I'm working with is in the neighborhood of 1400-1500' with a pretty quick vertical drop. I'll try and get some pictures taken and uploaded soon to further visualize what I'm talking about in regards to these bedding habitat improvements. When developing these areas I'll focus on getting sunlight to the forest floor starting at a slightly lower elevation than the 1/3 of the way down in elevation and wrapping 180 degrees easterly facing from north to south. Terrain features such as logging roads natural trails and potential pinch points from drainage ditches play a role in exactly where I start but my goal is to provide adequate bedding cover for varying winds and also provide cover for him to stand up and move around during the day. When I say I leave the lower elevation side more open than the rest of the area it is for two reasons discussed on here in multiple places. The first is the J-Hook approach a buck makes when entering his bed as discussed on here and also cover in Dan's hill country DVD. The second is so the buck can maintain good vision looking down hill. I've actually only created one of these bedding area habitat improvements cutting everything in sight and only leaving a few holes to get in and out and bucks didn't use it. I think this was based on the fact the bucks in my area felt too closed in and due to thick windrows the bucks had a hard time approaching their bed from downwind. If I knew half as much about bedding as some on this forum I would most likely have a way easier time developing these bedding areas however I'm am still successful in getting bucks to bed there so I guess I'm not completely off base. The deer on my farm feed at lower elevation(900 feet) at night and then head up the secondary point of the ridge typically, walking out a old logging road at approximately 1200' elevation and then hooking up to one of their beds in the morning at anywhere from 1300-1400' depending. This is the way they are currently using my setups so its what I continue to do. I struggle in my area to get deer over the 4.5 year old mark so maybe if I routinely had an older age class of deer it may change my results.
Easterly facing Ridge hinge cut project
As far as NWSG being a biological desert for deer I agree but I like it for rabbits and turkey poults with the clover I've mixed in places it gives them at least some low quality vegetation. I have small acreage areas in NWSG(5 acres or less) and use it a lot for a travel corridor or food plot screen. I did not sign over any CRP area to NRCS but instead drilled NWSG at under the recommended rate on my own dime allowing various weeds/briars and patches of clover to come up in it. The most deer use I see in it is during fawning season when subordinate does get kicked out of prime areas to fawn and doe family groups tend to split further apart for a short while. I have seen on a couple occasions a 2.5 and 3.5 year old buck run a doe into it for a few hours each of the last two years. The location of my NWSG patches are directly adjacent to food so I've never seen a buck 3.5 or over ever use the stuff to bed in although in certain situations or locations I'm sure it could happen.
Soil Quality - Soil on my farm is great as I have deep river bottom soil however many of the farms/hunting clubs we manage in the area has very very poor soils as most of WV has been strip mined at one time or another and typical PH in our area untreated runs around 4.5-5.5. I lime the areas I want deer to feed and make sure and don't lime areas I want deer to just pass through. This is also a little secret I use on public land where I take in bags of pelletized lime and and treat natural browse areas with the lime to attract deer and the average guy walking by has no idea. The deer can tell the vast difference in nutrition and destroy plants in areas that have been limed.
Cover - I've also planted some of my plots to allow screening cover(Corn) so deer can feel safer feeding during daylight hours. I have never hunted over a destination food plot on my place although against my recommendations I've had some hunting club guys hunt over theirs I put in and as you can imagine it shuts daylight movement down pretty quick. Below is a picture where I literally have hinge cut and clear cut some areas blocking view of the roads and when I turn around you can see what the place looked like before I started. All of my areas are still a work in progress and I do a little and see how the deer react then add to it the following year.
Open Under story/No cover
Thickened up with hinge cutting
Food - Attached is a picture of the way I try and layout most of my plots with each one containing a variety of forage to keep deer coming to the same location 365 days per year. In this picture you have clover(march-June,Sept-Nov), Alfalfa(March-July,Sept-Nov), Soybeans(May-Sept,Beans - Oct-Feb), Corn/screening cover(Sept.-Feb or until eaten)
Corn and Soybean in Strips
Clover near NWSG the year I planted NWSG
Easterly facing Ridge hinge cut project
As far as NWSG being a biological desert for deer I agree but I like it for rabbits and turkey poults with the clover I've mixed in places it gives them at least some low quality vegetation. I have small acreage areas in NWSG(5 acres or less) and use it a lot for a travel corridor or food plot screen. I did not sign over any CRP area to NRCS but instead drilled NWSG at under the recommended rate on my own dime allowing various weeds/briars and patches of clover to come up in it. The most deer use I see in it is during fawning season when subordinate does get kicked out of prime areas to fawn and doe family groups tend to split further apart for a short while. I have seen on a couple occasions a 2.5 and 3.5 year old buck run a doe into it for a few hours each of the last two years. The location of my NWSG patches are directly adjacent to food so I've never seen a buck 3.5 or over ever use the stuff to bed in although in certain situations or locations I'm sure it could happen.
Soil Quality - Soil on my farm is great as I have deep river bottom soil however many of the farms/hunting clubs we manage in the area has very very poor soils as most of WV has been strip mined at one time or another and typical PH in our area untreated runs around 4.5-5.5. I lime the areas I want deer to feed and make sure and don't lime areas I want deer to just pass through. This is also a little secret I use on public land where I take in bags of pelletized lime and and treat natural browse areas with the lime to attract deer and the average guy walking by has no idea. The deer can tell the vast difference in nutrition and destroy plants in areas that have been limed.
Cover - I've also planted some of my plots to allow screening cover(Corn) so deer can feel safer feeding during daylight hours. I have never hunted over a destination food plot on my place although against my recommendations I've had some hunting club guys hunt over theirs I put in and as you can imagine it shuts daylight movement down pretty quick. Below is a picture where I literally have hinge cut and clear cut some areas blocking view of the roads and when I turn around you can see what the place looked like before I started. All of my areas are still a work in progress and I do a little and see how the deer react then add to it the following year.
Open Under story/No cover
Thickened up with hinge cutting
Food - Attached is a picture of the way I try and layout most of my plots with each one containing a variety of forage to keep deer coming to the same location 365 days per year. In this picture you have clover(march-June,Sept-Nov), Alfalfa(March-July,Sept-Nov), Soybeans(May-Sept,Beans - Oct-Feb), Corn/screening cover(Sept.-Feb or until eaten)
Corn and Soybean in Strips
Clover near NWSG the year I planted NWSG
- blueKYstream
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Re: Buck Habitat Management Plan
I understand what you're saying with the habitat work. I thought that might be what you meant, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. You make a good point about continuing the bedding area around a point to account for different winds. I know Jeff Sturgis talks about making the area "too thick" for bucks. One thing I've heard mentioned and seems to hold true to this point for me is that the bucks aren't really often bedding on the actual points. They are finding high points in between drainage ditches that most often don't show on the map. The hills I have aren't bit enough to result in huge runoff ditches on hillsides generally speaking. However, I suppose it gives them enough of a drop off to provide some security. Hopefully, I'll find some buck beds on points, but I haven't yet. I have the same issue with bucks disappearing but at age 3.5 rather than 4.5. I figured they were relocating to better bedding areas or something, but I've never quite found out.
I like your idea about liming spots you want deer. I never thought of that and it makes perfect sense. Your food plots look incredibly well managed! It looks like you have some great ground to hunt and manage! I know what you mean about shutting daytime movement down. My problem isn't always about overhunting, but more about how to get the heck out of there without spooking every deer in the fields. It's just really hard not to do. At any rate, I see movement shut down some, but then I'll see movement from individual deer often shift to other locations. After a couple times of that happening again, it's anyone's guess where they may end up. I enjoyed seeing your work!
I like your idea about liming spots you want deer. I never thought of that and it makes perfect sense. Your food plots look incredibly well managed! It looks like you have some great ground to hunt and manage! I know what you mean about shutting daytime movement down. My problem isn't always about overhunting, but more about how to get the heck out of there without spooking every deer in the fields. It's just really hard not to do. At any rate, I see movement shut down some, but then I'll see movement from individual deer often shift to other locations. After a couple times of that happening again, it's anyone's guess where they may end up. I enjoyed seeing your work!
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Re: Buck Habitat Management Plan
A couple other things I was thinking about last night which may help you locate where the bucks are entering your property to get a better idea of where they are coming from is to put up some mock scrape/rub trees in different areas of your property. I've never hunted over the ones I create but it will definitely pull nearly every buck passing through for a picture so you can get an inventory of the area. I place the holder in summertime which I will detail below and then cut the limb and hang the licking branches in early October. When I place these I use a climbing stick and hang the camera up in the air angled down on the opposite side of the licking branch in an attempt to not spook any deer using it. Again I pull these cameras at most every few months as I'm not really interested in using the area for hunting but just inventory for next year. I set these up on field edges where it is non intrusive access and I'm expecting nighttime pictures.
Mock Scrape/Rub Station -
Material List
- Post hole digger or sharpshooter forestry spade/shovel
- 3-4" Sch 40 PVC and cut a 10 foot length in 2 foot pieces which will make 5 stations.
- 5 - 1/2" galvanized anchor bolts and nuts
- 2 Bags of quikrete
- Saw - Reciprocating saw or hand saw
- Cordless drill with 3/4" Bit
Instructions
- Dig hole 1.5 times the diameter of the 3-4" PVC pipe and set the PVC in the hole making sure to either step on top of pipe or twist to seat it reasonably level. You want there to be about 4-6"'s of stickup above ground level.
- Take quikrete and pour 1/3-1/2 a bag around PVC pipe making sure not to get any quikrete inside PVC as you will want the water to drain out and not rot the bottom of the limb. Don't worry about wetting the quikrete as the ground moisture will harden it up just fine.
- Back-fill dirt on top of quikrete and tamp area firm around the hole.
- Scout until September! Then the second week of September find a evergreen tree somewhere where it won't effect your hunting and pick a diameter that will also slide inside your PVC pipe. Take your hand saw and rough up a 2 foot section 30-50"s above the base where you plan to cut it off but leave it on the tree.
- Give it 2 weeks or until early October for the pine sap to bleed out over the area you roughed up with your saw and then cut off the limb from the tree and cut it again 5.5-6' from that end and immediately take it to your site where you buried the PVC.
- Jam the base of the limb down inside the PVC and position it so that the mock rub you made is facing in the direction you want so you can hang the camera on the opposite side.
- Take your drill and 3/4" bit and drill through the bottom of both the PVC and limb at the same time. Make sure you get the hole cleaned out well.
- Run your 1/2 anchor bolts through the hole and run the nut all the way to the end of the treads onto the shank. Its OK if it is loose.
- Find some beech or oak limbs with plenty of leaves as they hang the best and drill you another 3/4" hole at the top of the tree and position your licking branch so that it overhangs over top of your mock rub.
- Clear away vegetation or you can spray it with roundup, rough up the dirt to get the disturbed dirt scent into the air and then proceed to urinate into the dirt yourself.
This has worked for me on many farms and provides a great buck inventory at the end of the year and helps to keep tabs on bucks that may disappear and reappear from time to time.
Picture of Mock Scrape/Rub
As far as you noticing that bucks are bedding near drainage ditches or not exactly out on the points I've noticed the same thing especially on the southern Ohio farm. I feel like with less elevation change and less "hard" terrain features like logging benches and very steep terrain bucks will find the more subtle features. Reminds me of how bedding experts on here talk about swamp hunting of which I have no experience. When they talk about where large sections are under water a buck will bed on a tree root ball to get up out of the water but when a larger point/area is out of the water they find a subtle difference to locate their bed. I've also noticed that the bucks especially when cruising in those areas they tend to jump from drainage to drainage bench especially when the drainage ditches line up across from one another in line with the prevailing winds. Below is a picture of the southern Ohio farm and a located buck bed near 2 sets of drainage ditches. We have got countless pictures of mature bucks in this area at the heads of those drainage ditches on both sides especially during the rut. As also discussed previously the does tend to stack up in the old growth field at the top of the picture just off the property line directly adjacent to the soybean field but the couple buck beds we found about 50 yards away from one another midway along that drainage edge directly downwind from where the does bed with a westerly wind. both of these buck beds are located on the property and as the does enter our soybean field from the old growth field the mature bucks typically enter through the fence gap near the closer soybean field bulb and clump of green tree which is actually a large oak.
Mock Scrape/Rub Station -
Material List
- Post hole digger or sharpshooter forestry spade/shovel
- 3-4" Sch 40 PVC and cut a 10 foot length in 2 foot pieces which will make 5 stations.
- 5 - 1/2" galvanized anchor bolts and nuts
- 2 Bags of quikrete
- Saw - Reciprocating saw or hand saw
- Cordless drill with 3/4" Bit
Instructions
- Dig hole 1.5 times the diameter of the 3-4" PVC pipe and set the PVC in the hole making sure to either step on top of pipe or twist to seat it reasonably level. You want there to be about 4-6"'s of stickup above ground level.
- Take quikrete and pour 1/3-1/2 a bag around PVC pipe making sure not to get any quikrete inside PVC as you will want the water to drain out and not rot the bottom of the limb. Don't worry about wetting the quikrete as the ground moisture will harden it up just fine.
- Back-fill dirt on top of quikrete and tamp area firm around the hole.
- Scout until September! Then the second week of September find a evergreen tree somewhere where it won't effect your hunting and pick a diameter that will also slide inside your PVC pipe. Take your hand saw and rough up a 2 foot section 30-50"s above the base where you plan to cut it off but leave it on the tree.
- Give it 2 weeks or until early October for the pine sap to bleed out over the area you roughed up with your saw and then cut off the limb from the tree and cut it again 5.5-6' from that end and immediately take it to your site where you buried the PVC.
- Jam the base of the limb down inside the PVC and position it so that the mock rub you made is facing in the direction you want so you can hang the camera on the opposite side.
- Take your drill and 3/4" bit and drill through the bottom of both the PVC and limb at the same time. Make sure you get the hole cleaned out well.
- Run your 1/2 anchor bolts through the hole and run the nut all the way to the end of the treads onto the shank. Its OK if it is loose.
- Find some beech or oak limbs with plenty of leaves as they hang the best and drill you another 3/4" hole at the top of the tree and position your licking branch so that it overhangs over top of your mock rub.
- Clear away vegetation or you can spray it with roundup, rough up the dirt to get the disturbed dirt scent into the air and then proceed to urinate into the dirt yourself.
This has worked for me on many farms and provides a great buck inventory at the end of the year and helps to keep tabs on bucks that may disappear and reappear from time to time.
Picture of Mock Scrape/Rub
As far as you noticing that bucks are bedding near drainage ditches or not exactly out on the points I've noticed the same thing especially on the southern Ohio farm. I feel like with less elevation change and less "hard" terrain features like logging benches and very steep terrain bucks will find the more subtle features. Reminds me of how bedding experts on here talk about swamp hunting of which I have no experience. When they talk about where large sections are under water a buck will bed on a tree root ball to get up out of the water but when a larger point/area is out of the water they find a subtle difference to locate their bed. I've also noticed that the bucks especially when cruising in those areas they tend to jump from drainage to drainage bench especially when the drainage ditches line up across from one another in line with the prevailing winds. Below is a picture of the southern Ohio farm and a located buck bed near 2 sets of drainage ditches. We have got countless pictures of mature bucks in this area at the heads of those drainage ditches on both sides especially during the rut. As also discussed previously the does tend to stack up in the old growth field at the top of the picture just off the property line directly adjacent to the soybean field but the couple buck beds we found about 50 yards away from one another midway along that drainage edge directly downwind from where the does bed with a westerly wind. both of these buck beds are located on the property and as the does enter our soybean field from the old growth field the mature bucks typically enter through the fence gap near the closer soybean field bulb and clump of green tree which is actually a large oak.
- blueKYstream
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Re: Buck Habitat Management Plan
I did some mock scrapes with accompanying licking branches last year. I made one mock scrape a few years prior, but it was basically my first time doing it for all intents and purposes. About half of them were used to some extent with 2 getting heavy use. I found a couple scrapes along the way. My mock scrapes were way less input that what you had. I'm not sure if that had an effect on my results or not. I noticed that the scrapes were used but not much. It was the licking branch that really interested them. I didn't hunt any of mine either, but if I saw pictures of a buck I was interested in daylight I would have. The yellow circles below are ones that were visited by bucks. The red X's were made and were not visited by bucks and only modest interest if at all from does. The yellow mock scrape in the SW was visited often by one buck I wasn't sure if he was 3.5 or 4.5 but always at night. I even caught him on camera during the rut bedded about 50 yards away for a couple hours right before daylight. The one to the N was used quite often during day by bucks, but most 2.5 and 3.5 year olds. The one to the far E was used extensively but only up until late Oct or early Nov and then all activity ceased. Cattle being rotated in could have possibly affected this one, but I don't think that was the only cause.
I may try your method and see what happens. I used cedar trees and osage orange limbs, and a couple oaks in mine. Each seemed to work, but oaks may or may not work quite as well. It would be good to do your method for sure where I don't have one of these options readily available.
I noticed the same thing with the way bucks move in the rut but haven't seen enough of it to say, yes that's what they are going to do on today's hunt. It seems that those drainages often lead to ridge top saddles which they prefer to cross which may be one reason. They seem to cruise a lower in elevation (parallel with drainage ditches) than I hear many speak of as well. Rather than cruising at the top 1/3, they often cruise at that bottom 1/3.
I may try your method and see what happens. I used cedar trees and osage orange limbs, and a couple oaks in mine. Each seemed to work, but oaks may or may not work quite as well. It would be good to do your method for sure where I don't have one of these options readily available.
I noticed the same thing with the way bucks move in the rut but haven't seen enough of it to say, yes that's what they are going to do on today's hunt. It seems that those drainages often lead to ridge top saddles which they prefer to cross which may be one reason. They seem to cruise a lower in elevation (parallel with drainage ditches) than I hear many speak of as well. Rather than cruising at the top 1/3, they often cruise at that bottom 1/3.
- blueKYstream
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Re: Buck Habitat Management Plan
I figured I'd update the thread for those interested or for a log or journal purposes. I'm new to all this and I'm sure many others out there that are considering habitat management plans are as well.
I developed a habitat plan, cut some trees, caged 6 pear trees and tubed 50 chestnut trees recently. I intend to plant some persimmon in the near future. Here are a few pictures of some of the work. It'd be cool if you followed my progress on my YouTube channel (Chip's Outdoor Channel). I'm a small channel and would appreciate anyone wanting to subscribe, comment, and/or offer suggestions. Thanks!
I developed a habitat plan, cut some trees, caged 6 pear trees and tubed 50 chestnut trees recently. I intend to plant some persimmon in the near future. Here are a few pictures of some of the work. It'd be cool if you followed my progress on my YouTube channel (Chip's Outdoor Channel). I'm a small channel and would appreciate anyone wanting to subscribe, comment, and/or offer suggestions. Thanks!
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