Overall property management plan - VERY long
01-19-2008, 10:13 AM
#1
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Lubbock, Texas
Posts: 1,401
Overall property management plan - VERY long
I posted this same thread on the www.qdma.com forums, but I thought I would also post it here to see if I got anyadditional thoughts or suggestions. I also encourage everyone to read those first 2 links, they are very good reads.
I just finished reading this series of articles by Ed Spinazzola Property Setup for Maximum Deer Control and the article that North Jeff wrote on the Michigan-sportsman forum North Jeff's property framework thread. Both are great reads if you have a chance. I printed them both off and put them in my 3 ring binder that I keep on my land stuff.
Ed’s articles really are good in giving advice on setting up your property not just to benefit the deer but to be able to effectively hunt those deer at the same time. North Jeff focuses on this too, but they disagree in a few areas. (Ed encourages sanctuaries on the edge of your property, Jeff suggests placing them toward the center of the property). Both agree that a decent comprehensive plan is important before you go off making food plots and other things without thinking everything through. That’s what I’ve been focusing on the last few weeks.
My biggest problems are also some of my land’s biggest assets. 55 acres of cultivation in an area with limited cropland, and 2 seasonal creeks running through the property with some of the largest and thickest woody areas in the surrounding area. Here is an aerial map with a good part of the neighboring property included as well.
Here is an aerial photo I took of the place this summer. This is looking from the north to the south:
The neighbors to the east (320 acres) and west (1,000+ acres) both are not big deer hunters, the property to the north (700 acres) has 5 guys that spend a lot of time hunting it and I don’t know about the property to the south (160 acres).
Here is pretty much the current setup of the property:
The brown paths are deer travel routes and the orange paths are human access roads. The red S on the hill is my only stand on the property, so far it has just been a pop up blind but I was planning on building a box blind and trying to blend it into the hill this summer. I was going to really work on making it blend in with the hill, using natural stones and irregular shapes and then using epoxy and coating it with sand and dirt. It will be back against some huge (12’ tall) outcropping rocks and hopefully I can just make it look like it is one of those rocks. The green points are feeders. The one to the east of the stand is a spin type timed feeder that has always had corn in it, the one to the south of the stand is a boss bucks gravity feeder with protein pellets in it.
One thing that stuck out to me in Ed’s article was having a “Destination Field” that should be in the middle of your property. With the way that my land is laid out there really isn’t a way to put a Destination Field in the middle of my property. It just isn’t going to happen.
So here are my current concerns and plans.
I am thinking that Food plot 1 could be my “Destination Field”. It is approximately 35 acres. To the east of it is a large open field of 80+ acres. This year it was planted it cotton. To the south of it there is some cover for a transition along the fence line, but overall it is pretty open with some CRP grasses. I think most of the deer would follow the creek to transition into that food plot from the creek rather than coming into it from the east or south. I might could do some different things with this by putting in some NWSG on the north or south side of it and planning my plantings to have some tall cover type crops (sorghum) in strips through it for screening, etc.
Food plot 4 (5 acres) is too close to my campsite to really attract deer. I’m planning on using this as a bird type food plot. Sorghum, milo, sunflowers, etc. planted to mature close to fall bird season.
I think I could use food plot 3 (2 acres) as a good attractant type field that I could hunt over. I’m starting to think that food plot 2 (13 acres) should be broken up into some different areas, possibly planting some switch grass for cover along the south and west sides and breaking it up with a deer travel route running east to west about midway through it.
On my sanctuaries, I have a problem with several of them running together. 4, 5 and 6 are really all the same sanctuary with only an access road dividing 4 and 5 and really just a well used deer travel route between 5 and 6. Basically it is natural cover and travel routes through and around the seasonal creek bottoms. Sanctuary 1 is the best cover on my property and seems to be a dominant doe bedding area. Not sure if I need to do anything to it other than maybe some chainsawing to thicken it up where the canopy has blocked out sunlight to the ground.
From my reading it would be a good thing to try to break these up into separate sanctuaries. The only way I would be able to do this would be to clear some of these areas between them and possibly put in some attractant type food plots in their place. This is good soil so it would be a good thought. I hate to remove any large trees since my land has the thickest wooded areas in the area, but I would probably be able to try to pick a natural area and leave the largest trees while clearing the smaller trees around them.
Sanctuaries 2 and 3 look like my most promising big buck bedding areas. To the north of Sanctuary 2 the neighbors are not hunting that area at all currently. It is not as prime of area as sanctuary 1 and really isolated by the large hills between it and sanctuary 1.
Sanctuary 3 also is not quite as prime an area due to the distance from water. It is pretty thick and could be improved into some nasty cover with some chainsaw action.
The rocky hills are both an asset and a liability at the same time. They are some of the only steep hills in the area and they make great natural spots to look over the property. The one where I plan on putting my box blind is about 50 feet higher than the property around it, the ones in the northwest are about the same height. The one on the west edge of the property and the one in the middle of the property are more gradual hill but still are decent vantage points. Of course if you put yourself on the top of a hill with nothing behind you, it makes it very easy for you to be seen. The other benefit to these hills is that they do help funnel deer travel routes. The liability side of these hills is that they are pretty hard to move and they are too rocky to try to plant much of anything on them. There is some scattered brush and weeds on them, but there is no way you could plant any kind of food plot on them.
That leaves me with some leftover space on my map. There is a pretty large wooded area to the south of sanctuary 1 between the hills that I could use let stay as a fringe sanctuary area. I stay out of there and it is pretty prime area. The areas where I currently have my feeders are both decent soil and would be good locations for attractant food plots. Again, I am hesitant to take out much cover since my land has the best cover in the area, but it would probably be a good thing to put in a couple small food plots in those areas.
The last big area with no plans is where if you took a line between the hills on a north, south, east and west they would intersect. This is marginal soil, but would probably be a really good spot for an attractant type food plot.
Right now I am the only one hunting the property and probably will be for several more years (my son is 1 year old). The predominant wind direction is from the southwest (like 80 - 90% of the time) so I almost hate to setup anything that wouldn’t be hunted from that perspective. I also currently only rifle hunt, so I don’t need to plan for an archery setup right now, but I’ve toyed around the idea of bowhunting early or late in the season for does. From the where I currently have my box blind planned it is a 125 yard shot to the feeder to the east and a 175 yard shot to the feeder to the south. If I put in attractant plots I would set them up within 200 yards of the planned box blind to the east, south and west for now.
From reading Ed’s article I think I am going to plant some more covering brush and grasses at least on one side of the pond that is in the northeast corner. It is the only permanent water source. Along the creek bottom in Sanctuary 4 I get a decent pond for most of the spring and summer and into the fall but it dries up in the winter.
Okay, that pretty much sums up the current status of the property. My biggest weakness is where to put additional blinds or stands. Not really sure with 1 guy whether I need to or not. If I’m out there in November and the wind is blowing from the north it would be nice to have a stand to go to, but not sure where that would be.
This was more of an exercise for me to kind of get my thoughts in order and down on paper, but I would welcome any thoughts or suggestions that anyone might have. Really the property is in pretty good shape right now and I just started a 2 year deferment on any grazing of cattle so it should improve a bit more just from that. I get some government payments on crop base acres so I can’t put any trees on the fields or I would lose some of those payments. I’m contemplating putting some of it into a CRP quail buffer around the edges of the fields, this seems like almost a no brainer where they pay for the grass and planting it and then pay me an annual payment on it, but I would be curious what anyone might think on that subject. The property has decent turkey numbers and decent quail numbers as well, so I try to keep in mind benefiting all the wildlife although I really am not much of a quail hunter.
Thanks again for bothering to read through my novel and I would welcome any comments or suggestions.
Thanks, Nathan
I just finished reading this series of articles by Ed Spinazzola Property Setup for Maximum Deer Control and the article that North Jeff wrote on the Michigan-sportsman forum North Jeff's property framework thread. Both are great reads if you have a chance. I printed them both off and put them in my 3 ring binder that I keep on my land stuff.
Ed’s articles really are good in giving advice on setting up your property not just to benefit the deer but to be able to effectively hunt those deer at the same time. North Jeff focuses on this too, but they disagree in a few areas. (Ed encourages sanctuaries on the edge of your property, Jeff suggests placing them toward the center of the property). Both agree that a decent comprehensive plan is important before you go off making food plots and other things without thinking everything through. That’s what I’ve been focusing on the last few weeks.
My biggest problems are also some of my land’s biggest assets. 55 acres of cultivation in an area with limited cropland, and 2 seasonal creeks running through the property with some of the largest and thickest woody areas in the surrounding area. Here is an aerial map with a good part of the neighboring property included as well.
Here is an aerial photo I took of the place this summer. This is looking from the north to the south:
The neighbors to the east (320 acres) and west (1,000+ acres) both are not big deer hunters, the property to the north (700 acres) has 5 guys that spend a lot of time hunting it and I don’t know about the property to the south (160 acres).
Here is pretty much the current setup of the property:
The brown paths are deer travel routes and the orange paths are human access roads. The red S on the hill is my only stand on the property, so far it has just been a pop up blind but I was planning on building a box blind and trying to blend it into the hill this summer. I was going to really work on making it blend in with the hill, using natural stones and irregular shapes and then using epoxy and coating it with sand and dirt. It will be back against some huge (12’ tall) outcropping rocks and hopefully I can just make it look like it is one of those rocks. The green points are feeders. The one to the east of the stand is a spin type timed feeder that has always had corn in it, the one to the south of the stand is a boss bucks gravity feeder with protein pellets in it.
One thing that stuck out to me in Ed’s article was having a “Destination Field” that should be in the middle of your property. With the way that my land is laid out there really isn’t a way to put a Destination Field in the middle of my property. It just isn’t going to happen.
So here are my current concerns and plans.
I am thinking that Food plot 1 could be my “Destination Field”. It is approximately 35 acres. To the east of it is a large open field of 80+ acres. This year it was planted it cotton. To the south of it there is some cover for a transition along the fence line, but overall it is pretty open with some CRP grasses. I think most of the deer would follow the creek to transition into that food plot from the creek rather than coming into it from the east or south. I might could do some different things with this by putting in some NWSG on the north or south side of it and planning my plantings to have some tall cover type crops (sorghum) in strips through it for screening, etc.
Food plot 4 (5 acres) is too close to my campsite to really attract deer. I’m planning on using this as a bird type food plot. Sorghum, milo, sunflowers, etc. planted to mature close to fall bird season.
I think I could use food plot 3 (2 acres) as a good attractant type field that I could hunt over. I’m starting to think that food plot 2 (13 acres) should be broken up into some different areas, possibly planting some switch grass for cover along the south and west sides and breaking it up with a deer travel route running east to west about midway through it.
On my sanctuaries, I have a problem with several of them running together. 4, 5 and 6 are really all the same sanctuary with only an access road dividing 4 and 5 and really just a well used deer travel route between 5 and 6. Basically it is natural cover and travel routes through and around the seasonal creek bottoms. Sanctuary 1 is the best cover on my property and seems to be a dominant doe bedding area. Not sure if I need to do anything to it other than maybe some chainsawing to thicken it up where the canopy has blocked out sunlight to the ground.
From my reading it would be a good thing to try to break these up into separate sanctuaries. The only way I would be able to do this would be to clear some of these areas between them and possibly put in some attractant type food plots in their place. This is good soil so it would be a good thought. I hate to remove any large trees since my land has the thickest wooded areas in the area, but I would probably be able to try to pick a natural area and leave the largest trees while clearing the smaller trees around them.
Sanctuaries 2 and 3 look like my most promising big buck bedding areas. To the north of Sanctuary 2 the neighbors are not hunting that area at all currently. It is not as prime of area as sanctuary 1 and really isolated by the large hills between it and sanctuary 1.
Sanctuary 3 also is not quite as prime an area due to the distance from water. It is pretty thick and could be improved into some nasty cover with some chainsaw action.
The rocky hills are both an asset and a liability at the same time. They are some of the only steep hills in the area and they make great natural spots to look over the property. The one where I plan on putting my box blind is about 50 feet higher than the property around it, the ones in the northwest are about the same height. The one on the west edge of the property and the one in the middle of the property are more gradual hill but still are decent vantage points. Of course if you put yourself on the top of a hill with nothing behind you, it makes it very easy for you to be seen. The other benefit to these hills is that they do help funnel deer travel routes. The liability side of these hills is that they are pretty hard to move and they are too rocky to try to plant much of anything on them. There is some scattered brush and weeds on them, but there is no way you could plant any kind of food plot on them.
That leaves me with some leftover space on my map. There is a pretty large wooded area to the south of sanctuary 1 between the hills that I could use let stay as a fringe sanctuary area. I stay out of there and it is pretty prime area. The areas where I currently have my feeders are both decent soil and would be good locations for attractant food plots. Again, I am hesitant to take out much cover since my land has the best cover in the area, but it would probably be a good thing to put in a couple small food plots in those areas.
The last big area with no plans is where if you took a line between the hills on a north, south, east and west they would intersect. This is marginal soil, but would probably be a really good spot for an attractant type food plot.
Right now I am the only one hunting the property and probably will be for several more years (my son is 1 year old). The predominant wind direction is from the southwest (like 80 - 90% of the time) so I almost hate to setup anything that wouldn’t be hunted from that perspective. I also currently only rifle hunt, so I don’t need to plan for an archery setup right now, but I’ve toyed around the idea of bowhunting early or late in the season for does. From the where I currently have my box blind planned it is a 125 yard shot to the feeder to the east and a 175 yard shot to the feeder to the south. If I put in attractant plots I would set them up within 200 yards of the planned box blind to the east, south and west for now.
From reading Ed’s article I think I am going to plant some more covering brush and grasses at least on one side of the pond that is in the northeast corner. It is the only permanent water source. Along the creek bottom in Sanctuary 4 I get a decent pond for most of the spring and summer and into the fall but it dries up in the winter.
Okay, that pretty much sums up the current status of the property. My biggest weakness is where to put additional blinds or stands. Not really sure with 1 guy whether I need to or not. If I’m out there in November and the wind is blowing from the north it would be nice to have a stand to go to, but not sure where that would be.
This was more of an exercise for me to kind of get my thoughts in order and down on paper, but I would welcome any thoughts or suggestions that anyone might have. Really the property is in pretty good shape right now and I just started a 2 year deferment on any grazing of cattle so it should improve a bit more just from that. I get some government payments on crop base acres so I can’t put any trees on the fields or I would lose some of those payments. I’m contemplating putting some of it into a CRP quail buffer around the edges of the fields, this seems like almost a no brainer where they pay for the grass and planting it and then pay me an annual payment on it, but I would be curious what anyone might think on that subject. The property has decent turkey numbers and decent quail numbers as well, so I try to keep in mind benefiting all the wildlife although I really am not much of a quail hunter.
Thanks again for bothering to read through my novel and I would welcome any comments or suggestions.
Thanks, Nathan
01-20-2008, 09:59 AM
#2
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: cazenovia, NY USA
Posts: 2,973
RE: Overall property management plan - VERY long
Very comprehensive plan - and its tough to beat Ed's book for suggestions. North Jeff wound steer you wrong either.
I will comment on 2 things -
1. I'd probably have 6 or 7 Stand set ups.
2. The Big plot should your Destination plot - so long as it has a food on it that the deer will prefer. (eg. not a horse hay field for example). You should veiw the property as if the Big Cotton Field was yours - since its not likely huntable by others. This makes your plot seem more centered - in a way you are better off having it at the far end. Especially the North portion. Depending on what happens south of your property - you may have to screen it some time.
Keep you food plots away from the neighboring "huntable property" and don't push the deer off your property - and you cannot go wrong.
FH
I will comment on 2 things -
1. I'd probably have 6 or 7 Stand set ups.
2. The Big plot should your Destination plot - so long as it has a food on it that the deer will prefer. (eg. not a horse hay field for example). You should veiw the property as if the Big Cotton Field was yours - since its not likely huntable by others. This makes your plot seem more centered - in a way you are better off having it at the far end. Especially the North portion. Depending on what happens south of your property - you may have to screen it some time.
Keep you food plots away from the neighboring "huntable property" and don't push the deer off your property - and you cannot go wrong.
FH
01-20-2008, 08:52 PM
#4
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ponce de Leon Florida USA
Posts: 10,079
RE: Overall property management plan - VERY long
With just you, and eventually your son, hunting the property and the light pressure from contiguous landowners it seems to me that you are overboard with the sanctuary parcels. Put a number of stands out there for the different wind directions you will eventuallyhave to deal with and enjoy your hunting land.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
horntagger
Wildlife Management / Food Plots
8
06-27-2004 10:55 PM
