How to DESIGN a SMALL HUNTING PROPERTY | 18 Acre Deer Habitat Series [E.2]
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- čas přidán 14. 07. 2024
- In this video I lay out the plan I am using for the design of my 18 acre property for deer hunting! If you have not seen episode 1 of the 18 Acre Series, here is the link!
E.1 Video
• 18 Acre Deer Habitat S...
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What ideas, thoughts, or suggestions do you have for my property design??
How are you finding this design is working with the natural deer movement on your property after spending more time on it? Any large adjustments?
With this plan, I made a big adjustment to the property by adding a 1 acre food plot. This area used to be a spot with a very good stem density count, so the deer bedded and lived in that 1 acre area. After adding the plot, this changed the deer movement drastically. So many of the deer are still getting used to the new plot. Once I get the new bedding area established north of the plot I am confident that I will start getting a lot of deer bedding on my land and feeding heavy on my plot! It is a process and there daily movements were disrupted, but in the long run it will be an incredible enhancement for the deer! Excited to see how the next 4-5 brings progress towards a better deer herd!
I know that 20 different guys would have 20 different opinions and I don't know you so it's not personal, but when you said you want the bucks to bed off your property, I stopped the video. Human pressure is massive where I live so if the buck isnt bedded nearby, then we wont see him in daylight. Just my experience having bowhunted for over 30 years now. Nothing personal.
@@saypuppy Somehow I missed seeing your comment, def the goal will always be to get them to bed on your own land! It is pretty tough to offer everything on 18 acres, fortunately some of the adjacent properties around me dont have much hunting pressure so that helps! I am going to set up bedding for bucks, but they may get filled up with does fairly quick. Thanks for watching!
I dont mean to be so off topic but does anybody know of a way to get back into an instagram account..?
I somehow lost my login password. I appreciate any help you can give me!
This is like a video game, you have so much detail. This is a hidden gem on CZcams
Heck yeah, appreciate this great compliment!!!!!!
I have 21 acres and attempting to do similar things. Great job and video. It gave me some ideas and things to think about. Keep them coming.
flatfour76 that is great!! Small acreage can be really fun, glad you can pull a few things from it!
WATER... WATER... WATER!!!
Yesss! I did add a water hole into the property since making the video :)
@@swostillwateroutdoors: GOOD JOB!!!
Yeaaaa buddy!!!
@@swostillwateroutdoors: Watching your video and the plans you had to improve your property, I knew the potential was/is there, you just needed that water resource.
You have natural travel funnels with the dry creek beds on both sides of the property, and putting food plots between them and on the edges were/are smart!
CONGRATS on the vision you had/have, I'll bet you're living in a Great, Tiny Piece of Hunting Heaven... Well Done Sir... Well Done!!!
I have lived on my 20 acre homestead tract in Central MS. for 16 years. Many of your hunting tactics are exactly like the ones I have been slowly installing during my time here. I manage my land for all type of wild game, not just deer. But I will say from my experience there are some critical things to do in a certain order.
One is to carefully study your property to determine how the deer or other wildlife actually use your property BEFORE attempting to plan anything. For perhaps the first year of ownership, do camera surveys at many points throughout your land and keep a detailed record of what you see. It will astound you sometimes to discover where the deer actually do bed down or hide out in bad weather or from danger. For example, one of the best bucks I ever saw on my land had a special hiding place in a deep ravine that blocked the cold winds and hid him from view. From that, I learned to not consider ravines just worthless to wildlife. Learning where the deer hang out and how they move on your land will let you plan your own improvements to fit in with their patterns. It is far easier to hunt deer where they naturally go than to attempt to lure them to where you want them to be!
Second, create better deer trails. Deer love using the path of least resistance. By nature they are fairly lazy creatures. When I identify natural deer or other game trails on my land, I like to widen and improve them a bit. I don't make them more than 4 to 6 feet wide as I still want the deer to feel the trails are natural and safe. But I do remove obstacles AND I trim up low hanging limbs. What I have observed is big rack bucks don't like to use any trail that has lots of low hanging limbs on it. They don't like having to maneuver their racks around obstacle. During the rut, bigger bucks come from longer distances to check out the does hanging out on my land. Those bucks are not familiar with my property so they use the nice, clear deer trails I have created rather than just walking aimlessly through the woods. Of course, I have some stands in place to hunt those bucks walking the trails.
Third, too many food sources scattered about can actually make a property harder to hunt. If deer have 6 or 8 food plots to visit on a 20 acre property they may only be at one or two of them on any given day. But which ones? That means the hunter must try to second guess the deer, which becomes a game of frustration if you pick, say, a stand on a NW food plot when the deer pick a plot on the SE side of your land. I would suggest no more than 4 plots on a 20 acre property. The combined acreage can still be the same as 8 smaller plots. But a hunter has at least a 25% to 50% chance of picking the same plot to hunt which deer will visit on any given day. I also suggest clearing shooting lanes visible from a hunting stand which link the various food plots and plant them in clover. Most of the time, the deer will browse down these shooting lanes as they move from plot to plot, particularly if you plant different food types in each plot.
I strongly suggest the shooting lanes link the plots as many times the big bucks are not necessarily going to the food plots to eat. They are simply checking for receptive does to breed. And they tend to not enter the food plots at all but to hang up just outside the food plots. If they do that in a shooting lane, you may put that rack on the wall! Shooting lanes linking food plots will often be in different locations from the natural deer trails used to simply move about the property. And shooting lanes need to be wider than a deer trail.
Don't let anyone tell you that a small property, well planned and improved, can't be a deer magnet. Mine is. I hunt with a traditional recurve bow or my crossbow all season long., Guns hunting is not lawful at my location due to proximity of housing in a nearby subdivision. But I have killed deer, on average, about two per season on my property. About half of them were bucks.
My last tip for a small property is to NEVER hunt the same stand more often than twice in one week. Deer will know you were at the stand. If they catch your scent, see you coming or going, or otherwise know you are hunting that stand repeatedly, they will use a different food plot. Personally, I have found the best plan for hunting my property is to hunt only 3 days per week, skipping the other four. This is usually a Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday schedule for me. We have a four month long season so in those 17 weeks I get 51 days to hunt. That's plenty. If I want to hunt more, I can always hunt some other property. It is EXTREMELY easy to over hunt a small 20 acre property, particularly if you hunt it nearly every day, even if you rotate stand locations. Deer know when people have been in their woods!
One other thing I don't do is ride to my stands on my ATV. I walk in and out on every hunt, normally before dawn or after dark in the evenings. By being quiet going to my stands, being alone, traveling in the dark, and walking on clear trails, I don't need a flashlight. I can walk in and out in total darkness as there is nothing to stumble over on my trails. Using a bow, the deer never hear me firing a loud gun. The less you disturb deer the more they will stay on your land. Sometimes if I do happen to shoot an arrow and miss, the deer will all flee from a food plot but often several of them return within 5 or 10 minutes. That's what learning to be undetected in the woods will do to improve your hunting on a small property. Once or twice per year, of course, I will use my ATV to retrieve a downed deer.
Living and hunting on a small acreage property is about as good as it gets! Just as in this video, I can be in a stand within mere minutes after walking out my door. I'm literally hunting from the minute I step outside. If you can afford to get some land, do some improvement, and manage it right, you will have yourself a fantastic hunting property all to yourself!
Great video. Thanks for sharing it.
Some awesome advice in there!!!!! Love it!!!!!!
Just got 150 Aces. Completely clueless on hunting! Thanks a lot! Subbed.
Sweetness!!!!!! Sounds like you are about to have a lot of fun!!!
This video got my attention. I am in the middle of purchasing an 18 acre wooded parcel that is part of a much larger woods. I have been watching your videos and watching the progress and it gives me hope that I can make it as good as possible for me and my son. Hopefully he will shoot his first deer at this property in the future. Thank you
Heck yes!!! Super cool!!! One thing I will tell you is that my buck herd has grown exponentially since when I first bought my land! First year I owned it I had like 3 or 4 different yearling bucks on camera….last year I had 17!! These deer are not on my property all the time, but the reality is that even with 18 acres you can really attract some deer! I am now 2 years in a row of having a mature 4+ year old to hunt on my land which is not normal for the big woods of Wisconsin!
Thanks , liked this watch a lot
Thanks so much!!!!!!
Thanks for the info
You bet!!! Thanks for watching!!!!!
Love this video. I'm just bought 25 acres and want to create a similar plan.
Thanks!! That is exciting!! Have you started hunting on it yet?
Another great video! I’m working my way through your channel. Love the mention of mineral stumps. Learned about those from the MSU deer lab. Dr Bronson Strickland is another great resource to consider. I know grant woods and others use them too
Yes!! Recently I was listening to Jeff Sturgis in one of his videos say that if you are going to do mineral stumps you need to have lots of them in a given area for it to be effective. He said if you just cut one or two trees, then the deer will devour the new shoots each year and eventually that will kill the stump if that eating pressure remains that strong. So you need to have quite a few of those stumps to have it work!
Grant woods and Bronson are both incredible! Really enjoy their content and wisdom!
Good stuff man! You do an extremely good job at explaining things! 🤝🙏 A lot of other channels confuse and loose me! Keep it up man! I am a hunter out of Missouri. I am trying to apply all this on a 50 acre parcel almost all hard oaks and ceder! I really need help.
Thanks so much!!! I know for a lot of people, concepts are great but they leave a person with a lot of questions! I try to take those concepts and flesh them out so they make practical sense!
That sounds like a sweet setup!! I like just helping people out throwing some ideas so if you want a few ideas thrown your way send me a message over fb or Instagram!
@@swostillwateroutdoors Sounds good man i will add you and message you soon! Thanks for the help!
Thank you for the video Nathan. Two things strike me, in a negative light about the comments here. One- without walking the actual ground and using a marginal aerial representation there are a number of folks willing to judge details on a micro level from a macro perspective. Two- no one will debate Jeff Sturgis having insight to deer habitat but the armchair judges here are acting like internet fanboys with his approach being the only way. Jeff has recycled others ideas and putting out the content volume doesn’t make someone smarter. Others (Don Higgins, Jim Ward, etc) disagree with him and have the undisputed resume to do so before someone brings dislike to this… remember there is no “single” approach that works. Nathan shared some content three years ago- what are you bringing to the table besides “this isn’t the whs way!” Share something better highlighting your ground and the opportunities you’ve instead. Great video(s) Still Water Outdoors. Keep up the good work.
Thanks man!!!! And yes there are many ways to skin a cat! I really like Jeff’s approach because he does such a good job of logically presenting a system! It is easy for the average guy like me to comprehend and implement!
Might want to keep food all to one side and establish those diversity pockets 20-30 yards off the food plot and leave the back of the property for bucks. It would be hard to get a mature buck to come out into a open food plot in the middle of day light unless you have some candy crop planted. The small food plots might be hard to get stuff to grow in because no ag. so it's the only green forage around. Choose your seed wisely because I have a acre plot and couldn't get anything but rye to grow. And good luck and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works.
Thanks so much for the great comment! Yeah right now I have the main food plot established and should hopefully grow decent this year, I am for sure looking into doing those diversity pockets, really like that concept from Sturgis!! Choosing seed has been a laborous process. I want to go with a high diversity (10+ seed species) no till blend but not many out there right now and the one I have found is stupid expensive. Haha! So if you have some suggestions let me know!!
Great video with alot of good info! Thanks for sharing. I would definitely address which way the wind usually blows across your property and why the stands are placed where they are.
Not a bad idea, maybe I will try doing a video on that sometime!
Awesome! Looking forward to your next video. I can't wait to get my property finished. Just subscribed by the way. Thanks again.
Thanks!!!!!! Got another video coming soon!
I really like the video. I actually had a plan put together last year and I'm in the same boat of limited elevation change and food being the key to attracting deer in our "big woods/high canopy" setting. My biggest struggle so far has been finding a logger that will come out and do the cutting for the food plots/opening the canopy. Do you plan to do most of that yourself?
Phil Giuffre yeah that is really tricky! They don’t like going through all the work on small cuttings. You have to either find good connections with a guy who has a smaller logging business or do what I did and have someone bring in a dozer/excavator! I was fortunate my neighbor has an excavating business so we did a labor trade for him to open up my big 1 acre plot. I then borrowed a small bobcat to help clear two smaller plots but will be doing the rest of them with a chainsaw and sweat equity!
Great video. I have a new mini farm in North Carolina 18 acres. I am surrounded by agriculture and trying to supply year round food. My first field is 75 yards from the house lol. I planted 2 acres of cow peas. Planting my second field in Rye and winter greens. I hunt my farm for the first time in 5 weeks. Oh and the deer are digging the roots out of the ground on my mineral lick. Wish me luck.
Super exciting!!!!!! If you have some success this year, send me a pic!!!
@@swostillwateroutdoors Will Do! So far two shooters on trail cam. 1 big Bear.
@@mike39541 Oh wow!!! That is exciting!! Crazy to think you guys have bears that far south!
@@swostillwateroutdoors The largest Black Bear in the country are in eastern North Carolina. 500lbs are common. I killed a 315lb Chocolate in the Great Dismal Swamp last year. My rug should be done soon. State Record is 883 lbs. Shot by a woman with a 30.06.
@@mike39541 I would have never guessed that!! Wow!!
Nice Job. Im closing on a 50 acre piece tomorrow!! Im going to IG you.
Excellent!!!! Shoot me a message!!
@@swostillwateroutdoors sent
Re: outside edge access trails: how did you get those trails to cross the swampy areas? I have one spot similar to your east side and I’m trying to think of options so I don’t just sink at wet times.
Thx,
So far I have not done much riding atv's on my perimeter trails since they are not finished up like I would like them to be! The swampy areas are tough...on a dry year like this summer it would have been no problem cruising back there with an atv but on most years it would get nasty....one thing my uncle has done that I might do is cut a bunch of logs and lay them out flat in the wet spots so that you have a bridge so to speak! I will hopefully get to this in the next couple years but I have not put in the effort for it yet. I do have a small swamp drainage that is about 6 feet wide, I may build a bridge with telephone poles I have laying around!
I'm sure you get a million suggestions, but I say focus food to the front/middle and allow the back to be bedding. That gives you depth of cover for does to bed closer and bucks to bed behind them. Also allows you to access stands without having to walk through other plots. Always tough to critique by looking at a video, but it looks like you are doing a great job mapping it out already. Good luck!
Great tips, and totally agree!! Thanks so much and appreciate you watching!!!
Great video! Looks like you have a great setup up for killing bucks! I’m guessing you are a student of Jeff sturgis. I think he has absolutely the best ideas for killing bucks on small properties. Sure is a lot of fun dreaming and scheming of the perfect buck trap for your property. I am in the process of doing the same thing on my property. Thanks for sharing! Keep giving updates!
david kese Jeff Sturgis is the man! I learned most of this from him but have taken a lot of this from guys like Grant Woods, Jake Ehlinger, etc! So much good stuff out there!
He is definitely the man! I also have learned a few things from Jim ward whitetails and grow em big with Steve bartylla. I pretty much watch them all but for sure Jeff sturgis has helped me the most. Was wondering how you made those markups on your aerial photos?? Also I have a couple of small black ash swamps myself and a forester told me I should probably harvest the timber before EAB gets it but was wondering what I could do to improve whitetail habitat in those swamps . They are fairly wet and fairly open. Thanks!
david kese yup! I like Jim Wards buck sneak trail idea and if you notice, it took that concept and made a trail/food plot system that circles the doe bedding area! It is a great concept! Hopefully it works for me.
I have too thought about that as well, so far the Ash bores have not hit the trees this far north, but if they do I will probably harvest the trees somehow.
Just getting sunlight to the forest floor will make a huge difference. I am worried that grasses would overtake my ash swamp if I took the trees out....but one idea I have is to spray and kill the grasses and see what type of growth comes up. I may do that in a small test area of the Ash swamp just to see what happens. In the end, I think sunlight is the key to making an ash swamp more productive for deer, but it also might not hurt to keep it just for the sake of diversity in your property...it can create a nice edge!
Thanks for your reply! I agree with your take on the black ash swamp! I’m going to get some more thoughts from my forester. Good luck moving forward and keep us posted on your progress!
david kese sounds great! Will do and best of luck to you!!
What’s the status of all the property that surrounds you? I ask cause I’m presently looking for a small parcel and wondering your thought process when you were shopping for your property. Thanks and I’ve been watching Jeff Sturgis a lot myself as well I bought my first book from him a few months ago
Thanks for watching!! So my neighbors on all 4 sides don’t seem to hunt very much so that is really nice! But there is a ton of hunting pressure to my west once you get a 1/4 mile away and more! I feel I am right on the edge of high pressure but far enough away that I could see some deer make it through to maturity every year! Jeff is the man, most of what I know habitat design wise comes from him!
Only thing I wish I had was northern access to my property. Way easier to hunt a property when you can access it from the north since our predominant winds come from s,sw, w and occasionally nw, n, ne. The latter work best for southern access.
I like your video. Where your little food plot? Have you tried control burning in small amounts? Get plant trees
Smith Homestead my little food plots will surround my main food source to help filter the deer to the main food source! I have thought about burning! Makes me a little nervous to do it though so I would need some help if I was ever serious about that! I do have some fruit trees planted up by my house! I am thinking of planting some acorns around edge of main food plot to get acorns down the road.
Don’t be nervous about burning! I burn my 34 acres by myself (with little help from wife lol) you just need to do prep work before you do it. Backpack leaf blower, know your wind Direction and burn with wind blowing to your face First. The leaf blower will allow you to make a 4-6 foot trail down to dirt.
But your place being wet would think maybe hard. I did chestnut tree, hope for fruit tree, Blackberry, gooseberry so on. I have a lot of acorns trees. So been giving great idea on your plans.
Smith Homestead yeah I think if I went in and used a backpack sprayer I could kill off the undergrowth and maybe get it to burn, but if I tried a spring burn it is just so saturated I don’t think I could get it to burn, but down the road I may look seriously into a burn plan!
Still water outdoors I wouldn’t spray because how wet it is because wildlife would drink from that water. But sounds like your doing a great job. I’m new on CZcams and plan to try n do videos like this to gain more knowledge. Thank you for your time.
would love to work with you on your property and you could help me with mine. Two sets of eyes are always the best
Got your message!
Is the Basemap app for Canada too?
That is a great question, I know my current subscription only gives me the us but they may have an option of us and Canada! I may have to look into that!
What Topo Map app or platform was that?
Kyle Bevis hunt Stand! The app is perfect for designing a hunting property!!
Will game cameras spook bucks?
Yes and no...some deer hate cameras and others don’t pay any attention! I am using cuddelinks so minimum disturbance and scent is nice!!
What software do you use do design your property??
I think I just used hunt stand to do this one!!
U need no till drill! Worthy investment I made last year
Amen and amen! Haha!! Just need to find an extra 10 grand laying around ;)
Your property man, but for17 acres of hunting property it just seems like too many food plots. The more food plots you make The harder it is going to be to pattern the deer.
Thanks for the input and yes I agree! Since making this video I have scaled back this plan and I am sticking with the main food plot and a couple small plots to help filter the deer! Thanks for watching!!!
I know this is an old video and hopefully you have learned since making it. If you follow Sturgis you must know now this plan is not good. You have zero depth of cover. You have created the dreaded outside in property according to sturgis. Also your plots should be long and linear to keep doe from stacking up and occupying all your bedding space. I think Sturgis is the best in the business on small parcel habitat. This is literally a what not to do according to his inside out setups with corridors connecting all improvements. Food, room for doe bedding near by and room for buck to stack in behind. This property set up this way had zero depth. Not sure what you were seeing here. With a one acre plot the shape you have literally will stack doe the length of your property and that is without taking into consideration your other plots. If you follow WHS I strongly recommend you rewatch his videos or order his new learning webinars.
Thanks for the great points! Since doing this video I have cut back on a bunch of the food plots to help increase depth of cover. Always a work in progress :)
Still Water Outdoors I appreciate anyone who tries to. Put out this type of content. We all love deer hunting, habitat improvements and food plotting. I respect anyone that keeps trying to learn and improve and acknowledges mistakes. Some people let ego get in the way. Bravo for keeping an open mind. Sturgis is a hard act to follow.
@@richstafford1245 Absolutely, my property will never be perfect, and it will always be a work in progress to find ways to make it better! Thanks for watching!
Looks like a doe factory
Thanks for watching, could you explain that more?
Nothing personal but, just the fact that you don't have a plan for buck bedding makes it seem, feel and look like a doe factory, and you even said you hope the bucks will bed on the neighboring propertys!! Good luck hope everything works well for you!
@@orrinmiller820 Just seeing your comment now, sorry for the late reply, its not that i wont set my property up to provide bedding for bucks, it is just that the space is so limited I don't think I have enough depth of cover to really offer much secluded bedding options for a buck. I do plan to make bedding for bucks and we shall see what happens. Fortunately, the neighboring properties dont get hunted very hard so that is helpful!
I completely disagree with this video. You have 18 stands drawn on 18 acres! Subtract the area of the house and you have about 17 acres of huntable property. If you hunt 18 different stands on 17 acres, that's more than one stand per acre, you will bump every deer off this property, especially big bucks. Big bucks won't allow that type of activity.
This land, at most, should have 4 stands for access and wind. Next thing you're going to tell me is you have a camera at each stand. You'd be getting pictures of the same deer. You mentioned Jeff Sturgis. Jeff would not want you hunting 18 stands on 17 acres.
Thanks for watching, great point to make! These are just potential stand site options, I for sure don’t have any plans of hanging that many on my land. Right now I have 2, this season I hope to have 4 like you said. I also hunted my property once last season, so def not putting hardly any pressure on it right now. Great feedback man, really appreciate it!!
I disagree... If you've been around the Texas Hill Country, you see that deer and people coexist. Deer are more of a nuisance as they are always in your front yard or garden. I even fed a wild deer out of my hand before and have the video. To me, that shows that depending on the area, you don't have to have a covert operation. You can be active and successful. Just depends on where you are and what the deer herd's characteristics are.
@@claythomas9467 That is an interesting point, I know if farm country the deer are often used to humans, they seem to adapt better in those environments!
@@claythomas9467 He's in Wisconsin, where covert activity is practically the only way to get on a 5+ year-old mature buck. Old trophy bucks in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine, etc. where winter survival is critical act very differently from Texas whitetails. Mature northern bucks will absolutely clear out at any sign they're pressured. Yes, you might see some year-and-a -half or even two-and-a-half year-old bucks being that naïve in the northern states, but they are the 70% of bucks taken in the season. Northern whitetails in the rut, typically when deer season is open, also change patterns drastically and in a more focused way than in southern states where the winters are easy and the population per square mile is much higher. Needless to say, feeding is considered a violation of 'fair chase' principles in most northern states, so it's not like they just saunter up to a feeder.