Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting For those that have to work deer land, what's the #1 item that best benefit you?

I realize that a lot of land in the midwest and such is very well laid out, lots of farmed food, etc. but where I live in the southeast it's thick scrubby new growth and dense forest. Food can be hit or miss and the agriculture is nonexistent. Therefore, we have to work deer land with food plots, mineral sites, feeders, etc. to have a good season the next fall.

If you work your deer land, what's the one thing that you would say that is the biggest benefit to your deer and your success next fall???

Scouting.

I would wager that 70% of folks from this site could scout the lands I deer hunt and would say, "I wouldn't waste my time hanging a stand anywhere in here."

LOL... Just saying... It's land, but it's not remotely paradise.

Scouting...and find places where you can see.

Nevertheless ......

OK, aside "Scouting", what Improvements do you do to your land that seem to bring about the most benefits for your next fall's hunting season?

Clear some lanes, and set up the logs and slash as an artificial barrier.

Sure the deer can get through it, or even hide in it if they wanted, but they aren't stupid and would just assume avoid a hassle if possible.

Set the stuff up to divert them to a pinch point.

Rain.

Unfortunately, it is quite out of our control.

Select improvement of NATIVE habitat.
But I do keep planting soft mast trees like there's no tomorrow.

When the timber companies NUKED our land, I lost years of planting and fertilizing.

I plant the biggest plots that I can,we have one area where we have one half mile of pipeline right of way. I limed and planted the whole thing except for a short landline buffer on each side.

That gives me a 800 yard long food plot-shooting lane. Which I always plant in wheat,oats,crimson,and ladino clover(this year we switched to Durano clover).

I also built a good permanent stand in the middle of this area so my maximum shot distance is 400 yards,with a good shooting rest. The clover provides food in spring and summer.

This kind of stand beats nearly anything else in thick country for hunting mature bucks. They will cross the openings,especially during the rut.

I also create mineral licks using a mixture of trace minerals and tricalcium phosphate. They really like this stuff and you can get lots of pictures over it when bucks are in velvet.

When I fertilize the food plot,I make sure and put plenty of fertilizer into the woods on the edge on the plot,this makes natural browse sweeter,and helps mast producers too.

don't think too much in to it

Can you translate that into English, please?

D2D,

Controlled burns are good, maybe one of the best, but expensive.

We mostly just put in plots to get game to the spring green up. They usually leave the plots alone after green up. Feeders are good for keeping them around, although I personally don't feel it aids their health much unless you can force them to eat it such as the high fence ranches. We feed to keep game on our properties and take pictures, but have the best luck killing mature deer well away from feed.

The last 5 bucks(deer) I've shot weren't scouted. Saw them each one time.

100% total luck and very exciting. Shot one antelope buck 2 years ago that I knew about pre-hunt, that is actually the only critter I scouted in my entire life. At least not counting vermin.


As far as farm land, whitetail deer love alfalfa fields.

30 acres native grass, 108 acres woods, 2 ponds and 7 acres in 3 food plots. Over the years I've planted sorghum, milo, wheat, turnips, oats, and some combination mixes from the conservation dept. I've had the best results from wheat and turnips.

I've got stands around the food plots and in the woods over looking some trails but I try and leave the bedding and thickest areas alone.

For me and my area I've killed some nice ones but you don't have to go too far to see some nicer ones.

I'm happy.

Well in years past, on my property in CT, I depended on my neighbors to push deer to me and boy did they ever. But most all of them have stopped hunting do to age or other reasons. What I have done was some selective logging, I got a lot of deer hanging around a lot now. I did it six years ago. Right now I have a logger and Forester marking all the junk trees and the sick ones. That should over the next few years to produce good acorn crops. I am also going to lay down some mineral licks. and I an thinking about putting up to 5 acres into a food plot. I am thinking alfalfa. I was out this morning walking around, lots of deer around. So my pre season scouting it telling me that the deer are doing well this winter, 2012 should be a good year.

Okay, in that term, I hunt it and kill animals within it and thus, it's improved. Other than that, I don't artificially tamper with any of the ecosystems I hunt, whether they're Sonoran desert or sub-arctic wilderness or anything in between.

there's your first mistake

At almost 100% opportunity rate, no mistakes were made in that sense.