Our New Farm Working Towards QDM

[Deck78]

We bought a 70 acre place last year and were lucky enough to have some money left in the budget to begin some improvements for drawing in our local deer herd and making the property more accessible for hunting. A big thanks up front to all the people that have taken time over the years to share what they have done to their properties to improve their overall success and enjoyment as it has certainly given us plenty of ideas for how to start on ours. Here's a few photos and updates as to what we have and are doing. The property has a year around creek and is planted white oaks and pines. It is only 70 acres but everyone that has been out there tells us it has to be at least a 100 based upon how the property lies. I don't disagree with them. It seems like we have a lot of area to cover which is awesome. There are approxiamately 30 acres in pines. The big front field needs a lot of work but we are hoping to eventually selectively plant fruit and nut trees and intersperse those with some perrenial plots as the years continue. We have to also plant some additional foilage along the field line where the road is to deter road hunters. Our terrain is flat to gentle slopes in the front of the property leading to several steep ridges in the back that plateau where our property meets a large timber parcel. Along a lot of the creek is deep cane thickets where we have a lot of deer bedding down.



This is a 2013 aerial so none of our clearcuts and roads are visible so I marked them as follows:
- red is dozer cut roads to get around property and create avenues between all our hunting areas
- green is cleared food plots planted in forage oats and crimson clover this year. we plan to do soil analysis next year and begin the lime and fertilization process but we couldn't help ourselves and had to spread a little seed this year!
- blue houses are the semi-permanent shooting houses we installed for dad. We used Squirts Custom Shooting Houses out of KY per the recommendations of several members on here and we couldn't be happier with Squirt. He charges a great price for a great product and dad is really excited to break them in. Squirt's ph # - 270-339-4025

 

[Deck78]

A few more shots







I can't figure out how to upload more than 3 photos to a post so I gotta figure that out before I keep flooding this site :D

 

[SKFOOTER]

Best of luck to ya but unless your adjoining landowners practice quality deer management right along with you it's gonna be a hopeless case.

 

[Climber]

Yea, don't worry about what the neighbors do and keep the faith. I had 80acres a while back and ended up never shooting a deer on it while my neighbors smoked anything that walked. It is fun and rewarding knowing that you are doing your part to improve as much as possible.

 

[BULL MOOSE]

Looks great to me… What county?

 

[Deck78]

Thanks fellas! We are excited to see how it shapes up. We are in Hickman co

 

[Boll Weevil]

Looking good...really like those shooting houses.

 

[TheLBLman]

It is fun and rewarding knowing that you are doing your part to improve as much as possible.

I totally agree.
However, with 100 acres or less, the outcome of "your" deer management is often effected more by what is occurring on the surrounding 1,000 acres. Do what you can, and often your actions will influence others to behave similarly.

 

[Rjratliff1975]

Great looking property. I think all your hard work will definitely pay off in the future.

 

[spoonie]

Hickman County produces some studs! Good Luck this Season

 

[biglieslittletruth]

we reap what we sow have fun working on your place and enjoy the fruits of your labor

 

[Mike Belt]

A labor of love always reaps benefits. In the scheme of things, 70 acres isn't a lot of land but it can be made attractive enough to draw and hold deer. I once hunted a 58 acre parcel that just happened to be an area the deer passed through from all directions headed wherever they were going. I had the chance to buy it cheap and didn't. I regret that to this day. I don't think you'll be able to do much in the way of a management program unless your surrounding neighbors are on board with you but you can manage what comes off of you. I'd be careful to not over hunt it. It's easy to pressure the deer off of you. Good luck.

 

[csi-tech]

Hey, you can create cover, food, water and make it more attractive in a number of ways. Large plots of cheap land are gone. 70 acres is a great size to work. Good luck!

 

[RatSlayer]

That's awesome man, hopefully I can buy something like that with a couple of my buddies some day!


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[TheLBLman]

I agree with Mike, and just to clarify and add to what he said . . . . . . .

I don't think you'll be able to do much in the way of a DEER management program unless your surrounding neighbors are on board with you but you can manage what comes off of you. I'd be careful to not over hunt it. It's easy to pressure the deer off of you. Good luck.

You can do a great job (and enjoy doing it) with HABITAT management.
Related, but DEER management is a different issue.
I would expect most "your" deer will still be spending the majority of their time outside your property's boundaries, no matter how great the habitat inside those boundaries.

Your biggest challenge may be in not "over hunting" the parcel. With more than 1 person on 70 acres, and perhaps everyone "wanting" to kill a deer, everyone needs to understand which harvest goals are realistic, which are not, on an ongoing sustainability basis. It's entirely plausible you could kill several nice bucks on only 70 acres the first year, but what's "sustainable" ongoing? Should you kill a large number that 1st year, how might that effect the subsequent years?

I'm saying this in the context of seeing very large hunting clubs, with thousands of acres of contiguous property, often finding that an ongoing sustainable harvest, year after year, may be something like 1 antlered buck per 100 acres. Every property is different, and obviously great habitat uniformly spread over thousands of acres can support a higher annual harvest. Just saying, if we mapped out the surrounding 930 acres around you, there's typically probably going to be somewhere in the ballpark of 10 antlered bucks killed on a typical thousand acres in much of Tennessee. If more are killed in one portion of it, typically fewer will be killed in another portion.

Also, within any area of hundreds of acres, deer are very good at quickly finding the least disturbed areas. What this means is if there is another 70-acre area near you which just happens to be totally un-hunted, "your" deer may be there more of the time during the season (especially during daylight), even if you have the better bedding habitat.

As stated in an earlier post, regarding the deer management, the outcome may have more to do with what's going on with the surrounding property. The good news is your actions may greatly influence the actions of others who control and/or hunt much of that surrounding property.

Be a leader :)

 

[Deck78]

Thanks LBL for the input! Agree with all points everyo e has shared. I'm aware we cannot control anything outside of our small parcel but we are still sticking to mgmt principles bc overall if everyone started working on these goals it wouldnt matter if you owned 100 acres or 1000 acres, overall we would see better deer being harvested. Our saving grace for our property is that we are surrounded by a lot of rural acres that are hunted but are not crawling with men in orange. I have 3 other great properties to hunt so we are trying to stay off this property until prime time and then see what we can see!

 

[RobbyW]

Best of luck to ya but unless your adjoining landowners practice quality deer management right along with you it's gonna be a hopeless case.

To a point yes. But if you build it they will come. If your smaller place offers a better food source and cover you would be surprised.

I am amazed how I can hold deer and how much better deer I have from the work I have done over the last 6 years on 70 acres


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