Small farm management

[southpaw89]

I recently purchased a small (43 acre) hunting property. After talking with many of the neighboring property owners it appears that none of the surrounding properties (all between 50 and 100 acres) hunt. The area is very heavily doe populated which has me wanting to make this season mainly a doe thinning year since I already got a nice buck opening day of muzzleloader. Will I even notice any difference in the buck/doe ratio over the course of a couple years if I am the only one thinning out doe, or even hunting for that matter? For what its worth, many of the surrounding properties are mainly tobacco farms. I plan on planting oaks, persimmons, and chestnuts this spring along with food plots year around. My property has 3 ponds, two of which are spring fed.

 

[Stick'n'String]

On a small property and I own one the same size, (56 acres) I wouldn't try to manage populations or sex ratios. I'm trying to increase cover and offer food to make my property more attractive than the neighbors. My neighbors do hunt and I hope they just push the deer my way.

I primarily bow hunt and take the occasional doe but for the freezer not management. I do only try to kill older age bucks but that is my preference as I know there is very little I can do to improve age structure on a small property. In your case with no hunting pressure surrounding you I would be concerned with pushing everything off your place and onto the neighbors if you started slaying does.

 

[southpaw89]

Thanks stick,n,string!

 

[Football Hunter]

you ll have better luck planting those trees in winter,or at least before green up.

 

[BSK]

Southpaw89,

Tough question to answer. I'm torn between giving good management advice and good hunting advice. But to answer one of your primary questions--can you have much impact on 43 acres--the answer is some but not dramatic impacts. That said, it's every hunter's responsibility to manage their local deer herd. For me, from a management perspective, the question is, how much management is required in your area? Is the current deer population too high? If it's not, the need for anything beyond "recreational" management (shooting does if you want, for recreation or meat) is lessened.

Either way, if you need or desire to shoot does, I suggest doing so late in the season, after the rut and after your primary buck hunting has been completed. This doe harvest timing seems to reduce the negative impacts of hunting pressure on rut buck hunting the following year.

 

[southpaw89]

Thanks for the reply BSK. I wouldn't say that the local deer population (Macon county) is too high necessarily. The food plots on our property are getting used, but overall are in fairly good health. The one thing that has me curious about this property is that I did not get a single buck on trail camera until about a month ago. Since that time (without changing cam location) I have gotten 5 different bucks on trail camera. I'm fairly new to deer hunting (mainly bird hunted all my life). What would cause bucks to only come to my property just before the rut, and what can I do to get more bucks on my property throughout the year?

 

[BSK]

Thanks for the reply BSK. I wouldn't say that the local deer population (Macon county) is too high necessarily. The food plots on our property are getting used, but overall are in fairly good health.

Just remember that in a decent acorn year, food plots get used much less. The true test will be what happens to the food plots in an acorn failure year, when the food plots may be the only quality food source available.

The one thing that has me curious about this property is that I did not get a single buck on trail camera until about a month ago. Since that time (without changing cam location) I have gotten 5 different bucks on trail camera. I'm fairly new to deer hunting (mainly bird hunted all my life). What would cause bucks to only come to my property just before the rut, and what can I do to get more bucks on my property throughout the year?

This is actually quite common. In summer, deer can display sexual segregation, in that females and their young dominate the best habitat, relegating bucks to poorer habitat. From a "survival of the species" viewpoint, it's far more important for the young producers to have access to the best resources. However, as summer fades to fall, this sexual segregation ends as buck bachelor groups break up and bucks return to their fall ranges. For someone monitoring a given property with trail cameras, this usually produces a sudden surge of "new" bucks appearing on camera just after antler velvet shedding.

The same properties can then see a second major surge of "new" bucks appearing on cam just before the rut. As the rut approaches, bucks expand the size of their ranges dramatically, most likely to increase the number of doe groups they interact with. And some bucks literally leave their normal fall range and travel to a completely different "rut range," which they will use only during the 5-6 weeks of breeding. This expansion or even shift of range as the rut approaches can produce an astounding number of "new" bucks appearing on camera in the two weeks prior to the commencement of peak breeding.

 

[southpaw89]

Awesome! Thanks for the info BSK!

 

[Okatoba]

Make half a clear cut thicket. We have a place that got a 23 acre thicket and that place is a deer factory.