![]() ![]() ![]() If you expect him to use it during daylight, it needs to be in or adjacent to cover, with a route leading to it that doesn’t make him expose himself. If a deer doesn’t have a source for water that it feels comfortable using it will move off your land to find it. Refresh them as needed, but avoid checking the site too often.ģ. By putting that many sites out, you can monitor which ones are most attractive and keep those activated while eliminating the others. Place them in or near cover, where a mature buck is more likely to make use of them. I also like to dig up and mix in Full Potential into the top 8-12 inches of soil in several key sites for every 50 acres of land. Most of us, though, are less fortunate and need to build one or more mineral licks to satisfy the deer’s need for macro and micro elements that they don’t get enough of from natural foods, crops and food plots.īioRocks are good. Maybe you’re fortunate enough to have a natural mineral site on your property. For variety and winter cover, you can mix in a few pines or cedars.Ģ. Plant two rows of these bushes on the side of the creek a buck would likely travel, 8-12 feet apart. They’ll not only create security cover, deer will nibble on most of these plants, adding to the travel corridor’s attraction. Some good ones to consider are: native American honeysuckle bushes, dogwood shrubs (graystem, silky, or red osier), lespedeza, crab apple, Chickasaw plum, chinquapin, viburnum and indigo bush. ![]() Put in a swath of shrubs that grow 5-8 feet tall or cover grasses such as Blind Spot along the creek, however, and mature bucks will start using it because they’ll feel secure there.Ī number of different shrubs will work well for this project. Without brush and trees, only does and young bucks will likely use it during daylight. You have a small stream or drainage ditch flowing through an area that could be a big buck travel route between doe bedding areas, feed fields or blocks of timber, but it’s too open. That will make the travel corridor even more appealing. Besides offering cover, a lot of the species you plant will also offer food as will the hinge-cut trees. Locate a natural potential travel route from bedding to feeding areas or between doe bedding areas and make it appealing to bucks by adding a variety of shrubs or tall annual grasses and partially felling a few low value trees. Most land is to open for prime deer habitat and big bucks don’t get old by traveling where they can often be seen. Create a transition corridor for mature bucks. But knowing where the different types of cover and food are that you have put in place will help you know how the deer will travel and where they will likely bed as they make use of the habitat enhancements you’ve made.ġ. The latter aspect requires careful consideration of things such as best access to stand sites, prevailing wind direction, sun angle, approach cover, and other factors. If you don’t give the deer these things, chances are your neighbors will, and that’s where they’ll go.īefore getting started, realize that to get the maximum benefit from these projects, you need to carefully analyze your property using topos, aerial photographs, and your knowledge of the land to lay them out for maximum attractiveness to the deer and maximum enhancement of your hunting success. There are certainly other steps you can take, but these are good ones to start with. Here are 12 projects and management principles that will help make your land attractive to older-age-class deer. If you have thousands of acres of mixed habitat and let young bucks walk, chances are you already have some older bucks present.įor those of us with less acreage, packing the maximum amount of things that will attract and hold older bucks in a small area and managing it extra carefully are especially important. SUBSCRIBE TODAY.Īttending to these “extra” things besides food plots becomes especially important for those who, like me, only have a hundred or few hundred acres. IT’S ABOUT CREATING A LEGACY FOR ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS. But as you delve deeper into habitat and wildlife management, it becomes clear that there are plenty of other improvements that need to be made to the habitat if your goal is to attract and hold mature bucks on your property. Food plots are for many of us the most fun and dramatically rewarding part of being a gamekeeper. ![]()
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