Too small to do anything?

In my opinion if you have 3-5 acres you too can do things to your hunting ground in an effort to up your harvests come hunting season. As I've stated many times, 95% of my hunting has taken place on my parents 10 acres or the tiny parcels (none larger than 4 acres) that touch my parent's property. I am a living testimony that not only can you be successful in harvesting deer, but you can harvest wall caliber deer (if that's important to you) if you put in the time and have the patience.

The biggest mistake thousands of hunters do is, nothing. They don't do a thing to up the odds. They are either to lazy, don't know any better or simply don't care. If you're reading this blog I'd say the third option isn't a possibility as you're researching/surfing online for information. Now if it's the first one, being lazy, I think you'd be amazed at how little time it takes to make your property attractive to more deer. If you just don't know any better, keep reading and absorbing knowledge from anywhere you can!

I'll share with you the 3 key things that I feel anyone with 3 acres or more can do to attract more deer to utilize your woods as a part of their lives.

(www.greatnorthernoutdoors.net)

#1-Encourage more browse. Deer love the corn, alfalfa and other crops that we see as we drive down the road, but when it boils down to it not all of us are blessed to hunt this fields...we find ourselves hunting small wood lots which at times seem to receive no deer usage! Research shows that one of the primary things deer need to thrive are the natural browse found in the woods. This is the easiest thing to do out of the three, all you need is a chain-saw (actually a hand saw would do in a pinch...just more work). If your woods don't have undergrowth or active ground level bushes and thorns 9 times out of 10 it's due to your canopy being too thick. There are two ways of solving this problem. Cutting trees completely or hinge cutting. Cutting the tree's completely can be helpful as you provide your self with firewood, but it takes underbrush and the dormant seeds in the ground a couple years to truly thicken the area up like we want. Hinge cutting solves this issue. Hinge cutting is when you cut through a tree just enough  that it falls but doesn't snap completely. This allows the tree to still bud come the spring and produce cover, natural fence/wall and browse the deer will love! Hinge cutting must be done before the sap starts flowing from its winter storage in the stump and roots (February/March is when we'll be doing ours).

#2-Food plots. Bringing browse to your property is great but supplying the deer with some supplemental food sources are an excellent way to attract deer. The important thing to remember about putting food plots in is that you'll never be able to compete with the destination food plots like the farmers have, so don't try. I guess I should first clarify the difference between destination plots and the type you should be putting on your property. Destination plots are like the ones I described, the huge corn, alfalfa or any other cash crop that the farmer's are planting. The plots you should be putting in are much smaller (as small as an 1/8th of an acre), which deer feel safe and secure in before heading off to night time feedings in the large destination food plots. It is these places that deer will feed during hours a hunter can take advantage of. The biggest keys are keeping them irregular shaped and not easily checked in one fell swoop. Make it so a buck has to check one, then the other, then the other. This can be done with planting site barrier plants like switchgrass, Egyptian wheat or forage sorghum around the plots. Hinge cutting around and between them is also a possible route to go. While I could talk about this topic forever, I must point out that the place I've gained the most knowledge from is sniperbowhunting.com, which coming in January will become a new site with new experts on it's staff. Randy Vander Veen, the creator, personally looked over aerials of our property and began to share with me these tactics and much more. I highly recommend any hunter looking to learn how to properly attack food plots, hinge cutting and so much more to check out the site (it's actually on the right side of this blog/site). 

(www.chelsesgreenhouse.com)

#3-Introducing trees that produce food or browse for the deer. Fruit trees, mass trees or berry bushes are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what plants will attract deer. All have their pros, but definitely come with some cons. Fruit trees are seriously like candy to deer, you have one that produces deer will be there...however they typically need a lot more work by you than anything else you can plant, which at least in my eyes is a major negative. Mass producing trees like oaks are absolutely amazing for deer, however they take years (even the fast ones take 4-5 years) before they produce enough nuts to make a big difference. I'll be honest though when a nut tree produces a great yield it can produce some of the best hunting you'll experience. Bushes/briars are easy to plant and usually get started, but the problem with them is some can take over and become borderline if not completely invasive. My advice is that before you plant anything make sure you research it. If food is your goal and you want it quickly dwarf fruit trees may be a good option, if you  are willing to wait plant a few oaks (Sawtooth produce the quickest). I'll be honest though don't overlook the trees most already do. One of the most valuable trees in our woods is one most tear up (we plan on thinning them some even ourselves), and that's locust. We have some locust trees in our woods that produce these huge bean pods (I'll post a picture here as soon as I make it out to the property). The great things about these trees are they have tiny leaves leaving the canopy slightly less dense and these trees grows like weeds almost if allowed...which is the main reason I'm excited about hinge cutting them this Feb/March.

Now there is a lot of things even those of us with small parcels can do, but honestly those are my top three. I hope to go further into each one of these at some point, as there is so much more behind each one than I had time to post here. In the mean time get out there this late-season around the food or food routes and let me know if you meet any success!