My dad owns 50 acres that is part of an 1100 acre hunting club. Several different people own different acreage amounts throughout the whole place. When they first bought the property several deer got killed for the first years, but every year since less and less deer have been killed, especially any mature bucks. The property consists of a lot of scrub oak brush with a few mediocre size oaks. They got the property after it had been clearcut, so it was extremely thick. I don't hunt this property too often, mainly because I have a lot better place I usually hunt. But, my brother and I have decided to do some work to try and make the property more attractive to deer. It never hurts to have several good places to hunt. We decided to try and start cutting a lot of the scrub brush down and letting it get thick again. After we get done chainsawing we are going to go back and plant pines and cedars to try and make some more attractive areas for the deer to bed in. We are also adding another food plot that will be about an acre in size, bringing the total to approximately 5 acres of food for the whole 50 acres. So my question is, does anybody have any suggestions or input on if I am doing the right things to create these bedding areas? And do you think this will be enough food for the 50 acres? There is very little other food on the rest of the property that gets planted by anybody. Deer usually have to rely on any browse other than the foodplots that we normally put in. Any input or advice would be appreciated.
Hinge cutting instead of clean cutting will provide cover and thickness for bedding and provide food through woody browse and lesson the "need" of food so the 5 acres should suffice depending on approach to seed/plot design choice.
X1000!!! Check out Ty's sig "small acre hunting" he has some GREAT info that will point you in the right direction. Also do a youtube search on hinge cutting, there are a bunch of videos showing you different methods. HINGE CUTTING WORKS!!!! Within a few days I had does and young bucks bedding on my property! It's still work in progress for me, but after seeing the results i'm sold! see my post http://forums.bowhunting.com/food-plots-habitat-improvement/48301-permanent-cover-questions.html
I couldn't agree more with hinge cutting. I'd rather have hinge cut oak brush below the browse line than pine and cedar trees any day. If I were you I'd try to understand how and where mature bucks bed, create buck beds in these locations. In areas where mature bucks wouldn't probably bed I'd turn into thick nasty doe bedding areas.
I have been hinge cutting some of the trees on the north facing slopes. The south facing slopes are going to get a clean cut (for the most part) and come back with evergreen plantings to provide thermal cover in the winter months. I definitely agree with the hinge cutting, it really makes things thick and nasty.
I understand the desire for you to want to have more places to hunt deer, but I have a question. Why would you want to do all that work if the 100 acres is owned by a lot of different people who aren't willing to put in the time, money, and hard work for the same outcome?
I have found hinge cutting bedding sanctuaries and hinging travel corridors to be the most effective tool in my habit design. Scoot
I'm interested in doing some hinge cutting myself and trying to learn more about it. Looked at Ty blog but didn't see the info on hinge cutting.
It's 1100 acres, which is a pretty good chunk. I know it may sound stupid, but I think changing that 50 acres could have some good results. The 50 sits right in the center of the 1100. The other landowners don't bowhunt much at all, and they aren't very good rifle hunters either. They constantly ride their 4 wheeler/ ATV's on their property, so I'm hoping that with more security cover that the deer will feel safe and come to my dads piece of property once the pressure gets on. Plus, I just want to see how much I can do with 50 acres since my dad has given me the OK to change some things on it. It may not work, but I'm gonna give it a try anyways.
I'd hinge cut and plant some prairie grass mix or switchgrass, something that gets tall and lasts through the winter. Make sure this bedding area is in the deeper part of the property and not close to roads or traffic or it won't get much use. I think the food plot was a good addition and I would also suggest a few mineral sites if you don't already have any. If there is water running through the property all the better, if not, a good watering whole may me a good idea too. I always like having water within a few hundred yards of a mineral site.
Nope they're still there. Best thing like Swamp said is the youtube videos followed by some of the blog posts. I am working on a brand new site with better lay out then just blog posts...so hopefully easier to find in the future. Small Acre Hunting: Hinging That link is to a post on Hinging, it also has a video embedded in it. If you open up the video in Youtube you should be able to find my other uploads and view them as you desire. The goal right now is to share a lot of videos this early spring focusing solely on hinging and all the various uses of it.
Did more work on making the bedding areas today. Did a lot of hinging and am heading back again tomorrow to do some more. I've got pines and cedars ordered to plant in the spring. Also got some oaks ordered to plant on the main property that I hunt. I really wish I could do some more work to that place, but planting trees and food plots is all that I can do there. I'll take some pics of the mess I'm making tomorrow. I really think that this is gonna work well. Do any of you guys go back after cutting and try and make individual places to bed? I'm thinking of cutting spots to bed in then planting the pines/cedars in semi-circles around the areas later on to have small thermal beds.
Making bedding spots is something we do for sure. Some small buck beds or a few larger doe group spots see even pine needles or straw from us and guys call it crazy but we find hair proving they use them within weeks in the spring if not days. If you find an awesome spot for a buck bed for various reasons make sure to always give the buck a back rest. Nearly every mature buck (daytime) bed that I have found or my good friend with more experience has found almost 100% of the time have some kind of backrest. We simply carry cut logs about 3 feet or so long and lay it down in the bed if no back rest is naturally there.
I found it extremely odd and didn't believe it but on the rare occasion that I find what I know or suspect to be a say 3 1/2 year old or older buck bed...I've been amazed at how this is almost always present. Sometimes it comes in the form of a simple mound of dirt they lay against...or some of the bushes with multiple small stems (RD a buck I am chasing has a few like this)...or an actual log or down tree or stump. I mean I guess logically it makes sense, many of these older bucks outside of the rut spend a ton of time in their daytime beds and it would be more comfortable long term having a back rest...same way I'll find some beds raked/scraped clean by them as well for comfort.
This is some really interesting information....Really has the ideas flowing in my head!! Thanks for the info!
I will try to remember to share some videos of us making some this very early spring/winter which is when we do the brunt of our work as far as hinging/cutting and prepping cuz once warmer weather hits it's mainly food plot prepping and tree planting.
