Full advantage of private land

My friend shares his private land with me, his family has hunted for generations with the major purpose being deer and and quail. However it was quail hunted long ago and its main purpose is deer now. My question is we are most recently doing things to promote other types of hunting on the property such as planting sunflower for dove, and are considering excavating his field so that it can be flooded for waterfowl. In the months leading up to deer season such as dove in September and early waterfowl, do you think it would have a large negative impact on early season deer hunting? It's about a 150 acre track including a sanctuary we really try to stay out of. Thanks

 

In my opinion, not really. I have done some major projects on my property and have always had deer on the property even during the project. They are smart enough to know the difference between farm work and hunters. Typically they are used to sounds of equipment working the fields, or farmers checking on cattle. As long as you are not encroaching on their core area, they will stick around.

Just a side not. I have a tower blind that I built a few years ago. It's pretty crazy. Roughly 20 feet tall, 12x12 and fully sheeted with tin. I was doing some renovation on it this summer. I had a generator running in to lower section and a shop vac running in the upper. I looked out the window to see several doe feeding in the beans less than 40 yards from the blind. There's no way they didn't hear it. the windows and the door were open. I just chalked it up to them being used to different noises made by farmers every day in the area.

 

You mentioned staying out of an area.
As long as you don't go traipsing through the entire property and kick the deer out of the comfort zones, you'll be OK.

 

I pheasant hunt and waterfowl hunt on the same property I bow hunt and have never seen a negative impact in person.

 

I hunt similar land that is shared with people hunting other game. The deer stick around and get used to the commotion but we rarely see big bucks while deer hunting while usually getting a few on the cameras in the summer. I know there are many reasons this could be but I always go back to thinking that the big boys spend most of their time a half mile down the road where there are woods and no other hunters. I hope to get lucky every year during the rut having one cruise through looking for does but usually don't. I think it will depend on what the surrounding lands offer for food and sanctuary, local deer densities and the amount of use of the land which will determine if the deer sightings plummet or not. I'm sure you'll still shoot young deer but it might impact your trophy hunting if you're even into that sort of thing i'm not sure.

 

If you plant sunflowers, the deer will come. You'll have trouble keeping them away.

 

I think it all depends on what type of deer hunting you want to do. If you want to hunt other game and still be able to hunt deer if you watch how you enter and exit the property you could be ok, but if you are looking to hunt mature bucks you will have a hard time while hunting multiple animals. We do not hunt anything but deer on our lease and even when we hunt deer we are very careful of when and where to try and keep mature bucks around.

 

Travis I am definitely not trying to sound like an *** but I am not sure how you can make this claim. I seam to remember you mentioning multiple times that you have never shot a deer with a bow. So if you hunt pheasants and ducks on the same property you deer hunt but haven't shot a deer wouldn't that be a negative impact?

 

Last year I shot my first deer with a bow. I hunted 9 years prior to this and had never taken a shot a deer (there has been 20+ deer taken off our property with shotguns in the last 10 years) up until the doe I shot. I pass on average of 5-6 bucks a year and probably double that on does. I guess it depends how you want to look at a negative affect? Could I shoot a deer every year? Absolutely. Do I pass all small bucks on my properties. I sure do. I can only shoot one deer a year in my zone so I'm not shooting a small buck or a doe early with my bow.

So seeing as how I have shots at a dozen plus deer a year, I feel like I can make that claim. If you're talking mature bucks only, then don't take my advice I guess.

 

Congrats on your first bow kill Travis. I was wondering how you could make that claim that is why I asked and said I wasn't trying to be an ***. Thanks for the info and sounds like it is working for you.

 

There was no offense taken, Tom.

I certainly don't kill big bucks (biggest is 115") but I have many opportunities every year. When I first started bowhunting, all I had in my mind was to shoot a 140" buck or bigger. As the years went on and I never saw anything that would come close to it, I realized I needed to start taking does off the property instead. I didn't really get hardcore into bow hunting until about 3 or 4 years ago because college, farming and goose hunting took my time. Now, 10 years in, that first buck needs to be special to me for me to attempt a shot at it.

My first post was the fact that we do shoot deer every year (whether it be bow or gun) and I haven't seen a negative impact from THAT specifically. There are many things that factor there not being 140" plus bucks on my property that is a part of many other topics of discussions but I do not believe in any way that doing other types of hunting has a negative impact; obviously to a point.

Now if I was hunting a lease, you're dang right I wouldn't hunt anything on there and screw up chances of the 140" bucks that actually do roam that area.

 

The property hasn't been been touched other then selectively cut timber a few times and have produced some very nice bucks. Including the county record an 180 inch 10 point with a 6 inch drop time killed in 2005. This year we had an 8 pointer looking to have somewhat of the same genetics looking to be about 140 and some change as a 3 year old 8 point so the potential for an absolutely awesome whitetail honey hole is definitely there. But we love to hunt everything, turkey, duck, dove, basically anything that is in season. His property is no more then 3 miles from the Ohio river (we live in kentucky), and we constantly see woodies out of two stands that are placed next to a good sized creek that basically cuts the property in half. As of right now we hunt waterfowl and dove on public land and with the river being up as high as it is we don't have a place to waterfowl hunt due to not having a boat so we were just weighing our options as far as was it worth it to try and increase opportunities to hunt dove and waterfowl on the same track of land that we live to chase mature bucks on.

 

It all comes down to personal preference then. If I had to rank my hobbies, I would put waterfowl hunting just above bow hunting so I would hammer the birds and then any mature buck would be a bonus.

 

And for me, I would lightly hunt the birds and focus mostly on big, mature deer.

 

In general I tend to disagree being I believe any foot traffic on land that overlaps with deer season or immediately prior to deer season will have an impact. Especially on a property of that size. We hunt turkeys in the spring and deer in the fall/winter on our leases. Other then that access is forbidden with the exception to shed hunting and ag /maintenance.