Great food or great bedding?

1. Sounds good
2. Fine
3. Great
4 & 5. So, you're going to add trees that produce food, but not for a couple years, but not do much other food source work? Sounds backwards to me, can you explain more?
6. It's your only piece of land, no luxury of multiple properties.

Don't forget, the nearest quality food source is 1-1.5 miles away.

 

Why wait 24 months?

 

When you say work on bedding, what are you referring to? Planting, hinge cutting, ?

 

Some good stuff in here and a good initial post and question.

After the OP I was completely pro-bedding.
After the updated parameters, I am now completely pro-food.

I can't imagine that there is a shortage of "adequate" cover as it lays. Nutrition is my focus under the circumstances. Based on what fields are and how they lay...I would begin my planning around the food for bedding/cover after I've utilized those fields for food. I'd plan the sanctuary/ies based on the food and bedding changes. Hell if I got it in may I'd put a feeder or five out there to help until food came in...crucial time of year for does/fawns and antlers.

I don't hold with the premise of not hunting it for 24 months or even the first year if you take it in May. If possession started in fall...I could see the first season but that's as far as I'd go.

 

Whatever you want.

 

Large ones. Mo food. Mo betta

 

When will you be doing most of your hunting? Early, pre-rut, rut, post rut? All season?

I guess if I had to choose one it'd be food.

I'd take bedding though under two circumstances. One, I was only going to be hunting near the rut. In that case I'd put a priority on bedding first.

Two, I'd also choose bedding if it was a heavily hunted area. If you can make them feel safe and hunt the edges, you'd get a crack at them before all your neighbors as they head out to feed nearby.

 

Care to explain why?

 

I am not much of a late season deer hunter. I love chasing pheasants, rabbits and geese with my dog during the late season for deer. I don't think a quality food source being 1 to 1.5 miles away is realistic, but if it was I would have to do something more than what I had planned above.

Have you ever paid attention to those places that are off limits to hunting that do not feature any kind of habitat improvements?

 

My next question for you would be, what type of area do you hunt now? Since you're in Illinois, I'll assume it's lots of ag with wood lots. Correct me if I'm wrong. Up here in WI, where we have 640 acres at our cabin, quality food being 1-1.5 miles away is a reality. In fact, that's would be close for a lot of the land around us.

I sure have seen those places. Not good. But, I didn't say do nothing with the habitat, I just wanted to know which is a priority and why.

 

It's your one property to hunt all season.

 

First and most important reason is the bulk of the local deer population is going to be near the ag 1.5 miles away anyway. If you can find a way to make a year round destination food source that will go much further than just creating good habitat where they would have to travel so far to get to existing destination food source. Because they won’t. They will find a safe place to bed closer to that food source anyway.

 

Given the location and description, food would be huge for your property. Being up in Wisconsin just this year for someone showed me how important in the big woods food is, if you aren't lucky enough to have a farm or be located by one it is a pivotal piece of the pie for habitat planning....much larger than my area in Indiana. Especially when you mix in the fact that mass producing tree didn't seem nearly as predominant as some areas. Congrats on the land Dan, biggest dream of my life.

 

Your assumption would be correct, tons of ag land with ditches, tree lines, creek edges and every now and then sites with lots of trees. I would say a "big" timber in my area would be 40 acres plus, with 200 or 300 acre timbers being rare.

I would be lost trying to figure out your situation up north, I have never deer hunted anything like that. 640 acres is huge, you rule the whole section.

 

From what you have explained it is simple for me... Food.

If possible I would plan a year round nutrition plan in the form of differing food plots. You would be surprised how much deer change their habits if you have food for them year round. I feel a lot of times the bedding will work in correlation to the food you plant.

Is it possible to plant crops in the larger fields? I would also have winter hearty food in one of the large fields as well... Winter Rye, etc.

 

My first priority would be to walk the place and decided what condition its in. If the bedding areas are lacking then I think I would probably start there and try to improve what I could during May and June. I would use July and August to prep at least one of the pastures for a fall/winter food plot. once thats planted I would put up a few camera and then leave the property alone for the entire month of Sept.

Once Oct arrives I would check my cameras and hunt the place and use my time hunting as more of a scouting mission to kind of learn how the deer move and act on your property. Use all of the information you have gained since May and develope and action plan for the upcoming year.

 

Yes, at our cabin, food is much more important than bedding. Bedding adequate all around, but food is king.

Are you assuming I just bought land? I didn't. My family has owned land for many years, though in the last 8 years we've bought 120-160 that joins our main piece.

 

Unfortunately I haven't hunted it much. Spent years in Canada and am now too busy in the fall to hunt there much.

The he land is separated into 3 parcels. The first is 400 acres that has fields of 7, 8, 9 and 28 acres. The 9 and 28 acre fields we rent out to a dairy farmer, the 7 is 5 acres of corn and 2 clover/grass mix and the 8 acre field has been too wet all year to get anything planted in. The next parcel is 120 that's 1/2 mile north of the 400, it's solid woods. The last parcel is another 120 that's 3/4 mile north of the other 120. That parcel is thick and beautiful, but the nearest ag is 1.5 miles away. 75-80% of the deer spend most of their time on the 400 that has food on it. Unfortunately, this year we don't have a great summer food source like beans because we were never able to get them in.

 

We'd like to have year round food, but the last couple years have been so wet we haven't been able to get one of the fields planted. We may take back the 9 acre field in a couple years because it stays much drier. Ideally, I would like to have a couple acres of alfalfa, then 7 acres of corn and soybeans each each year. It would provide year round food and with the deep snow and heavy winters, it would hold and sustain a lot of deer over the winter months.

 

Sounds like you're a busy man... But if possible I would plant a fall/winter mix in those unplanted bean fields.

I've learned so much from this website... It's 48 pages of amazing knowledge:

Cereal Grains and Cover Crops

"Dbltree mix"

Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 80-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Austrian Winter Peas or 4010/6040 Forage peas 20-80#'s per acre
Red Clover 8-12#'s per acre or white clover at 6#'s per acre
Groundhog Forage Radish 5#'s per acre

If you read just the first page of that post, it will explain a lot. It's not just used for food, but also adds tons of nitrogen to next years bean fields once it's tilled under.