How to keep deer on a small property??

I would recommend a mineral site. Lasts a long time, less disturbance than some other ideas that may spook deer out. Maybe look up our product.

 

Talk to your farmer and ask if he can leave you 5-6 rows of standing corn each year. Most will do that. Next plant some apple trees and persimmons . Get a good solid mineral site out and be sure to keep it fresh. in 3-4 years you will have fruit on the ground.

 

I hunt a majority on small plots. One is only 12 acres in the city limits. This one was more challenging this season to hunt than the others if nothing else due to lack of knowledge of the property and deer activity. I did kill a doe on the first hunt but, didnt see anything after that. With it being city limits though it will end up being an easy hunt when we put the one acre food plot in this year. There isn't food anywhere around so it should bring them right in.

Another property is one that has taken me 4 long years to really get the hang of hunting. I've put a ton of work in trying all different ideas. The worst so far was using scents. Horrible results. Pretty much drove the deer off the property all together for half a season.

My best efforts have been mineral stations, just staying out and letting them move through the property. I did do some bedding area work that had a positive impact. I did some brush piles from thinning out a couple of areas. The brush piles came from tree tops we cut while opening up the canopy to get fresh vegetation growing on the floor of a pretty nice bottom that has a small spring running through it. I also hung cut an area to do two things. Give more cover for a travel rout they were using some and form a funnel to basically herd them through. It has been a very successful travel corridor and I've killed and seen a lot of travel through it.

Another piece of advise I've seen hit on is stay out. I quit running trail cams. Why? Less temptation to intrude. Trail cams really helped me to figure out travel patterns in the beginning. I'm not saying don't stop using them. What I am saying is if you know the general travel of the deer now that you have used them for a while then you may want to consider limiting the usage. Other than making bedding/staging areas try to take advantage or your knowledge of their travel routs and maybe attempt funneling. For example that area I mentioned I funneled deer through. I actually hinge cut a tree dropping it right on a trail they were using to get them to move down to another trail more regularly. The trail I blocked did not have anywhere to set up a stand with a good wind but, the other did. The following season I killed my first bow deer exactly where I had funneled them. As far as the cameras effect goes, I started seeing more deer every sit. I feel it was due to less intrusion on my part.

I've tried food plots but, they had little effect. Probably due to the amount of crop being grown in the area. Out of all I planted my turnip plot had the best results it just wasn't big enough. They tore through those in a two week period and I didn't even have a chance to hunt it before the turnips were gone.

Don't be scared to be mobile as long as the wind will let you. Every kill on this property and rifle included have been from moving in closer from the previous hunt. I'd hunt a stand and see deer pass through an area that was out of range. Move my stand after the hunt and the next hunt I killed.

The last thing I started doing was hunt it less and trying to learn more each hunt. When I started hunting the property I was hunting 2-4 times a week. My first season I hunted 60+ hunts and killed 2 deer. This past season I hunted 5 hunts on the property. I was busted on the draw 2 times and killed my first bow and biggest buck to date. I saw deer every hunt. Much better than my first season.

In my experience of this property so far I'd say it just takes time as you have to try different things until you find what works best for your property. It's taken going on 5 years, I can't count The hours of work, a lot of hunting and learning and patients to really learn the property and what not to do.

 

Getting the deer to continuously use your property is the issue. Once you get family groups to reside near by or live there you will attract bucks. I own 15 acres in the hill country of WI. About 15 years ago when feeding deer was legal in the area of our land I fed them year around. Then I started planting food plots, first clover and then brassica my favorite. Neighbors own big ridges on both sides of my property and there used to be a 20 acre corn field on one end; that is now a sub-division which is even better in my opinion. The sub division lends a hand by giving the deer a place to hide, a sanctuary, when I the bullets start flying. The ridges are where the deer bed and they either come to my food plots to eat or go to the fields on the far sides of the ridges which are hunted pretty hard. I use the people to push the deer to me by not over hunting my 15 acres. As the weather changes from summer to fall and fall to winter the deer seem to use my property more and more. I now have several family groups of deer using my property regularly. I shoot several deer there each year with little problem. I go there if I just want to see deer because I know I always will.

The key is in food and not over hunting or being so intrusive on the property. The deer will get used to an ATV and your scent and not be spooked as long as you move about the property consistently, staying on trails and out of staging areas. My dad is a smoker and spends time on my property a lot during the summer months. The deer will watch him and when he talks to them they listen but when I am there they run. I am danger simply because they are not used to me. Small tracts are fun because there is really a lot you can do to keep the deer coming. They are easy to hunt in most cases just because you can predict where the deer will be, most of the time they use the same trails throughout the year and you don't have to move tree stands or blinds.

 

Buckwheat plots in the spring and Clover in the fall... Maybe even consider planting Turnips or something for winter forage.