avboiler11
Master
Too late in the season to do anything now, but figured this is as good a time as any to poll the membership...
This is my second season hunting deer on property my wife and I closed on Jan 2016. I have lots of deer activity on my property including multiple shooter bucks but it is mostly used as a travel corridor; deer bed on the property one side of me (storm damage blow-downs) and travel across my property to an ag field two properties the other side. My challenge is drawing deer and holding them a bit while they travel between their beds and the crop field. I plan to sew at least one 1/4 acre food plot next spring and even have a small natural clearing to do so (nexus of two small streams, within 50yd of a travel corridor.
The property was logged about 15 years ago; pretty much the only large trees remaining are a handful of large beech trees and multiple clusters of small but mast-producing white oak (!!!). Years without a significant canopy spurred lots of undergrowth, both briar and young trees.
A decade and a half later, much of the land now looks like this:
Anybody hunted similar ground?
I'm thinking of clearing some of these trees out this winter to open the woods up a bit, but I'm concerned it will cause significant changes to deer movement. Don't know what I don't know, figure others here have been down the same path...
This is my second season hunting deer on property my wife and I closed on Jan 2016. I have lots of deer activity on my property including multiple shooter bucks but it is mostly used as a travel corridor; deer bed on the property one side of me (storm damage blow-downs) and travel across my property to an ag field two properties the other side. My challenge is drawing deer and holding them a bit while they travel between their beds and the crop field. I plan to sew at least one 1/4 acre food plot next spring and even have a small natural clearing to do so (nexus of two small streams, within 50yd of a travel corridor.
The property was logged about 15 years ago; pretty much the only large trees remaining are a handful of large beech trees and multiple clusters of small but mast-producing white oak (!!!). Years without a significant canopy spurred lots of undergrowth, both briar and young trees.
A decade and a half later, much of the land now looks like this:
Anybody hunted similar ground?
I'm thinking of clearing some of these trees out this winter to open the woods up a bit, but I'm concerned it will cause significant changes to deer movement. Don't know what I don't know, figure others here have been down the same path...
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