quote:
Same with the deer. How do I go about stand location, feed, food plots etc... I'm assuming I need some cameras and I know nothing about them either. What's good, what to avoid.

I would start out with a short camera survey of the property. Get a few bags of corn and a couple of trail cams and put them out somewhere on the property. Leave them for a few weeks. You will get a pretty good inventory of your deer herd that way. You'll get alot of the same does and young bucks showing up every day, but you will be able to recognize some unique features to tell some apart and you should definitely be able to tell any mature apart.

For trail cams, many of the modern brands make good cameras. Price usually reflects dependability and durability. We run LOTS of cameras (30+ per season), and we use alot of Bushnells. Many of the other brands are good as well, just check out their reviews.

I'm not sure how involved you are wanting to get in order to hunt. Management and hunting prep can be alot of work. It's usually one of those "You get out of it what you put into it" kind of things. Thankfully, for me, its my favorite part of the whole thing: the preparation and planning.

If you want to find the best areas to hunt, hang stands, put food plots, etc., the first thing I would recommend is to find 2 things: an aerial photo of your property, and a topo map of the property. The very best thing is to have an aerial with a topo laid on top of it. There's several mapping services that will do this for you. Locate important topo features like ridges, saddles, funnels, etc., and cross reference them with the aerials. See if these topo features are in wooded areas, open fields, ag fields, whatever. Deer utilize different topography and different environment types in different ways for different things, and it can take a while to understand patterns. My advice is to take your maps of the property and walk around as much as possible. Look for deer sign, especially trails and old rubs. This is a good way to learn how deer are moving on your property, and you can cross reference it with your aerial/topo maps and it will help you understand how the deer are using your property on a larger scale.

Try to find some mast trees. I don't know exactly where your property is located or what type of habitat is is, but that will determine what types of mast you have. You likely have several species of oaks. White oak species are the best to hunt over (lower tannins in the acorn, so more palatable and more preferred by deer). Look for true white oaks and cow oaks (swamp chestnut oaks). Red oak species are not as preferred as white oaks, but they are still good to hunt over. Look for Southern Red Oaks, Shumard Oaks, or Nuttall Oaks. You can find pictures of the leaves online so you can identify them in the woods. Depending on how the acorns are dropping and the species, oaks can be productive to hunt over from early in the years (Sept., Oct.) to later (Nov.,Dec.).

As far as laying out food plots, that depends alot of the lay of your land, the size of the property, and how you plan to hunt (bow hunt, gun hunt, take kids hunting, etc.). Let us know what you expect out of hunting the property and we can help you a little more out of that.

How many acres is the property?
What type of habitat is it in percentage? (hardwoods, pine plantation, swamp, etc.?)
What type of topography is the property?
(bottomland/floods, year round swamp, ridges, hilly, flat, etc.?)

This post was edited on 8/4/14 at 1:00 pm

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Posted by choupiquesushi

yaton rouge

Member since Jun 2006

34332 posts

Posted on 8/4/14 at 1:15 pm to Martini

martinin take down email got it.

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Posted by Martini

Near Athens

Member since Mar 2005

49649 posts

Posted on 8/4/14 at 1:33 pm to TheBowhunter

Thanks for the responses. 120 acres, rolling, half hardwood, half pasture. Pond in pasture and creek in woods.

I want to set it up exclusively for children. No climbers or tree stands. It has a couple narrow cleared areas where apparently in the past food plots had been planted. Almost like shooting lanes about 75' wide.

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Posted by TheBowhunter

SWLA

Member since Jul 2014

230 posts

Posted on 8/4/14 at 3:31 pm to Martini

quote:
Thanks for the responses. 120 acres, rolling, half hardwood, half pasture. Pond in pasture and creek in woods.

I want to set it up exclusively for children. No climbers or tree stands. It has a couple narrow cleared areas where apparently in the past food plots had been planted. Almost like shooting lanes about 75' wide.

Good deal. I think one of the best things you could do to start out this year is to purchase a few collapsible ground blinds. They're similar to pop-up tents. They don't need to be expensive, just big enough to fit two people. Set up one or two on some of these clearings, optimally in a high point or at least an area that gives you maximum visibility. The cool thing about collapsible ground blinds is that if you start hunting and feel like you aren't in the right spot, you can move them. They will conceal your children and make for a comfortable place to hunt. The kids will be able to move without worrying about spooking game.

To get kids into hunting, you gotta keep them interested, and in order to keep young kids interested, you gotta keep them entertained. Telling them to sit perfectly still or they will screw up the hunt will likely snub their spark out pretty quickly. A portable blind will allow them to be kids and still have a successful hunt.

Those shooting lanes are a good thing, since you won't need to clear any land in order to plant some food plots. I would think they probably need to be herbicided (roundup) or mowed since they've likely grown up in weeds all summer.

It's not hard to establish a good food plot with lots of deer forage, but in order to get what you plant to grow, you've got to get rid of the useless weeds and grasses that are likely already growing in your clearings.

Do you have (or have access to) a tractor with implements or an atv with implements?

If so, get to work on getting rid of the weeds and grass. Use a bushhog/mower and/or a sprayer. It might take several passes over a couple of weeks to get a good kill/cleanup.

If you don't have access to bigger equipment, it can still be done, it will just take some more work. Get a backpack sprayer from your hardware store and give those "fields" a good strong dose of roundup.

You'll want a "clean" field in order to start planting food plots, so its necessary to start prepping them in August. You'll want to plant in early-mid september.

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