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Managing your own land

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BSK

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A post Ski made in the thread on "YOUR buck" brought up something I've tried to convey to those who own land and are managing it for better habitat and better hunting. So many hunters who haven't been there (yet) believe owning your own land and being able to manage it will produce a panacea of extraordinary hunting in short order. However, it often doesn't work that way! I think Ski's comments hit the nail on the head:

Ski wrote:
I worked my butt off and made lots of sacrifices throughout my life to put myself in a position of having dirt to call my own. When I got it, it was barren wide open woods. You could hunt days on end & never see the first deer. Through an investment of time, planning, intensive labor, and more money than I'd care tell my wife about, it's finally a place I can enjoy hunting because I see deer. Sometimes by God's grace I even tag a big buck. That's the overall return on investment. But it's not a straight climbing graph line. It zigzags up & down with wins and failures. I've had to see an awful lot of bucks grow up on camera only to be killed by somebody else, many before they had a chance to express their potential. Even the buck I killed this year had been shot at least twice by other hunters elsewhere, even though I'd been watching him enjoy my plots & bedding cover for years. Sure I felt invested in that buck but like so many others, if he were killed elsewhere then it would have been a loss. But I don't dwell on the moments. I focus on the trends, and have learned that in order to tag some of these bucks myself, I've got to accept that I'm going to lose some along the way to my neighbors.

Those two statements in bold are the absolute truth of managing land. There will be successes; there will be failures. The results of your management will have "zigzags up & down." Some of those failures will be completely out of your control. There will be bad acorn years. There will be EHD outbreaks. There will be droughts. The key is, as Ski stated: "I focus on the trends." That's all you can do.

When I first started managing the habitat on my place over 20 years ago, if someone had asked me what I expected over the next 20 years of managment, I would have said the place will skyrocket into world class hunting (by TN standards). Has that happened? Yes and no. It's much better than it was. But there have been so many ups and downs. Some in my control, most out of my control. Success has to be judged by the long-term trends, not the year-to-year fluctuations. Managing land is truly a long-term project.
 
In most TN land situations, if you're talking less than a thousand acres, it is almost a certainty that any buck you kill will have been spending more his life OFF your property than within its boundaries.

Most bucks will have an annual range touching thousands of acres, and will frequently travel a linear distance of over a mile in a 24-hr period, even during non-rut times. During the rut, those linear distances often become several miles.

One square mile is 640 acres.
 
All very good points; and very applicable to me since I just bought 50 acres this year. I had moderate expectations for this year since I got a late start; and I'd say those were met. At times in Aug I had 8 bucks in a trail cam pic; another I had 6 does. Of course the most I've seen in a pic or live since hunting season started is 3.

Not to derail the thread; but if anyone knows or could recommend a person/company that does food plot consulting/planning here in Eastern TN please let me know.
 
Thank you for the kind words :)

As you pointed out, I too had high expectations and grand delusions. That was pretty quickly tempered as the realization sank in that this was going to be like anything else in life. No free lunches and you'll get out what you put in. That's not to discourage anybody. I've had an absolute ball and have learned so much. I'd recommend it to anybody who loves deer hunting. When I was a boy I'd play in the dirt piles or make forts in the woods. It's fun like that again except with more expensive toys and more dirt.
 
lafn96 said:
All very good points; and very applicable to me since I just bought 50 acres this year. I had moderate expectations for this year since I got a late start; and I'd say those were met. At times in Aug I had 8 bucks in a trail cam pic; another I had 6 does. Of course the most I've seen in a pic or live since hunting season started is 3.

Not to derail the thread; but if anyone knows or could recommend a person/company that does food plot consulting/planning here in Eastern TN please let me know.
Click to expand...
The man who started this thread will point you in the right direction. ;)
 
MUP said:
The man who started this thread will point you in the right direction. ;)
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I wish I knew who was doing small-land management on the Plateau. The only client I've kept that far east is a really big club outside Dunlap that I've worked with for many years.
 
Good post BSK. I basically managed 1300-1600 acre lease for 20+ years. We did habitat improvement and shooting only older bucks. It was really hard at first to pass decent young bucks. But, we had delusions of grandeur - in a couple of years, all of those young bucks would be big, bruiser mature bucks. We would have 20 mature-ish bucks running around or more. But, as said above, it's not linear. It doesn't work that way. But, over time, we saw an improvement in the age structure of the herd. We had more on camera and killed far more mature bucks than we had in the past, but not near the number we thought we would.
 
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Bobby worthington is working habitat management on the east side. Grant woods team will also as the did my mgt plan in bradley county.
 
lafn96 said:
All very good points; and very applicable to me since I just bought 50 acres this year. I had moderate expectations for this year since I got a late start; and I'd say those were met. At times in Aug I had 8 bucks in a trail cam pic; another I had 6 does. Of course the most I've seen in a pic or live since hunting season started is 3.

Not to derail the thread; but if anyone knows or could recommend a person/company that does food plot consulting/planning here in Eastern TN please let me know.
Click to expand...
I own 36 acres in ET. On it is a few acres of "wet ground", especially during winter. I contacted our local Conservation Director to see what improvements could be made. Of course, it was deemed Wetlands. Through any of his plans, it had to remain Wetlands, but he helped me apply for a few grants. Long story short, I was awarded a Forestry Grant, and one of their foresters drew up a detailed plan, and I was awarded a grant for 90% of the projected costs. I was given a list of contractors that I could use, or I could find my own or do it myself. I am too busy/old to do the work to the approved guidelines, and I had no idea who to use, so started down the list calling and emailing. One guy gave me a quote that was well above the 90%, and a lot of the cost was travel from their location which is roughly 100 miles away. A lot of no returned calls, and finally one that agreed. Fast forward to this past spring…he can't hire help, herbicide is triple what it was. Our Government that hands out money like candy will not increase the grant dollars. To conclude an already long post, I had to cancel the contract (which was a bit challenging in itself. Fortunately, I hadn't spent any of "their" money.) I say all of this to say, you could possibly try this process and your luck may be better.
 
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Great post! Agree with everything mentioned.

It definitely has its up and downs, and without question has trended upward since we started. I've learned to only focus on the things you can control. With those things you can control, get better and better at them and branch off of that to new components. 4 years ago, if you would have told me I'd be burning our woods down, I'd call you crazy. Well, I'm on year 3 of my burn certification and just renewed for another 3 years.

Perfect, branch out, perfect, branch out - learning and observing progress. Very appreciative
 
I own 32 acres. I have THOUGHT about it for the last 5-7 years but never get started, because of money, time, or both. I know I don't have a lot of space. I also know I won't hold bucks on my 32 acres. However aside from acorns and a 1 acre food plot I don't have much to offer. I have a wet weather pond that won't hold water. I have thought about it for years to rent a skid loader or something and dig it out some and see if I can get it to hold some water. I have lots of thick woods but is thick because of cedar. It is not producing any browse (no sunlight hitting the forest floor). I have wanted to clear some out but the cost of equipment pushes me towards doing it manually, which takes time and I am 46 almost 47 and just cannot work like I could 10 years ago when I bought the place.

I understand I need at least 1 water source that is not rocket science. My main issue is, I need to know where to make bedding area and I have watched some videos on timber stand management for wildlife, to do so, but I have no hills on my land... NONE, so no south facing slopes etc. I have areas that the sun hits first and hits more through out the day due to the suns travel path, but I am remiss to start cutting down trees with no real way to do anything with them other than lay there and rot. I know I need to get sunlight to the ground to create growth and that will provide bedding and browse. I also know I can plant native grasses in places, but don't know what it would take to plant where trees once were and how much to "open up".
 
The seven years I owned my small property (80 acres in Humphreys) the best advice BSK gave me was to designate a sanctuary in the center of the property if possible and don't ever go in there no matter what. It worked. It didn't necessarily keep any bucks on the property; as LBL stated above the average range of a buck is 640 acres, but what it did do is keep does there. And when you have does the bucks will seek them during the rut. And that they did. The property had a holler running right through the middle of it with thick cover and a year round spring. The does had everything, bedding area, food, water, and the most important, security.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
Great post! Agree with everything mentioned.

It definitely has its up and downs, and without question has trended upward since we started. I've learned to only focus on the things you can control. With those things you can control, get better and better at them and branch off of that to new components. 4 years ago, if you would have told me I'd be burning our woods down, I'd call you crazy. Well, I'm on year 3 of my burn certification and just renewed for another 3 years.

Perfect, branch out, perfect, branch out - learning and observing progress. Very appreciative
Click to expand...
The crazy things about land management are the "unintended consequences." Back before I started managing the habitat, we were 94% hardwoods, and 6% brushy powerline right-of-ways. Surrounding that was some of the best habitat imaginable, with lots of bottomland agriculture. That meant my place was the "worst" habitat in the area. Nature has designed does to be dominant over bucks during the fawning season. It is far more important from a "survival of the species" standpoint for does raising fawns to have access to the best habitat. For that reason, does will often dominate good habitat during the summer, driving buck bachelor groups towards the worst habitat. The result was that I would have a fairly large number of bucks using my property during the summer, often 15+ of all ages. However, in a poor acorn year, I wasn't drawing bucks out of the bottomlands hence I decided to improve the habitat in the hopes of drawing bucks from the bottomlands even in a poor acorn year. Problem is, I made the habitat so much better that recently does and their fawns have taken over the property in summer! And they in turn have driven away the bucks! Now I only 4-6 bucks on the property in summer, and most of those are yearlings still hanging with their mother's social group.

Two steps forwards and one step back... :rolleyes:
 
Bone Collector said:
I own 32 acres. I have THOUGHT about it for the last 5-7 years but never get started, because of money, time, or both. I know I don't have a lot of space. I also know I won't hold bucks on my 32 acres. However aside from acorns and a 1 acre food plot I don't have much to offer. I have a wet weather pond that won't hold water. I have thought about it for years to rent a skid loader or something and dig it out some and see if I can get it to hold some water. I have lots of thick woods but is thick because of cedar. It is not producing any browse (no sunlight hitting the forest floor). I have wanted to clear some out but the cost of equipment pushes me towards doing it manually, which takes time and I am 46 almost 47 and just cannot work like I could 10 years ago when I bought the place.

I understand I need at least 1 water source that is not rocket science. My main issue is, I need to know where to make bedding area and I have watched some videos on timber stand management for wildlife, to do so, but I have no hills on my land... NONE, so no south facing slopes etc. I have areas that the sun hits first and hits more through out the day due to the suns travel path, but I am remiss to start cutting down trees with no real way to do anything with them other than lay there and rot. I know I need to get sunlight to the ground to create growth and that will provide bedding and browse. I also know I can plant native grasses in places, but don't know what it would take to plant where trees once were and how much to "open up".
Click to expand...

IMO 32 acres is plenty enough to create a great hunting property. Sure it's not going to "hold" a bunch of deer but it can be a place some deer spend daylight hours because of cover habitat, browse, and nearby food. It's especially true if there's a lot of hunting pressure in nearby properties.

How big are the cedars? Are any large enough to be marketable? That could be a way to get some thinning and some openings made, while putting money in your pocket. As for the pond, you might look into Bentonite. It's a powder that bonds to the soil & seals the pond from leaking. I'm not sure what you've got exactly going on with it but if it's a leak that stuff could be an easy cheap fix. Or maybe bury one of the plastic tanks. It's how I add water to my place. It works.
 
BSK said:
The crazy things about land management are the "unintended consequences." Back before I started managing the habitat, we were 94% hardwoods, and 6% brushy powerline right-of-ways. Surrounding that was some of the best habitat imaginable, with lots of bottomland agriculture. That meant my place was the "worst" habitat in the area. Nature has designed does to be dominant over bucks during the fawning season. It is far more important from a "survival of the species" standpoint for does raising fawns to have access to the best habitat. For that reason, does will often dominate good habitat during the summer, driving buck bachelor groups towards the worst habitat. The result was that I would have a fairly large number of bucks using my property during the summer, often 15+ of all ages. However, in a poor acorn year, I wasn't drawing bucks out of the bottomlands hence I decided to improve the habitat in the hopes of drawing bucks from the bottomlands even in a poor acorn year. Problem is, I made the habitat so much better that recently does and their fawns have taken over the property in summer! And they in turn have driven away the bucks! Now I only 4-6 bucks on the property in summer, and most of those are yearlings still hanging with their mother's social group.

Two steps forwards and one step back... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That is something I've tried very, very hard to avoid and one major reason I've not had my place logged. I don't want fawning cover. I don't want a bunch of does setting up home. My place is similar to what you describe. It's the bowl end of a hollow and a mile down at the mouth is a big river and the bottomland ag that comes with it. While I don't have a bunch of summer bucks I do get a bunch of fall bucks, often times notably more so than does. My brother's property has fantastic cover and food sources except his place is much farther away from ag. Guess where all the does want to be. The better his place gets the fewer mature bucks he sees. Now I'm about to get my place logged and it's got me scared to death it's going to attract a bunch of doe groups like his place has.
 
I to thought that we would have world class tn hunting. And some years it is outstanding some year average at best. The hardest pill I had to swallow passing deer is how many just leave for what ever reason. A big bulk of 3.5 age bucks just leave. We have property from one side of the county to the other and a lot of acres. That is tough. Some get shot some just leave some who knows. But I do love the work and seeing it come into fruition. We have been hard at it for 15ish years. 100 percent correct it is a zig zag line a lot of ups a lot of downs.

One thing for the people thinking about pulling the trigger on your own ground. It is one of the best investments you will ever have and worth every day of blood sweat and tears and worth every single penny. If you think you can do it jump in with both feet. I firmly believe you won't regret it.
 
lafn96 said:
All very good points; and very applicable to me since I just bought 50 acres this year. I had moderate expectations for this year since I got a late start; and I'd say those were met. At times in Aug I had 8 bucks in a trail cam pic; another I had 6 does. Of course the most I've seen in a pic or live since hunting season started is 3.

Not to derail the thread; but if anyone knows or could recommend a person/company that does food plot consulting/planning here in Eastern TN please let me know.
Click to expand...
Plots are good, but….
Would like to see what others here think about native seed bank quality and growing quality bucks
 

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