i wanted to take a few minutes and explain why it's important for landowners hunters
habitat managers to consider their overall objectives before they start pulling out the
chainsaws or the hatchets to create a hide hole food plot or maybe start a tsi project
a great illustration of pairing those objectives with habitat improvement projects is from a recent
property i toured about an hour and a half northeast of the proving grounds
the landowner had recently purchased about 230 acres
and the property was primarily hardwood timber that had been harvested several years in the past
in fact we saw the stumps of the trees that had been harvested
and had been hydrated which means when the loggers came in they removed the
highest quality trees those that brought the most profit at the time and left the low quality trees
the low quality trees were receiving more sunlight more water nutrients
and they grew up and eventually created a closed canopy forest
of low quality trees deer make that living from zero to three feet and you look through
there there's no food whatsoever right now right for deer and no cover and so
we want to get some native species in here as the landowner and i talked i learned his specific
goals and objectives were to provide hunting opportunities for members of his family which
included younger hunters and hunters that were you know primarily hunting with a firearm but then he
also wanted to be able to bow hunt the property himself as we toured i used the hunt stand app to
make notes of my observations and really took time to explain the details to the landowner of how to
improve the native habitat and use the release process to produce high quality food plot forge
we have many videos that dive into the details of the release process for improving food plot forage
and improving native habitat maybe you're managing hardwoods or cedars or maybe
pines and you wish to open up a closed canopy forest allow more sunlight to reach the ground
and then manage that area to provide high quality forage and cover for critters
i encourage you to check out those videos and learn more about those techniques
not only are native areas very beautiful to look at and extremely productive for wildlife offering
both native browse and cover but for a hunter it provides many opportunities to see critters you
know that closed canopy forest and a lot of low quality stems it's tough to see a hundred yards or
squeeze a bullet through there but if we open that up and have high quality vegetation between some
large productive oaks man that's going to be beautiful and hunters can see a lot of critters
and effectively hunt those areas this is a very effective hunting strategy and we shared many
hunts from here at the proving grounds where we've tagged some great bucks out of those areas oh my
he's down he's down so when i started laying out the native habitat on the property you can tell by
the 3d feature on huntstan that much of the native habitat is on the side slopes and for a firearm
hunter man that's awesome they can cover a lot of ground i mean several hundred yards but for a bow
hunter it's a little tougher to get on those side slopes and get within bow range of a deer without
that wind wanting to swirl so we need to get up on top of the ridge where the wind is more consistent
and start creating or finding bottlenecks to get deer within range of a bow hunter
growingdeer is brought to you by bass pro shops and cabela's also by green cover food
plots winchester lacrosse footwear moultrie mobile fleet outdoor apparel morel targets rtp outdoors
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bows and redneck hunting blinds each property is unique so when i started looking at this property
you can tell the middle of the property is pretty much one long ridge in fact it kind of
tapers off to the west and creates what we call an elevator ridge where it's easy for deer to
travel up and down the terrain going from high to low or low to high elevation
and up on top of the ridge the previous owner had created a large food plot now there was still some
flat land to work with so we really needed to dive in on this site specific plan and figure out how
we were going to get some bottlenecks up on this ridge when we zoom out on the map and we look at
the surrounding properties we're seeing a lot of high graded timber and fescue cattle pasture
it's obvious that food is a limited resource in the area and you're going man daniel you've
got some flat land up on top of that ridge let's just create one big food plot that's
that limited resource of course you're going to pull deer in and that might have been an
option if the landowner was only firearm hunting and didn't have as many hunters but he needed
more hunting locations and bow hunting locations so instead i started designing a series of small
food plots and hidey holes kind of using that large feeding destination plot as our foundation
now we've created a lot of bottlenecks and hunting locations that a bowhunter can hunt during
different wind directions our native habitat also comes into play we're going to use that as a
feature to bottleneck deer even more you'll notice i didn't recommend that the landowner use tsi in
between the food plots and that's going to create these hard edges and hardwood travel corridors
as deer sneak around the edge of food plots or as they travel to and from the food plots
it just worked out that that food plot had been created in the middle of the property and
that's great because now these smaller plots and these travel corridors are acting as transition
zones a hunter can slip in in the afternoon and hunt and allow deer to travel past them to that
destination food plot and then they can slip down without alerting deer and go back to the cabin
or back to the truck and in the mornings they can sneak in climb up the tree or into the blind while
the deer are out in that larger plot feeding and catch them coming back to a favorable bedding area
hunting transition zones has its benefits you reduce alerting deer and you gain some
minutes on your shooting light you know if you were hunting right on that large food plot
deer may not step out until right at dark but by being several hundred yards back and being
in that transition zone your odds are much higher to have a deer within range during shooting light
this landowner's already chomping at the bit to start implementing the plan and i got to tell
you as that native habitat improves and he starts building soil health and getting really healthy
palatable food plot forage this property is going to be a gym and he's going to enjoy
some great hunts and the design and the habitat improvements work together to meet his goals and
objectives to provide hunting opportunities for his family for firearm hunters and for him as a
bowhunter if you're starting to lay out some food plots or start on some habitat improvement work
make sure you consider how those improvements and changes are going to affect deer movement
and future hunting opportunities this project is a great example of how hidey hole food plots
paired with some habitat improvement work can create some great bottlenecks in timber country
if you'd like to learn more about hidey hole food plots and how to create bottlenecks
in timber country we'll be sharing several videos later this spring as we walk through the steps
of creating a hidey hole food plot with hand tools planting and managing them as we prepare for fall
hunting season getting outside and improving habitat is a great way to enjoy creation
but i hope you take time this week and work to improve your relationship with the creator
and understand his will for your life thanks for watching growingdeer
thank you
you