DANIEL: Grant and Clay were in Kentucky this week and they saw a lot of action.
Unfortunately, Grant didn't punch a tag in Kentucky, but he's excited to get back to
The Proving Grounds because our season opens in just a few days.
DANIEL: The GrowingDeer Team enjoys sharing hunting tips and management techniques with
others.
And one way that we do this is we work with landowners and hunters over the phone as they
develop habitat management and wildlife plans for their properties.
JAIME: Hello.
GRANT: Hey, this is Grant Woods calling.
JAIME: Hey, Dr. Woods. How are you?
GRANT: I am great today.
How are you?
JAIME: I can't complain.
DANIEL: Grant recently spoke to a landowner in Georgia and assisted him with two of his
properties.
GRANT: All right.
Which property would you like to start on?
JAIME: Um. Let's start with the one down in Eufaula…
GRANT: Yeah. Yeah.
JAIME: …the larger property.
GRANT: Yeah.
And your property, of course, lays primarily east to west and pivot irrigation heavy on
the south, some ag on the northwest and ag not too far off on the east.
GRANT: When I first look at this property, just a couple of things that come to my mind
is there's ample food, at least during the summer.
These pivot ag fields are gonna have summer food in ‘em for sure and probably all the
other fields.
So I'm not as worried about summer food on the property and you've got basically, you
know, 300 +/- acres of early succession forage.
DANIEL: A big part of Jaime's plan was to identify the travel corridors that traveled
from the cover to the food and create food plots that helped him maximize his hunting
opportunities.
GRANT: You have, you're the biggest block of cover for approximately a mile in every
direction.
JAIME: Okay.
GRANT: And that's great news because deer spend the bulk of their hours in cover, right?
So the bottom line is we cannot compete from a food point of view with the farmers on three
sides of you.
GRANT: But what we can do, and this is a huge benefit, is we know where the bulk of the
deer are traveling; deer and hogs are gonna travel.
They're gonna go to these ag fields.
And a really easy plan for us, and less expensive than providing a big feeding food plot program,
is to have staging area food plots - or smaller food plots - strategically located en route
to these ag fields.
And the deer are going to seek cover; there's not that much cover around you.
DANIEL: Grant quickly identified a narrow travel corridor in the northwest corner of
Jaime's property.
JAIME: Okay.
GRANT: I just drew in a two-acre food plot right there.
JAIME: Gotcha.
GRANT: And that way deer traveling from the north into your property are going to go by
that food plot.
Deer going out that hardwood runner to leave your property are going by that food plot.
Deer going to that ag field to the west of you are going to stop at that food plot and
get a snack.
That's why it's called a staging area plot.
They're staging there before they go out under the cover of darkness into that very large
ag field to the west of you.
DANIEL: Grant and Jaime also identified other areas where they could put staging area food
plots and create bottlenecks.
GRANT: I would have a stand or blind there in that narrow part, maybe, you know, oh gosh,
100 yards or less off your southern property line there.
JAIME: Ah huh.
GRANT: Because that way if you're a bow hunter, those deer will really bottleneck down.
Because they're going to swing through there to go to those ag fields.
That's just like, you couldn't have laid it out better if I'd planned it that way.
JAIME: Okay.
GRANT: And that way on a south wind, strong south wind in the morning, you could get in
there.
You could, you know, come straight down that hardwood drain, just to walk; that's not that
far to walk, get in that stand.
On the assumption deer have been out in those fields during the night, and they're coming
back into the bedroom, they're going to come back in your property.
GRANT: So a great location for our last food plot on this property, right in that little
corner.
So, again you could have stands on three sides of that food plot or blinds hidden in the
timber, whatever.
Man, that is an incredible location for a food plot that no one is gonna see because
you got tall timber on three sides of it.
JAIME: Hmm, hmm.
GRANT: We never know what the wind is going to be on that Friday afternoon, so we need
to be able to approach, hunt, and exit multiple places on your property for different wind
directions.
JAIME: Sure.
GRANT: Because if you have…let's say you're taking a buddy hunting with you; you can't
have just one stand for northwest wind because you don't want to sit, you know, right next
to your buddy hunting most of the time.
JAIME: Right.
GRANT: So we need multiple stands.
So that brings a point that on each of these food plots I would basically have a stand
or a blind, something like, in the northwest corner and the southeast corner.
And those two corners almost any wind direction you can hunt it.
GRANT: You hate to go to the expense and time of developing a nice food plot and not be
able to hunt it when you want because the wind is wrong.
DANIEL: One unique feature to Jaime's property was that there was a large reservoir to the
west.
Knowing that cold air sinks and warm air rises, Grant shared how Jaime could utilize the predominant
thermals to be able to hunt and exit without alerting deer in the target area.
GRANT: The reservoir is large enough that during the winter - not now - but during the
winter, that water is going to be warmer than the land.
That warm water is going to cause air to rise over it and pull in air from the surrounding
areas.
GRANT: So on a cold day you know the wind direction of your property is going to be
pulled through thermals.
So, I'm going to say from the western half of your property, on a cold morning - unless
there's a really strong wind, the wind is going to go right down those drains and run
right in that cove of the lake we were talking about.
You can just count on that.
JAIME: So if that's the case, how would you hunt that?
Because if the deer, I guess if the deer are coming towards the ag field, from the ag field,
that'd be a bad time because my scent is blowing into them.
GRANT: Not necessarily.
The deer are going to probably travel right up that hardwood corridor.
So if you're right down there at your property line, if you're on the very east side, you're
scent is going right down that lake.
And that's what I call threading the needle.
Your scent is right on the edge of where the deer are traveling but it's never going to
get there because it's not hot enough to rise up to them.
GRANT: Threading the needle stands are the best because deer believe they are secure,
and they're moving freely through the area, and your scent is just a few degrees off their
travel path.
DANIEL: Jaime also owned another property that he wanted assistance with, so we zoomed
out of the onX Map, shifted over a few miles and took a look.
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GRANT: And I'm on your other property now which is similar habitat except now you've
got mature trees or more mature trees; relatively flat, topo lines are really far apart here.
Deer home ranges vary a lot but let's just say on average they're about a mile, that's
just an average.
When I look at a mile radius - think of the Rubik's Cube - there's no major food for a
mile in any direction.
DANIEL: If Jaime adds quality food to his property the deer in the surrounding areas
whose home ranges overlap with Jaime's property, well, they're going to find that food and
they're going to want to spend more time on Jaime's property.
DANIEL: Jaime indicated that he desired to thin the pines on his property within the
next few years.
GRANT: When you thin this, we're going to plant food plots right down those rows.
JAIME: Sure.
GRANT: And then when you thin - I'm so thankful that you're thinning.
If we run the rows straight east and west, they get sunshine all day long and will dry
out the soil.
It won't conserve any moisture because they're not being shaded…
JAIME: Right.
GRANT: … and so you get more evaporation.
GRANT: But if you make these rows, think of a powerline running north and south.
Most of the soil moisture loss through evaporation occurs in the afternoon when the temperatures
is the highest.
And so if you have a powerline running north and south, it's in the shade during the hottest
time of the day and you don't have near as much moisture loss.
JAIME: How wide should that be?
Each of those rows?
GRANT: I don't want it any narrower than 20.
15 is absolutely the narrowest, so you get enough sunlight in there during the day.
JAIME: Yeah.
GRANT: You're going to need in a year or two to do an herbicide application and the main
herbicide should be Imazapyr.
Generic formulations are like Chopper - as in helicopter - Gen II, Generation II, blah, blah, blah.
That's the best herbicide to control sweetgums and it's very friendly to most of the native
plants that would want to come up, native vegetation plants.
GRANT: From a deer point of view, everyone says, “Oh man, that's hard to hunt.
They can be in cover within a bound or two.”
It's just the opposite.
It's always perspective that matters.
So what happens is because deer are so close to cover, just like the hidey hole food plots
we developed on your other property, they're very calm.
JAIME: Okay.
GRANT: And these rows we're making, these open rows, it channelizes the wind so even
when it's a little swirly the wind direction is constant on your property.
GRANT: This is so incredible.
You will never be bored hunting, you, and your family.
You're going to start, let's just say at your house.
And you get in the property a little bit so people can't see you off the road, and you
just ease down and you look down a row.
You don't see any deer, any turkey, whatever season it is.
You just walk real quietly, maybe another 50 yards or whatever, or 30 yards, whatever
it is, look up that row.
GRANT: You're stalking and spotting and then you see a critter.
Then let's say gosh it's out of your range, or whatever it is, and it's up there 150 yards,
or 200 yards, or whatever.
You get in the adjoining row on the downwind side, walk perfectly silently right up the
edge of your food plot in that row, get to about the right distance, stalk right through,
and you don’t have to get too close, obviously, with a gun.
You’ll be able to bow hunt this way really easy and right there you are.
And the critter never knows you're in the world.
GRANT: This is the most productive habitat pine forest can be.
DANIEL: We're confident that if Jaime implements these plans, he and his family will enjoy
many great hunts throughout the years.
DANIEL: If you enjoy the hunting tips or the management techniques that we share here on GrowingDeer,
I encourage you to check out some of our other videos.
Give us a thumbs up, subscribe and share a link with your friends.
DANIEL: Whether you're planting food plots, sitting in the tree stand, or just enjoying
a walk outside, I hope you take time every day to slow down and enjoy Creation.
But more importantly, I hope you seek the Creator and find the purpose He has for your
life.
DANIEL: Thanks for watching GrowingDeer.