John's Journal...

Micro-Manage Deer

Pick the Best Spots

Click to enlargeEditor’s Note: "A 60-acre lease can provide all the land you and your friends need to bowhunt or gun hunt successfully - if the lease is the right 60 acres," says Jim Crumley of Roanoke, Virginia, founder of Trebark camouflage. "If plenty of deer are passing through the Click to enlargeproperty, and if you can shoot accurately for at least 20 yards in every direction, then all the land you need to take white-tailed deer consistently is about 40-square yards." The rest of the week we’ll learn tactics to use to micro-manage deer successfully.

The location of a small deer-hunting lease directly affects whether or not you can maximize its deer-hunting potential. For instance, an ideal deer-hunting lease may consist of about 100 to 300 acres adjacent to a true sanctuary like a state park, a national park, an industrial park, a golf course, a residential area or a goose refuge that doesn't permit hunting. If you have a hunting lease next to any of these kinds of sanctuaries, your chances of producing high numbers of Click to enlargequality deer on small tracts of land increase greatly. "If you're lucky enough to get a lease adjacent to one of these types of sanctuaries, you should develop as much deer food on your property as you can," Dr. GrantWoods, one of the nation's leading deer nutritionists and wildlife researchers, recommends.

To micro-manage a small hunting lease next to a major sanctuary, develop cover corridors that allow the deer to leave the sanctuary, Click to enlargeand find the food sources on your property as they walk into the wind. For instance, if you hunt in the Deep South, prevailing winds during most of deer season come from the northwest. So deer corridors on southern properties should lead deer toward food sources in northwestern locations. "You want your cover corridors to be perpendicular to the refuge to encourage deer to move onto your property to feed," Dr. Woods states. "Another critical ingredient to micro-managing land for deer next to sanctuaries is to approach your hunting zone without having your human odor blown into it.  So, if you hunt one of these cover areas, go to your stand site from the north or the south."

Tomorrow: Determine the Harvest and Keep Quiet


Check back each day this week for more about "Micro-Manage Deer"

Day 1: You Can Hunt Successfully On Small Acreages
Day 2: Keep the Deer at Home
Day 3: Pick the Best Spots
Day 4: Determine the Harvest and Keep Quiet
Day 5: Keep Hunting Pressure Off





 

Entry 527, Day 3