tw911
New Member
Good evening, We want to put in food plots and do some work to improve our habitat. First let me give a brief description of our farm.
We have just under 375 acres of land in Jones county. About 100 acres are in timber. Crop fields on 3 sides ( north south and east) a gravel road to west and neighboring timber and crop fields. Of the timber the main timber is about 80 acres with 2 " Fingers as we call it" that border with the neighbor to the east which is also timber. We put in a 1.5 acre pond in the NE corner of the timber. It has lot of mature trees. Oak, Walnut Maple Elms and more. The timber is appx 300 to 400 yards wide. We had a problem with oak wilt and had those areas harvested of the trees 4 years ago. The problem we have is in the winter you can see from the road all the way thru the timber. We get great deer movement and have shot lots of 140 to 170 class deer. But....they are all deer passing thru. We cannot get deer to hold in our property, this is do to lack of ground cover. We are going to start hinge cutting some trees after Jan 10th to hopefully create more ground cover for bedding areas.
What can we plant along the timber on road side to better hide viewing into the timber? Also going to do this on north and south side too. We want to also put food plots in several locations on east side away from prying eyes. Also we have several waterways that are grass. We want to put some type of food plots in these also but closer to the timber. They are all grass of some sort so what do we use and how do we do these? The crop ground is all leased out. No food plots will be on neighboring property lines. Getting our timber to thicken to create a home/bedding area is goal #1. I do not want to feed deer at night so they go to bed next door. Normally we let our neighbor cut and bale the waterways but we let him do that at N/C and that can stop when we do food plots. Food plots work will be done via our Polaris UTV with attachments. We are going to put in food plots as follows, 1 on North side appx 10k sq feet. East side 2 plots by timber appx 600 sq ft each. 1 on backside of pond where the tube drains into about 700 sq feet. 1 in waterway by fingers about 250 sq ft the ones in the bigger waterways aill vary from 300 sq ft to 13k sq ft. The ones in waterways will only be along the sides with breaks in between them. They will not be continual. We plan on doing smaller ones closer to the neighbors and getting them bigger as they get closer to our main timber.
I know this is along post but we need some thoughts and ideas. There will be no hunting in waterways or within 100 yards of the pond food plot of big food plot on north end. The other 3 will be hunting on travel routes and not over the food plots. This is about better habitat and giving the deer food sources they need in the cold months. The waterways I am thinking they can be used for spring summer fall, helping the does, fawns and of course for antler growth. We do not want to go in and cut down our mature trees unless there is a disease that dictates the need to. We have 4 bow hunters and the same 4 for guns. The timber is hills and valleys, spring fed creek thru middle which goes to pond. Pond is 15 ft deep. Was 17ft 5 years ago.
If you want a aerial photo email me and I can send on. File is too large to upload here
m.kleinsmith@mediacombb.net
Thanks
Mike
We have just under 375 acres of land in Jones county. About 100 acres are in timber. Crop fields on 3 sides ( north south and east) a gravel road to west and neighboring timber and crop fields. Of the timber the main timber is about 80 acres with 2 " Fingers as we call it" that border with the neighbor to the east which is also timber. We put in a 1.5 acre pond in the NE corner of the timber. It has lot of mature trees. Oak, Walnut Maple Elms and more. The timber is appx 300 to 400 yards wide. We had a problem with oak wilt and had those areas harvested of the trees 4 years ago. The problem we have is in the winter you can see from the road all the way thru the timber. We get great deer movement and have shot lots of 140 to 170 class deer. But....they are all deer passing thru. We cannot get deer to hold in our property, this is do to lack of ground cover. We are going to start hinge cutting some trees after Jan 10th to hopefully create more ground cover for bedding areas.
What can we plant along the timber on road side to better hide viewing into the timber? Also going to do this on north and south side too. We want to also put food plots in several locations on east side away from prying eyes. Also we have several waterways that are grass. We want to put some type of food plots in these also but closer to the timber. They are all grass of some sort so what do we use and how do we do these? The crop ground is all leased out. No food plots will be on neighboring property lines. Getting our timber to thicken to create a home/bedding area is goal #1. I do not want to feed deer at night so they go to bed next door. Normally we let our neighbor cut and bale the waterways but we let him do that at N/C and that can stop when we do food plots. Food plots work will be done via our Polaris UTV with attachments. We are going to put in food plots as follows, 1 on North side appx 10k sq feet. East side 2 plots by timber appx 600 sq ft each. 1 on backside of pond where the tube drains into about 700 sq feet. 1 in waterway by fingers about 250 sq ft the ones in the bigger waterways aill vary from 300 sq ft to 13k sq ft. The ones in waterways will only be along the sides with breaks in between them. They will not be continual. We plan on doing smaller ones closer to the neighbors and getting them bigger as they get closer to our main timber.
I know this is along post but we need some thoughts and ideas. There will be no hunting in waterways or within 100 yards of the pond food plot of big food plot on north end. The other 3 will be hunting on travel routes and not over the food plots. This is about better habitat and giving the deer food sources they need in the cold months. The waterways I am thinking they can be used for spring summer fall, helping the does, fawns and of course for antler growth. We do not want to go in and cut down our mature trees unless there is a disease that dictates the need to. We have 4 bow hunters and the same 4 for guns. The timber is hills and valleys, spring fed creek thru middle which goes to pond. Pond is 15 ft deep. Was 17ft 5 years ago.
If you want a aerial photo email me and I can send on. File is too large to upload here
m.kleinsmith@mediacombb.net
Thanks
Mike