My habitat plan

[kkelly]

Hello gentlemen!

First and foremost, I appreciate all the help y'all have given to us newbies as we navigate this journey! It's been invaluable!

Attached is a rough (really rough) sketch of a habitat plan I'm looking to put into place. Yellow circles are doe bedding. Small yellow circles are buck bedding, green circle is food plots, orange lines connecting them will be travel corridors, the red lines will be how I approach the stand. The wind is predominantly S and NE with more S/SW than anything else.

The pond is already there as well as the northern food plot. The eastern food plot was in use this year but didn't see much action. I plan on expanding and adding edge feathering to it.


What are your thoughts? Suggestions?

Here’s the larger picture of what’s going around me.

Topography

Finally wind history October thru Jan

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[IowaBowHunter1983]

Can you provide a map that shows the property lines on both the aerial and topo?

 

[kkelly]

Sure thing. As far as the property line on the topo goes, the far west side is the property line. I can pretty much hunt everywhere else.

The white box below is the property I hunt.

Black line below is the property line on this pic.

I'm located in NE Oklahoma where there isn't much ag. LOTS of cattle land. In fact all the grassland you see in the pic of the surrounding area is cattle pasture.

 

[Sligh1]

Holy cow!!! Was gonna say “that’s a lot of timber- more than anywhere in iowa!!” Very nice!!!
I’d still do “general timber stand improvement” - crop tree release & opening canopy. Adding bedding with more aggressive cuts. Especially if it’s open or lacking lots of natural browse.
U r not hurting for timber so is it possible to clear a few flat laying parts for food plots? I see one in there.

In very short summary... I’d give them what all the neighbors don’t have... unpressured or low pressure varieties of food. Keep working on ur entrances & exits so don’t burn out. Which looks nice. Create cover & browse far superior than grazed cattle land (natural browse is a huge element). If u have 2-3 types food & surrounding for a while doesn’t - with low pressure- man, u could pull in a lot of deer.

What’s the timber around there comprised of? How does it look? Open or is it thick? A lot of timber grazed there?

 

[Hardwood11]

I’m not sure I can help in your state, but that looks great. Good luck

 

[Sligh1]

If you could snap some pics when your in your timber & post, be AWESOME!!!! Want to see trees, how far you can see, type of browse & cover, etc, etc. Close ups and from distance. Next time you're there. Would help immensely. Also, a picture of your soil.... example or 2.

 

[kkelly]

If you could snap some pics when your in your timber & post, be AWESOME!!!! Want to see trees, how far you can see, type of browse & cover, etc, etc. Close ups and from distance. Next time you're there. Would help immensely. Also, a picture of your soil.... example or 2.

Sure thing. Here are a few pics I happen to have on my phone. I’ll have a few pics of soil soon. It’s rocky and I’m working on building up my organic matter.

I’ll be answering your other questions tomorrow.

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[IowaBowHunter1983]

You have an immense amount of cover so I would be focused on food (Plots & TSI). I am not sure what I am looking at in terms of acres as I am not sure the scale, but I would do something like this in an ideal perfect world. (May be cost prohibitive, and scale may be crazy). Again, may be way too over the top but I'd focus on food on those nice ridge tops and build the plan around that. If too big, scale back to something more reasonable...

 

[kkelly]

You have an immense amount of cover so I would be focused on food (Plots & TSI). I am not sure what I am looking at in terms of acres as I am not sure the scale, but I would do something like this in an ideal perfect world. (May be cost prohibitive, and scale may be crazy). Again, may be way too over the top but I'd focus on food on those nice ridge tops and build the plan around that. If too big, scale back to something more reasonable...

View attachment 120479

You know IBH, that sounds like a great plan for sure!

I'm planning on installing the bedding areas and travel corridors this year which will start to accomplish TSI.

To answer your acreage question this is approximately 80 from N to S and from the valley on the east to the edge of the property to the west.

I like where you're going with the idea of really expanding the plots and I think it's doable but cost-prohibitive for sure.

 

[kkelly]

Holy cow!!! Was gonna say “that’s a lot of timber- more than anywhere in iowa!!” Very nice!!!
I’d still do “general timber stand improvement” - crop tree release & opening canopy. Adding bedding with more aggressive cuts. Especially if it’s open or lacking lots of natural browse.
U r not hurting for timber so is it possible to clear a few flat laying parts for food plots? I see one in there.

In very short summary... I’d give them what all the neighbors don’t have... unpressured or low pressure varieties of food. Keep working on ur entrances & exits so don’t burn out. Which looks nice. Create cover & browse far superior than grazed cattle land (natural browse is a huge element). If u have 2-3 types food & surrounding for a while doesn’t - with low pressure- man, u could pull in a lot of deer.

What’s the timber around there comprised of? How does it look? Open or is it thick? A lot of timber grazed there?

Ha I'm sure it initially caught you off guard being that this is an Iowa forum! I have family in Nebraska (GBR!...maybe I shouldn't mention that...) and frequent up there often.

The food plot that is there is currently 1/3rd of an acre with the intent of opening that up to the SE and NW. I'm hoping that I can expand that to about 2-3x's over the next few years.

Timber is mostly hardwoods and pines. Lot's of oaks...red, white, black, pin, etc. Also have some sycamore, dogwood, redbuds.

I'd say that for the most part, at deer height, the timber is pretty wide open. I'm looking forward to hinge cutting some bedding and travel corridors to really direct movement.

 

[hesseu]

Heavy TSI / FSI on your SE, S, and SW facing slopes...I mean heavy. Open the canopy up and let the sun get to the forest floor. Immediate food and bedding. On a northerly wind / colder days, they'll bed on these slopes. On NW, N, and NE slopes, you can keep a more closed canopy forest as they will bed on these slopes on the southerly wind / warmer days. Ridge tops, and even saddles on those ridges would be good feeding areas.