North Lakes Farm
New Member
If anybody has advice on what to do with property, I’m trying manage it for deer hunting simultaneously run cattle/sheep on it. The livestock get moved almost daily & don’t return to the same area for at least 35 days. Almost the entire 160 gets grazed minus wooded area in the NE portion that is about 20 acres(maybe?) and is sectioned out by barbed wire. So imagine the entire property (minus that) split into 35 paddocks, or another way to think of it, is I’m tinkering around in 1 of 4 areas of the property for a roughly a week at a time.
It’s a wet acidic area, the northern part is lowest most wet. You can kinda see the outline of the 3 northern paddocks, those lines are ditches(often with water) lined with black willow(I think), the other large sections of dark green are willow brush. In the 3 paddocks there’s high ground and the 2 on the most eastern and in middle, I cut the willow brush.
The central one is where we I have some apple and chestnut trees and caught 3yo bucks on camera in daylight eating apples early October last year.
We’d all be extremely happy shooting 3 year olds around here where neighbors don’t do QDMA and predation is probably bad with bears wolves etc (Aitkin MN)
We set a stand up overlooking those trees for a roughly 200 yard + - rifle shot. A 2 person ladder for my daughter on a tree to the south across the ditch/willows in the central woods, on the north edge, more towards the east.
I got a few more pics of the bucks coming into that pasture when wind was blowing north, so I think my idea failed. But it was too noisy crunching leaves walking in and the ladder stand was noisy so I think better placement would be a permanent enclosed blind off the NW corner of these woods, making access cleaner and allowing the black willows to grow up around our entrance. It would also help us in that north blowing wind scenario.
Last year we pulled the cows out of the northern portion mid September and kept them in the southern portion of the property until spring.
The pin in the middle on the east side, is where I suspect a Buck we are interested in to be often. He’s on cam coming into the woods(that don’t get grazed) from the N befire sunrise then shows up on cam by that pin at 7,8 or 9am. Tough to hunt because deer are there often in W NW winds.
Neighbors to the N hunt hard, but deer still seem to bed/stage along the cover and go N through their field in evening on their way to bigger AG across the street.
Neighbor along the woods to the NE has a blind basically on the property line, and I think they are noisy so .
Big woods property to the south at least 400 acres with food plots in it.
Any ideas welcome of what you would do.
pastures have lots of trefoil and clover, I broadcast clover in areas I attempt to hunt.
Haven’t put in a food plot yet because the pasture is where I make money with the livestock so I want to be sure I’m putting it in the best spot.
It’s a wet acidic area, the northern part is lowest most wet. You can kinda see the outline of the 3 northern paddocks, those lines are ditches(often with water) lined with black willow(I think), the other large sections of dark green are willow brush. In the 3 paddocks there’s high ground and the 2 on the most eastern and in middle, I cut the willow brush.
The central one is where we I have some apple and chestnut trees and caught 3yo bucks on camera in daylight eating apples early October last year.
We’d all be extremely happy shooting 3 year olds around here where neighbors don’t do QDMA and predation is probably bad with bears wolves etc (Aitkin MN)
We set a stand up overlooking those trees for a roughly 200 yard + - rifle shot. A 2 person ladder for my daughter on a tree to the south across the ditch/willows in the central woods, on the north edge, more towards the east.
I got a few more pics of the bucks coming into that pasture when wind was blowing north, so I think my idea failed. But it was too noisy crunching leaves walking in and the ladder stand was noisy so I think better placement would be a permanent enclosed blind off the NW corner of these woods, making access cleaner and allowing the black willows to grow up around our entrance. It would also help us in that north blowing wind scenario.
Last year we pulled the cows out of the northern portion mid September and kept them in the southern portion of the property until spring.
The pin in the middle on the east side, is where I suspect a Buck we are interested in to be often. He’s on cam coming into the woods(that don’t get grazed) from the N befire sunrise then shows up on cam by that pin at 7,8 or 9am. Tough to hunt because deer are there often in W NW winds.
Neighbors to the N hunt hard, but deer still seem to bed/stage along the cover and go N through their field in evening on their way to bigger AG across the street.
Neighbor along the woods to the NE has a blind basically on the property line, and I think they are noisy so .
Big woods property to the south at least 400 acres with food plots in it.
Any ideas welcome of what you would do.
pastures have lots of trefoil and clover, I broadcast clover in areas I attempt to hunt.
Haven’t put in a food plot yet because the pasture is where I make money with the livestock so I want to be sure I’m putting it in the best spot.
