Top 10 Deer Habitat Improvement Mistakes
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- While some of these deer habitat improvements have their place and time, more often than not they can be a mistake on small deer parcels. Many habitat improvement practices are not only a mistake for most whitetail parcels, but their negative effects can damage your land for many years to come. Why are these 10 habitat improvements potential mistakes for your land? Because the majority of the time they are not a good fit if your goal is to building a quality herd and hunt on your land. Here are my top 10 deer habitat improvements that you should most likely NOT build on your land, this season...
At 1:05 Check out eagle dropping meat in the air and another grabbing that same piece of meat before it hits the ground! Cool shot Dylan!
So hard to cut an oak that took 30-50 years to grow, but I’m starting to adjust to the thought.
I am a small property owner and have learned more from your videos in a shorter period of time than all the other channels combined. Your information has saved me from wasting a lot of time and money.Thank you for your videos, they are packed with useful information.
Your awesome!! I have 27 acres, creek throughout property diagonal, trail on outer perimeter Cresent shape from homesite to rear power line, powerline at 3/4 of the back portion of property, and another 6 to 7 acres beyond powerline. I have nocturnal deer becuase of me!!I got lazy and drive 4 wheeler and sxs everywhere!! Deer use to be on trail while walking but now nocturnal deer. Early AM time or after sun goes down. I am glad I watched this video becuase I was about to cut trees down and ruin my beautiful property. Deer are here and want to be here but I got lazy!!! Great video!!
Jeff, keep on knocking out the great info and I will keep on soaking it up. With any luck I will have my own little 50 acre piece of of heaven here in Tennessee with in the next few weeks and you can bet your last dime that I will be applying as much as your awesome information you so freely share with us all.
Doug man I hope you get that land in TN very soon! Thank you so much for the comments and you are very welcome. I hope there is enough information here to develop a very firm foundation with the habitat 🙂
Man great video once again Jeff. Love these longer videos...
Thank you Chris!
Jeff, Great video. I wish I had found you earlier.
We joined QDMA around 1992, and began spreading the word throughout WI. that neighbors could cooperate and improve the quality of their hunting experiences by working together. We have been working on improvements on different hunting properties since that time and have learned a lot from making many of the mistakes you have mentioned. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of time and effort to correct the unintended results of misguided decisions. The best path forward is to make the correct decision in the beginning and work to accomplish that plan. We continue to make changes, and appreciate all the ideas and information you provide. Hopefully we can continue to learn from your guidance and make the correct decisions in the future. Again thanks for all the ideas and help you give out to sportsmen.
Bob
Bob thank you so much! And I live this process and helping out where I can. I have experienced that while the end whitetail goal is mostly the same, there are huge differences in how to get there. Most schooled efforts come up very short...
Like you talked about, experience is so incredibly important...the best way to learn is from making mistakes. I really hope that this video helps folks and Diane and I can't wait to see you soon!
One of the best videos you have made yet, great job Jeff! So much information. I too have experienced the canopy bedding failure. Lucky I only did a small 40 x 40 yard area. Going to focus more on side cover and getting browse on the ground. The canopy I created was still shading out the forest floor and adding no side cover. I totally agree, most people that hinge cut do it wrong because of all the misleading info out there about building a canopy and so called “buck bedding.” I was mislead. I have learned so much from you in the last 6 months or so from watching your videos. Every land manager for Whitetails should be watching your videos. Great job, keep it up.
26:11 “ if deer had guns” hahaha good contrast
Thanks for the tips, this is great.
I have 50 acres of trees. Boxelder, Oak, Aspen, Ash. No need to hinge cut anything because of the amount of trees that snap off in the prairie wind being surrounded by ag land and cattle pasture. There is a big dugout at the south end right close to the old yard site. Always tracks there but I wonder if maybe putting a couple water holes in further North would help. You have also given me some ideas on putting a few transition food plots in so it keeps the deer occupied for an hour before they head out into the fields to eat post harvest regrowth or beans that are still standing.
Jeff all you wanna do is help well I'll tell you what you sure are helping a lot of people. Just hope they take what you say to heart because it is 100 percent correct. Thanks man
You're spot on about the cost share programs. NRCS forestry programs are my day job. People get too far ahead of themselves and then get in a bind wishing they did something different. They are a great tool, but they are complex and need to be well planned.
You are also right about all grass or grass dominant native plantings, they are meh. If you have a heavy forb component in a more ecologically complex planting with alot of silphiums, goldenrod, leadplant, indigo they don't lodge as much, provide more diverse cover, have alot more multispecies benefits, and they look a hell of a lot prettier. The problem is those diverse seed mixes are expensive and most people don't want to drop 1k/ac outside of the cost share programs and then they lock themselves into it with a half a plan and have issues down the road. Switchgrass is a good cheap alternative, particularly if you only care about whitetails.
Hi Dan...thanks for the the feedback! Really appreciate by it. What if find to be the best whitetail AND wildlife mix is a base of switchgrass in solid pockets and borders, combined with with non-grass early successional broadleaf growth. Incredibly inexpensive and highly effective in a very short period of time.
Many big the programs offer great tax benefits...but a landowner should of course always enroll after a whitetail and wildlife plan has been installed first.
A little off topic, but I see landowners often but off more than they can chew, do an immediate tax break program is needed. Most of the time an individual is better off buying 1/2 as many acres within their resources that they have total control over, instead of more acres with stretched resources of both time and money, and significantly less control.
Again...really appreciate your comments...thank you Dan!
Hey brother it’s goin to be a day or two before I get caught up on videos. Stuff here is getting a lot worse you know what I’m talking about. Yes you help us more than you know brother. Keep up the great videos GOD BLESS. Very informative videos brother.
Thank you Randle, and I really hope that all is well...the family and your BIL is at peace.
Whitetail Habitat Solutions not really my father in-law is not doin good at oil.
Thank you for the video.
You are a genius sir. Thanks for the videos
Well I appreciate that Desy...thanks a lot for watching!
I’m going on my first hunt this weekend! Kansas Whitetail
Great content as always but would love to see a mini series of what works in each individual state that you visit clients
Awsome info Brother .. this applies both to my home 10acres and camp to really structures ya to have some great guidelines Jeff ..your the best man .. I cut some maple last week in wet area deer found it a day later all over my home 10 been watching them eat the buds ..
Thanks for doing the videos Jeff.
Great video I’m in upstate NY and had the property logged pretty much the only thing that’s come up is ferns even if I pour syrup on it they won’t eat it
Great information thanks for sharing!
Thank you Jeff
Hey Jeff, your vids have been very educational for me. I'm in true! Upstate NY. I hunt a semi small parcel that I do not own there for can not plant, cut, do any. Changes to the land Wich is at least 50% AG fields. Also surrounded by baiters on the property borders. Also very flat land. There are many deer in the area and nice mature bucks around the greater area. For me they have been quite scarce does and small bucks on cam every year... I struggle to understand the area as to where bucks would bed and there travel routes. Any additional advice is helpful
This will be my first year of planting switchgrass. To conceal my movement how wide should the switch grass be planted??
24"-36"-48" wide
Great great information what brand of switchgrass do you use and what preparation do u do into a clear-cut to seed switchgrass just soil to soil contact or do you need discing
Hi Mike, thank you very much! I use Cave in Rock switchgrass in this area from www.northwoodswhitetailseeds.com. very important to use a solid, single variety blend...none of the "bedding in a bag" mixes. You are looking for total volume, which is why farmers don't mix their switch 😉
Frostseeding is a great practice...check it this video and let me know what you think:
ua-cam.com/video/J8FmUIcYT6E/v-deo.html
Also if you search "switchgrass for whitetails" on UA-cam my other switchgrass videos will be at the top. Also Google a search for articles...all at the top 🙂 Let me know what you think!
@whitetail Habitat Solutions You keep mentioning a big mistake that hunters are doing is cutting down timber to create a canopy for deer to hide under when what they really need is side coverage. However, in the last few videos I've watched you're showing people cutting trees turning them into a canopy for coverage. Kind of a mixed message, but I may be interpreting incorrectly?
It seems like the consistent biggest bucks come from the midwest. Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin et al. What states-zones in your experience produce the biggest bucks and why ? I would imagine that the heavy agriculture states with soy and corn in abundance provide a big advantage but region wise are genetic differences significant ?. The southern states never impressed me as producing big bucks. In New England we do have our share of impressive bucks but it seems like the midwest just has an abundance
There are so many big buck areas...with poor buck age structure. The hills of the Mississippi separate hunters, separate deer and automatically increase buck age structure, even while offering multiple buck tags and longer seasons.
I would say there are several times more areas that can produce giant deer than not...but bucks don't get to reach maturity. Flat land and excessive hunting numbers are more to blame than genetics.
Hunt good habitat with low hunter numbers and it is easy to find giants. I see them all over the north 1/2 of the country...pretty amazing!
Hunting suburban deer is another easy tactic...easy hunting and giant mature bucks. BUT finding permission is extremely tough. More people doesn't necessarily mean pressure bucks...it just means it is nearly impossible to find permission to hunt 🙂
@@whitetailhabitatsolutions9751 You are right on hunting pressure. In New York state the weapons use is defined by county so the more rural counties allow rifle while the other counties are limited to shotgun or archery. Columbia county is the first rifle county north of New York city and opening day has more gun fire than most combat days in the Iraq war. If you get a spike in upstate New York it is considered a trophy and the habitat is incredible.
Conversely in Westchester county just a few miles north of New York city only archery is allowed and you can find an abundance on record bucks where the habitat is far more limited.
@@haroldcallahan4887 it truly is amazing how there are so many big buck areas...that just don't get the age structure needed. BUT, find a little honey hole in those areas like say for example se lower MI suburban hotspots, and you can kill a mega giant. Again not a hard hunt...but beer hard to get permission in spots like that. I imagine that area in NY is similar!
Hi Jeff, I planted about 7 acres of switch grass 5 years ago. Like you said it's very thick and now during the winter the snow has knocked a lot of it down. I burned it 2 years ago and it came back really thick. The first couple of years the deer loved it. The last couple they are not using it as much. Any suggestions on what I should do? I spent a lot of money on it so don't want to get rid of it. Not sure I want to plant trees just in case I want to farm it in the future.
Is it a single uninterrupted 7 acre piece? I would think putting strips within with clover would make a lot more edge
I'm a beginner and I feel like I'm in over my head, any tips for beginners getting a "start"
Buy Jeff’s books. Whitetail Success by Design and Food Plot Success By Design. Both are a good starting point. I have read many times and each time find something I missed before.
I'm the same. I just bought some property last year and while I did take a deer, it took a lot of time sitting in a stand because they are mostly nocturnal. I found Jeff and got really excited that I was going to be able to make improvements, but there is so much to learn. Thanks Brent for recommending the books. I need to pick them up.
The books can help a lot! Also I have over 600 whitetail vids on my website...all categorized. Free info :) This stuff is certainly complex and I invite you to dive right in...that is probably the best way. Check out a lot of the vids relating to my advanced buck hunting strategy playlist. Knowing how to hunt mature bucks is the first step in being able to set up your own habitat. How you plan for and hunt mature bucks is the lowest hole in the bucket...
@@whitetailhabitatsolutions9751 Yup, I've been watching the vids. I think the hardest part has been deciding where to start, what to do first. Small Parcel (25 acres). The easiest has been doing a water hole with a scrape and a small food plot to try and influence their path across my property to their main food source (ag land just off mine).
Thank you. That’s a lot of helpful information. Any advice on a 5 acre tornado area covered in dense sycamore and tree of heaven saplings that are 10-20 ft tall?
Hi Nathan...you are welcome! You really want to cut thru that tornado mess and make sure the deer can get thru it. No canopy cuttings...just making sure they can move thru the area with no dead ends. Easily. If saplings are in the way you can hinge them perpendicular and away from the deer trail...
Thanks so much for the reply. I will do just that.
@@natel7734 you are very welcome Nathan...happy safe sawing ☺️
Pines .Greenbrier .apples all kinds of berry bushes .grapes. crab apples .wheat. wild roses. And different types of grass. Soybeans dear love them all like all different types leaves .sticks grass .berries I forgotten corn.🌽😋🤪
Hi Jeff, I hunt a 173 acre farm in northeast missouri. We have a nice group of deer that frequent the farm and bed on farm. There is a creek that goes through the property it has some water in it all year long but in some spots water gets traped and goes stagnet. Should i put a small water hole in somewhere on the property? I built a blind that the deer walk right in front of. It will have cirn in the field this year. Last year was beans. Just wondering if should put a water hole in somewhere. Thank you and great video!
Jeff why would you ever promote planting autumn olive ? It's a invasive species that competes with native plants
Karl, it really doesn't...it just gets a bad rap from folks that don't have enough experience with it.
That being said...I never promote planting it anywhere online or in this video, but I do promote managing it. I've seen 10 acres of Autumn olive removed and all of the wildlife species...so many...displaced or killed because of it. Then treetubed hardwoods under a "MI Wildlife Plan". To me that should be criminal...
Just like large areas of red cedar, autumn olive can be successfully managed if a landowner has good information. It's not about making huge plantings of AO...or any plantings at all. In fact nowhere have I recommended planting AO. However, a landowner in most cases would be extremely misinformed if they haven't been instructed how to actually manage it...instead of at times negligently removing it out of inexperience and misinformation. Which is why it makes the list of the top 10 deer habitat mistakes...
Thanks for the clarification. Really enjoy your videos going to install a mock scrape when the weather breaks.
@@karlherman9504 Karl you are very welcome! I can't wait to just see soil, lol. And my mock scrapes will be started early Summer for sure...can wait for all of it. Even sitting sweaty in a tree with sap getting on my arms and bugs chomping on me sounds really good right now. Thanks for the comment too...wouldn't want folks to think I am recommending planting AO!
Outstanding video! So much great information! Definitely seems like in many cases better to nothing at all than make big “expensive” mistakes. I have about 20 acres on a forty that is 20-25 year old aspen.seems like it is now too old to help the deer much but too young for any timber value. Any suggestions? Also I couldn’t agree more with you about hiding my box blinds! In my area of northern Wisconsin deer will avoid those like the plague unless they are well hidden. Yet in some areas of the country they can put them in the middle of a food plot and kill a giant buck the same night.as seen in some of the popular hunting videos from Iowa and Kansas. Thanks again for the great information!!
Can't autumn olive eventually overrun a timber?
Jeff, I think you under estimate how many hunters there are in the south
I think in the south they're called poachers
What about sweet gum trees are they good for hinge cutting will deer eat the regeneration of Sweetgum
I've heard good and bad about them...they definitely sound like a pain where they take over. Mixed reviews on browse...
What about diseased american beech? Is it more important for the structure and stem density/cover or get it out of there because it is taking up space for something with more value?
If I have about a 22 acre parcel with about 4.5 acres of swamp and three Creeks two of which are seasonal on it I would assume there's no reason to put in a watering hole due to the overabundance of water on my property let alone on the surrounding properties which are very similar to mine but include ponds, lakes, and creeks, is this a correct judgement?
any idea how to damn up a little creek to make a water hole? this creek used to have a hole below a spillway but some work ruined the hole. The creek narrows down to about 4-5 feet so I could make a little damn to make another hole, but cant think of a good way to make the damn that would last. thoughts?
That's a tough one Chris! I've tried tanks in the stream and they wash out...rocks and debris works best but depends on how legal or not 😉 Think like a beaver?
Yup beavers, some branches and logs and try to dig up some grass and roots. We had them move in and within a year they had a dam so huge we lost about 40 acres of forest. Now we are pushing the dead trees in piles and will turn that area in huge food area. Wasn't the plan but will work out for the better long term
Why don’t we just plant some privet and Bush honey suckle while we’re at it? Lawd hammercy.
Don't know about planting it...but you can learn to use it to your advantage instead of trying to replace it with a bunch of hardwoods. Unless you are growing trees instead if wildlife. Then if course that would be a different channel ☺️
What your opinion on crape myrtle bushes for browse?
How much would you charge to come to Southeastern Ohio and provide some advice and guidance on how to turn a 200 acre leased property into a deer haven???? Also, do you have any contact info or website I can checkout?
I'm from mid west ontario canada which would you suggest for the best switch grasses up here
I haven't planted any of these...but for Eastern and more Northerly areas including into Ontario...forestburg, sunburst, and shelter are varieties that can withstand colder Winters and growing seasons...
I hope that helps!
Well donkey do use Cave in Rock or what kind of switchgrass do you use that you prefer and holds up heavy snow giddy up
Do you winter feed riposte emergent to you quite phosphate and Seed in Spring giddy up Donkey
Hey Jeff reached out to you guys Ova a month ago to possibly have someone come down to my property advise me what to do to improve the wildlife habitat primarily deer to date haven’t heard from anyone what’s up I was under the impression you want to help land owners not make the same mistakes you have thru your experiences so please I would appreciate some sort of answer ty
Sue...sitting with my wife right now, Diane. She handles all contacts and we see no contacts with your name on it...first, last etc. All contacts go through info@whitetailhanitatsolutions.com...or our business line of 608-452-2632. I really apologize if we missed your contact! We take zero messages thru social media...is it possible someone sent a message? Although we have very few openings until 2020...we do have a few holes in very limited locations or 1-2 fly-in trips here and there.
For sure I want to help folks, which is why I have roughly 1000 videos or articles online 🙂 for free. If you can let me know some specifics that would be great...but we can't find anything and Diane has been keeping on top of all inquiries for potential clients bookings.
Ok I left a message on the business phone also left a detailed message on your website hopefully we will be hearing from you
@@suzmell1 Hi Sue...with what name?
Paul is my husband it would be his name
i love hing cutting Chinese maple
This guy is 100% completely wrong about hack n squirt or girdling. It's a fantastic way to get sunlight to the ground with very minimal effort. The odds of being struck by a falling tree or debris is far less than that of being in a car accident.
The problem is ..most often the wrong trees are targeted. Also, you can have tangled messes that are unusable to deer for years. It's good for some areas in more southerly areas and a very poor/novice move in most northern regions.
Being a good habitat manager is about knowing when to say when...not always saying when. Unfortunately there are far too many habitat managers that know how to use a tool, and think it should be used everywhere. Hinge cuts are another example. Great tool, but limited us. Any competent habitat manager understands the benefits. However, just like someone who never uses a hinge cut lacks experience, so does the manager who uses it on every parcel.
Girdling and hack and squirt are valuable tools...but over-recommended. Same with burning, hinge cuts and a host of other tools...
Did he just say autumn olive and red cedar are quality species??? What in God’s name!!
For wildlife they are, as a base form of cover. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to gain a LOT more experience in the field 😉 I've seen a lot of major mistakes where food have completely removed a stand of AO and Red cedar...which is a major wildlife mistake. Of course unless a landowners goals are hardwoods per acre and timber production. Of course the landowners I see hire me to create wildlife sanctuaries...not boards per foot. As someone who has worked on over 800 parcels in 26 states (adding Wyoming for a 27th in May), I've seen some major wildlife mishaps when landowners have been unfortunately recommended to remove solid stands of AO and red cedar. Even hardwood clear cuts can be very bad depending on the location either due to 100% browse elimination of young growth...or the creation of deer-less acres due to acres that are too thick got several years or more. Unfortunately a lot of folks just don't have enough experience to know better...which is why I have this channel 😉 to help wade thru the massive amount of poor online information.
You aren't kidding! My huge stand of hardwoods is going to take a lot of work.....if you call it "work"!!! Gas up the saws....
If deer had guns we would all be dead! LOL
Ha, no kidding!