Improving hunting land

[Missouri CK]

What are some of the things that you Trad Gang members have seen done to hunting properties to improve the deer hunting and turkey habitate.  Specifically how can we create more security cover so that our property holds more deer throughout the year.
 
Our farm has fescue alfalfa hay fields, oak hickory woodlots with lots of acorns but the woods are pretty mature and we don't have a lot of understory.  We only have a few thick bedding type areas.  The alfalfa went in four years ago and we thought it would be great but we actually saw more deer when it was just weedy fescue than we do now.

Any recommendations on timber management, specific types of food plots, tall native grasses or other things that you guys have used to provide man made security cover for deer?

Here is a picture of the farm.  Everything left of the road is our property.
 
Thanks,

Chris

[longbowben]

Plant corn, in late oct all the deer will come to feed and then bucks will follow.

[Gatekeeper]

Chris

Contact the Missouri Department of Conservation’s private land conservation agent. Platte counties agent is/was Chris Blunk. Chris Blunk is a great guy but he has recently been promoted so by the end of the year there will be a new agent in place. I just went to a wildlife habitat workshop at Platte Falls that Chris hosted. The workshop dealt with the whole spectrum of Missouri’s wildlife and the main thing that was being promoted at the workshop was disturbance. Disturbance is good! What is disturbance? It’s the promotion of native weeds.

Chop and drop trees to create a feathered edge between forested ground and open ground. But before doing this spray all the cool season grasses to kill them out of the feathered edged area. Disc up ground to promote weed growth and eliminate cool season grasses. Burn and disc warm season grassed to keep them from growing to thick and to promote weed growth within.

There are a lot of cost share programs out there for Missouri’s private land owners but it takes a good agent to help you find them. I know there are some timber management programs where a team will come in and do selective tree harvests. They will cut the trees, drag them out, load them and find a buyer for them and you get all the money from the trees.

MDC is really promoting quail habitat restoration and they have a lot of money for cost share programs to support the program. I am enrolled in one of the programs its called CP33.

As far as food plots go. You can get free seed from the MDC also. Ladino clover, Korean Lespedeza, sunflower, Milo, corn and soybean are all available at the Soil and Water Conservation office during the spring. This is something the Private land agent can help you with. MDC also have some equipment that they will rent to you if you need it.

Go to this site to contact the agent.  http://www.mdc.mo.gov/cgi-bin/contacts/index.cgi?div=plc&fips=165  It looks like the new agent is in place already. I have worked with three different agents over the years and Chris was the best.
 http://www.mdc.mo.gov/cgi-bin/contacts/index.cgi?div=plc&fips=165

Hope this gets you started.
Tom

[non-typical]

Missouri Whitetails QDM section has a lot of good discussion on the subject.
 http://www.missouriwhitetails.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=45

We face a lot of the same issues on our farm and have been planting contoured switchgrass strips in tne zone between the alfalfa fields and our timber to create holding areas for the deer as well as thinning out a lot of the timber creating a thicker understory holding capacity for the deer.

[Whip]

Chris, Deer need three things food, water, and security cover.  It looks like you have water, so that's excellent. How far do they have to go for feed other than the alfalfa?  I've found the green fields don't do much for me after the first frost of the year, so usually they don't get used much during hunting season.  In your area that might be different.

If you have mature timber I think one of the best things you can do is some timber harvesting.  Deer will spend a majority of their time bedding, so I think it is important to be able to hunt near the bedding areas.  Timber harvesting can create that for you.

I had some done on my property a couple of years ago and it's already starting to grow back extremely thick.  The new growth that is coming up makes great food as well, and the deer seem to be loving it.  I think the next few years will get even better.

If you do decide to have some timber cut do it in small patches.  I marked off a number of different areas of one or two acres in size and had everything cut in those areas.  Cut everything, including small trees, to completely open up the canopy and let sunlight in.  You will be amazed at how quickly things regenerate.
In picking out the areas to be cut I put a lot of thought into exactly where to do it.  Deer will tend to work around the edges of the cuts, and I tried to plan those so that I can take advantage of wind, etc.  Remember, you're building a bedding area for them.  Make sure you can take advantage of it when they start to use it.

Another big advantage of timber harvests is that it generated a lot more cash than I thought I might get, and that money could then be put back into other land improvements like more food plots, etc.

[Eric Krewson]

I think one should form a friendship with a game warden to enhance their property. I have permission to hunt some fabulous new property this year, fronted on two sides with about 1000 acres of soy bean fields. One side has a very isolated county road fronting it. At the middle of the day and about 30 minutes before dark the road hunting slobs show up. Yesterday two different vehicles show up, stopped and watched the game trails off the property into the bean fields until dark.

The owner, knowing the threat the road hunters pose to maintaining the deer population on his land has offered his land to the game wardens as a set up place for the infamous mechanical deer  as well as offering his land as a destination for various state operated youth hunt programs.

[JohnV]

Quality Deer Management Association has several excellent books related to food plots and property management.  Your state likely has wildlife habitat biologist who can look over your property free of charge and make recommendations.  They also can steer you into some federal programs that likely will pay for most of the cost of habitat improvement.  Join QDMA.  They put out a quarterly magazine that discusses property improvements in each magazine.