Part 3: Putting Your Plan To Action
Now that we've discussed all of the various planning stages, its time to start putting the work in. Hopefully you've started collecting some pictures of your target bucks for the 2019 season and are ready to hit the ground running with your habitat improvements and food plots! Today, we will show you exactly how we plan to improve one of the properties we hunt!
Property Overview
This particular parcel is approximately 16 acres. We really don't have much in terms of topography change, meaning this property is fairly flat. At ground level, the Northeast corner would be considered the highest point, and the Southeast corner being the low point that actually does hold water most of the season due to neighboring high ground. Currently we hold 1-2 doe family groups and usually have a handful of 1 1/2-2 1/2 year old bucks cruising through. Generally, most of our big buck pictures come after dark as they are bedded in a larger section of woods North and West of this property.
Understanding the Map
We drew up a quick map using the HuntStand app. As you can see we have 1 stand location on this property to support our primary Northwest wind direction. Being centralized between 3 main trails, represented in yellow, we can cover a most of the deer headed out to feed from this stand. This also allows us to leave a section to the North and Northeast for sanctuary area, represented by green squares. By only hunting specific wind directions, these deer will not see, hear, or smell us. There is also an old logging road on this property, represented in Orange. Our main access point for this stand location is from the west, represented in White. The 2 neon green sections represent future food plot locations. These 2 locations will represent our secluded food as well as the large ag field to the south. If you notice the fence row to the South in the picture attached at the bottom, the ag field is actually a secluded food source that the deer commonly hit before sunset.
Schedule of Events for February
Within the next few weeks we will be heading into the woods with chain saws in hand. The goal is to improve bedding areas in our sanctuaries to hold more deer, open the canopy a little more for better sunlight for our plots, create a few barriers to ensure we are out of sight for entry and exit strategies, and improve native woody browse. When temperatures moderate we will be collecting soil samples and preparing to apply lime and seed when the results come in. Depending on results, we are looking to plant our Soil & Forage Mix in the spring (May) and our Shade Mix in the fall (Sept 1) on the North plot. The South plot will be our Perennial mix which will have easy access to mowing every 28-35 days. The South plot has already been prepped for a frost seeding which will take place during the end of February.
Conclusion
Have you drawn up your plan of attack for 2019? Setting up a defined sanctuary followed by secluded food sources and predator minded tree stand locations are sure fire ways to improve your success in October.
Keep following along with us for updates on this property as well as other suggestions to help improve your season!
