Recreating a Deer Woods

[Chainsaw]

Not to reroute your apple talk Chainsaw, but since you are not doing anything , jk, can you take some pics of your sidewalks you made in your thickets you did few years back and how have they done and would you change anything? I do similar between my random clusters, but they are more vague. BTW, apple talk is always good on your place. Hope your snow melts soon, we are still on a seesaw of spring and winter each wk. Just enough temptation for spring fever yet having to watch snow come and go. Thanks for your thread, always a good read.

Excellent subject Dogghr! The short answer is that four particular sidewalks have produced five mature buck harvests over the last six years with mostly only one person hunting the sidewalks. Other sidewalks have mostly doe and young buck traffic and one or two are used more by coyotes than deer. The concept of using two dots connected by a sidewalk is solid but making that sidewalk steer a mature buck to a spot that has extremely low impact in getting in and out as well as the sit itself is doable but very challenging. And also having that sidewalk help steer the bucks travels to keep him on the property during daylight as long as possible is a tall order. We will discuss this subject more extensively over time as it is a big one.

Meanwhile here the wind is blowing twenty to thirty with an occasional gust to forty or so. And every once in a while when the wind lets up and the snow calms down for a few seconds and visibility returns, there are the deer eating apples! It is so windy the deer must be leaning into the wind to keep from getting blown over.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Excellent subject Dogghr! The short answer is that four particular sidewalks have produced five mature buck harvests over the last six years with mostly only one person hunting the sidewalks. Other sidewalks have mostly doe and young buck traffic and one or two are used more by coyotes than deer. The concept of using two dots connected by a sidewalk is solid but making that sidewalk steer a mature buck to a spot that has extremely low impact in getting in and out as well as the sit itself is doable but very challenging. And also having that sidewalk help steer the bucks travels to keep him on the property during daylight as long as possible is a tall order. We will discuss this subject more extensively over time as it is a big one.

Meanwhile here the wind is blowing twenty to thirty with an occasional gust to forty or so. And every once in a while when the wind lets up and the snow calms down for a few seconds and visibility returns, there are the deer eating apples! It is so windy the deer must be leaning into the wind to keep from getting blown over.

What kind of apples are they eating?

 

[Chainsaw]

O

What kind of apples are they eating?

It is a wild apple tree that was originally shown on page 3 of this thread in 2017. We call the tree the Turning Point Tree. We think it to be very special for feeding deer thru winter and have recently given most of the scions to a nursery so they can reproduce the tree and offer it for sale to the deer hunting world. Turning Point is an outstanding tree for this property and we are hoping it works out the same for other properties. We know for sure that no single tree will work everywhere but Turning Point works here. It is reasonable to assume it could shine in other properties at least in zones 4b and. 5a and hopefully more.

 

[Chainsaw]

Thanks - I'll look up Turning Point. I have a few apple trees that hold late - they are a hard apple, a "keeper" my grandmother called them. Not a spy - but something similar.

Interesting Farmhunter. Is your keeper tree likely a chance wild tree or is it a planted named variety tree? Either is fine if it grows well on your farm though. Imagine if there were a hundred or so of those late holding apple trees on your property. It could feed a lot of deer thru some of the winter period.

 

[willy]

Chainsaw, how do you go about the pruning of all your apples trees? I was thinking of that today as I was spending some quality time with an apple tree today. Do you do a percentage a year or do you just let nature take its course?

 

[Chainsaw]

Chainsaw, how do you go about the pruning of all your apples trees? I was thinking of that today as I was spending some quality time with an apple tree today. Do you do a percentage a year or do you just let nature take its course?

Good question Willy. Other than cut off the dead wood when a wild apple tree is released I’ve not done much pruning on them. When I did prune the old trees, there didn’t seem to be much payback. And since there is “always” more wild trees to release that seemed to be the better strategy.

Now this year as I cut scions off of Turning Point and the scions are mostly small, the need for pruning has taken front page. So I am pruning Turning Point and the few other late holding apples so better scions might develop for next spring.

The trees that will be planted over the next year or two will be pruned for their first couple of years to get them growing in the right direction and definitely that is a necessary and enjoyable activity. After a couple of years though attention will be shifted to maybe more newly planted trees by then. And every two or three years I go thru the Apple stands and clean them up a bit by cutting an invasive tree here and there as well as any grapevines that have moved in.

 

[willy]

Thank you Chainsaw. Good luck with Turning Point and it's clones. I think its going to be a great adventure for you.

 

[Chainsaw]

Thanks Willy. I’m really excited about this project and already it has been a great adventure. As you said on your habitat post “this stuff is not work to us.”

True It is physical, it is exhausting, it consumes us but it is what we choose to do and it rewards us in so many ways.

 

[Chainsaw]

A comment Dogghr on the buck sidewalks. What I would do differently is focus on the focal points first. Comparing a buck sidewalk to a garden path, each are only regularly used for travel if they lead to something spectacular. Creating spectacular focal points makes creating successful buck sidewalks more likely. Backing up a tiny bit, a successful buck sidewalk is one that mature bucks follow that keeps them on ones property during shooting hours longer than he would be otherwise. A super buck sidewalk is one that encourages a mature buck to walk by a stand during daylight that we can get into undetected. A super buck sidewalk here needs just the right natural topography and cover combined with a super focal point to deliver. It has only been achieved here by enhancing or adding to something already special on its own.

A second comment is that it took about five years to get a five year old buck to feed in a food plot during the day. Likewise it took about the same amount of time to see five year old bucks using some of the sidewalks.

 

[farmhunter]

Interesting Farmhunter. Is your keeper tree likely a chance wild tree or is it a planted named variety tree? Either is fine if it grows well on your farm though. Imagine if there were a hundred or so of those late holding apple trees on your property. It could feed a lot of deer thru some of the winter period.

my keeper tree is probably a planted tree. It is near the old homestead that burnt in the 1940s. I could be an offspring of one of the original plantings though. the property goes back to the early 1800s, There are some young trees with similar properties nearby so that seems likely. We have a lot of apple trees. Most of the real old planted ones are in rough shape. Most of the 100year or less are hedgerow apples or what used to be pastures in the middle 1900s. The keeper tree I talked about is probably 100 years old - it could have been planted. It has golden apples and holds them till Mid winter. Not a very tasty apple. Some years its a prolific producer. its always a good draw its on a field edge for us.

2-18 picture from years ago

 

[Chainsaw]

Farmhunter that is a keeper tree indeed and very special. A pile of them would add nicely to your winter food bank.

 

[Chainsaw]

And March comes in with yet another not so sucky day in New York. Must be climate change?

 

[Triple C]

^^^^^
Soulful pic right there Chainsaw. I'd rather have that view any day than on ocean view.

 

[Chainsaw]

Cameras each year are becoming more and more an educational tool for us. They are put out in the fall and pulled in January and only otherwise checked if there are poacher incidents or we go by a camera during hunting. The camera effort is large but the knowledge gained is well worth the effort. Still, just refreshing the cards and installing batteries is a big deal. Did that last week.

Got half of the cameras out the end of last week and this week so far and while out and about brushed in some new ladder stands with beech and iron wood leaves.

Here is the view from this stand.

It is late for sure to be fixing stands up but We wanted the leaf cover to match the live trees as much as possible. Hoping history repeats itself at this location. Good luck hunting to everyone.

 

[lakngolf]

WOW. I need to buy stock in whatever kind of batteries you buy. That is a lot of cameras and I am sure gives you an excellent picture of what happens on your property. Good luck this season.

 

[swat1018]

Can't go wrong with the Brownings! If you didn't know, I have been buying "AC Delco" AAs off of Amazon for 3 years and have great luck with them in my Brownings.

 

[George]

That's a pile of cameras. Dave turned me on to them, I like'em. I use amazon rechargeables.

G

 

[KSQ2]

We’ve had the best luck with brownings too. The Mrs gets cheap energizer industrial batteries from the hospital; otherwise, we’d prolly be trying the lithium route.

 

[Elkaddict]

Now that older coverts are no longer available (I’ve had bad luck with the newer ones), I too am buying only brownings. They’re not reconyx reliable or have the longevity, but they’re better than anything else I’ve tried lately at their price point.

 

[Chainsaw]

WOW. I need to buy stock in whatever kind of batteries you buy. That is a lot of cameras and I am sure gives you an excellent picture of what happens on your property. Good luck this season.

Luckily Lak, the Brownings only use six double A and one set per camera easily lasts thru the fall and into winter. The cameras have added a new dimension to the hunt which it needed. In hunting mostly for a mature buck we don’t hunt nearly as much as we used to some years. On about half of recent years when everything has clicked the hunt is over in an hour. In the other half when things don’t go right fairly quickly It has taken a lot of hunting to get a shot at a mature buck. Pulling the cameras in January is like having a second hunting season.

Swat, I used Duracell the last couple of years and was happy with them. This year am using Energizer Max simply because I picked them up at Sam’s Club and they didn’t have Duracell’s this time. Will keep the online ordering of ACDelco in mind for a option next year. Do you notice them being priced cheaper at any particular time of year?

George, glad they are working for you. I added three new Brownings to the pile this year when they were on sale. Have not used rechargeable batteries, do the rechargeable last four months between charging?

I agree Tom, they are not Reconyx for sure but the Brownings do take great pictures and as you said for the price point they are a good option.