There was an article in North American Whitetail talking about if you can have too much cover and food that it affects hunting for the worse.What is everyones opinion?I know for the last month it's been tough to get a buck pic at all.I know now instead of having a narrow creek running through the farm it is now 60-70 yards wide with NWSG and screen .My field edges have 120ft of NWSG along with 25 more acres of shrubs and NWSG.Along with 65 acres of timber.Out of 150 acres I would say 100 acres is cover that is above average
too much cover,food?
- Thread starter buckdeer1
- Start date
DocHolladay
Well-Known Member
Acorns is the answer as mentioned above.
j-bird
Well-Known Member
Only way I can see having "too much" food and cover would affect your hunting is because it makes patterning and seeing deer more difficult. Lots of folks talk about defined patterns of travel....that isn't for the deer's health.....it's for hunting! When you know where the deer bed and you know where they feed, determining how they get from A to B isn't rocket surgery. However when that deer can be anywhere, and be feeding anywhere, that makes things far more difficult.
Our entire woods floor looks like this...
Talk about too much food...for now...
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Talk about too much food...for now...
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White oaks survived the oak wilt years...red oaks are having a tough go of it...
Patterning deer in this type of environment is impossible once oaks start dropping...what this means for us is if rains return and we stay hydrated that a lot of our top end deer will make it to next year and we could have phenomenal antler growth next year...
I love big acorn years here...even if I don't kill any deer because I know how much it helps the herd...
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
I read about these guys planting oak trees, this idea is totally foreign to me, because we have way too many, I cut them down all the time to make trails, plots, or to thin them, and let some room for others to grow. There's so many white oak acorns this year it's going to make early archery season very difficult.
We have received nearly 10" rain in the last couple days on the ranch in the brush country. That habitat will explode with cover, foliage, weeds, grass and super thick. Gonna be hard to find anything. But as Okie said above that should help the bucks come out of the rut in good shape boding well for next year. Everything down there is good for deer.
However as my partner often says , I plan to out last them. In spite of food bucks do get distracted with women and I intend to be there to see.
However as my partner often says , I plan to out last them. In spite of food bucks do get distracted with women and I intend to be there to see.
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
I'm of the school that there's never too much food and cover for your deer herd, the herd will build up accordingly, and eventually you will have some phenomenal hunting, with plenty of big bucks around somewhere. How's your pressure? Are you going into your sensitive areas too much? Guys get carried away with game cameras to the point where they are a detriment to successful hunting, you don't need to be running and checking a game camera 24/7 to shoot a big buck, you just need to know where to set up to hunt that big deer at the right time. You do this by analyzing your property using all of the information that you have from topo maps, deer sign, food and water sources, past sightings, pics, preseason and late season scouting, and utilizing all of the deer smarts that you have. Spend a lot of time thinking about these things and putting the puzzle together in your mind. This is the fun part of whitetail hunting, outsmarting a mature buck. There is a funnel somwhere (make one), a higher point where bucks bed, an edge where they travel. Think edges just off of bedding areas in early season, staging areas just off fields in the prerut, travel corridors in the chase stage, and edges of does feeding and bedding areas in the rut. Never hunt or go into sensitive areas when the wind is wrong, or without rubber boots on. If you have great food and cover and do everything right most of the time, good things will happen.
Chainsaw
Well-Known Member
Excellent post Mennoniteman. It will be helpful to many of us. We might tweak the never too much food part though to add that with the exception of an area wide seasonal extra heavy crop of apples, acorns, uncut cornfields downed due to storms etc., the deer herd does build up accordingly. The sporadic area wide windfall food years scatter the deer and do make for harder hunting, not impossible just a bit more challenging. It is "not too much food" as it serves a purpose. It just means there is too much food for doing all the wrong things and still being successful.
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
There's a thousand variables in every aspect of the chase and that is what makes it hunting and not getting. And thus the challenge of matching our skills presents itself.
rlb165
Member
Wow Mennoniteman, I don't think I've ever seen so much good information in so few words!
Thank you Sir!!
If a bear gets after you, to escape you only have to run faster than the slowest member of the group. But with managing land for deer, that is not the thought process you need. You need to be better than all your neighbors. Make your land the deer's kitchen, living room, and bed room. You want to supply the most and diverse food, the best cover, and a good supply of does. I dont think you can supply too much. Deer will seek out the best food and cover. You just have to know how to hunt what you have.
snowracerh
Active Member
I seperate "prime food" a.k.a. plots, acorns, apples from bedding areas to create movement I can hunt (staging area). I dont spook deer, because they are usually passing thru. I can move closer to the food or bedding for morning vs evening, but stay within the staging area. Some less desireable food (native browse) in bedding areas is key to hold deer during daylight. Then they will still move to the prime foods during evening, and finally ag fields after dark.
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I don't go anywhere near the bedding areas until rut all my neighbors are seeing the same thing,lots of does and no bucks that we were seeing a month ago.My cams are around food plot and field edges so I don't have to get to close.Its a river with timber so they travel to the upland fields and were staying in some hedge rows until fields were sprayed and killed the pig weed and other browse.I have seen them stay in the upland when bugs get bad.Lots of reasons they move around and with cooler weather they will be back.
