Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
I'm in the process of designing/ making what I call "Habitat Blocks" on a relatively new property after doing it successfully on a former property, and I was interested in hearing if anyone else is doing, or has done work like this, or if anyone has any ideas or observations for me.
"Habitat Blocks" are separate deer zones or areas within a property that are developed as individual units with distinct boundaries that are clearly defined. The primary goal is to hold individual doe family groups on the block without ever moving off. These "Blocks" are somewhat similar to how it would be to have separate landowners and boundaries within your property.
The size of these blocks can vary from 5 to 150 acres, with 20-40 acres being the norm. The things that could define the area of a block might be the terrain, the resources available, or the hunting plan and number of hunters on that specific property.
I try to design every "Habitat Block" to have one big destination field, usually planted Lickcreek style, an adjacent microplot, a water source (although they are sometimes shared), fruit tree planting, a mineral site, multiple bedding areas off the field, and some other thick cover, with the idea being to clump this stuff together in the middle of the block as much as possible, and the cover being progressively more open towards the edges. So, to illustrate, a property with 3 fields would possibly have 3 "Habitat Blocks".
The boundaries can be blacktop roads, woods roads, driveways, powerlines, creeks, ravine bottoms, ridgetops, mowed strips, or just level open stretches in mature timber. Boundaries between blocks are used for lanes of travel to move around the property, and travel onto each block is limited to dead end roads going directly to the fields and hunting stands off the lanes of travel.
"Habitat Blocks" can be connected to each other via dogghr style random clusters at strategic corners for huntable travel corridors.
These individually named blocks will have multiple hunting stand sites, but are limited to one hunter at a time, and are often rested for a week in between hunts.
The negatives are the added cost of the extra management, and getting the necessary work completed. It seems that there's always something more that could be done to improve one of the blocks, and instead of managing just one property, you're now managing multiple properties. And drawing lines, some areas just naturally define themselves, while others continue to baffle with all of the possibilities. With "Habitat Blocks" you don't want to start wrong, because working the wrong spot can be very counterproductive after a change in your plans moves the core area to a different spot.
The positives are, you have multiple prime hunting spots at any given time. And, when you divide your deer into specific areas, it can be easier to find that certain deer that you are looking for.
Creating a Habitat Management Plan can be confusing, and this system brings order to my planning, so that I'm not just going out and randomly doing habitat work that could end up being in conflict with the prior work I've done, or doing things and making areas that don't work with the way I acess my hunting spots.
My current dilemma is to figure out why one of my biggest and best blocks was underperforming last fall, and a diagonally adjacent block was overpopulated? With my experience thus far I se this as an anomaly, because my blocks are usually very well balanced. There's also the possibility of multiple outside factors at play here, such as predators, and poachers.
P.S. I realize that not everyone has multiple destination plots, I do think that this principle can work on smaller properties with only a micro plot as the anchor feature for a block, although it won't have the same power to hold individual doe family groups right there without wandering further like the bigger blocks can.
"Habitat Blocks" are separate deer zones or areas within a property that are developed as individual units with distinct boundaries that are clearly defined. The primary goal is to hold individual doe family groups on the block without ever moving off. These "Blocks" are somewhat similar to how it would be to have separate landowners and boundaries within your property.
The size of these blocks can vary from 5 to 150 acres, with 20-40 acres being the norm. The things that could define the area of a block might be the terrain, the resources available, or the hunting plan and number of hunters on that specific property.
I try to design every "Habitat Block" to have one big destination field, usually planted Lickcreek style, an adjacent microplot, a water source (although they are sometimes shared), fruit tree planting, a mineral site, multiple bedding areas off the field, and some other thick cover, with the idea being to clump this stuff together in the middle of the block as much as possible, and the cover being progressively more open towards the edges. So, to illustrate, a property with 3 fields would possibly have 3 "Habitat Blocks".
The boundaries can be blacktop roads, woods roads, driveways, powerlines, creeks, ravine bottoms, ridgetops, mowed strips, or just level open stretches in mature timber. Boundaries between blocks are used for lanes of travel to move around the property, and travel onto each block is limited to dead end roads going directly to the fields and hunting stands off the lanes of travel.
"Habitat Blocks" can be connected to each other via dogghr style random clusters at strategic corners for huntable travel corridors.
These individually named blocks will have multiple hunting stand sites, but are limited to one hunter at a time, and are often rested for a week in between hunts.
The negatives are the added cost of the extra management, and getting the necessary work completed. It seems that there's always something more that could be done to improve one of the blocks, and instead of managing just one property, you're now managing multiple properties. And drawing lines, some areas just naturally define themselves, while others continue to baffle with all of the possibilities. With "Habitat Blocks" you don't want to start wrong, because working the wrong spot can be very counterproductive after a change in your plans moves the core area to a different spot.
The positives are, you have multiple prime hunting spots at any given time. And, when you divide your deer into specific areas, it can be easier to find that certain deer that you are looking for.
Creating a Habitat Management Plan can be confusing, and this system brings order to my planning, so that I'm not just going out and randomly doing habitat work that could end up being in conflict with the prior work I've done, or doing things and making areas that don't work with the way I acess my hunting spots.
My current dilemma is to figure out why one of my biggest and best blocks was underperforming last fall, and a diagonally adjacent block was overpopulated? With my experience thus far I se this as an anomaly, because my blocks are usually very well balanced. There's also the possibility of multiple outside factors at play here, such as predators, and poachers.
P.S. I realize that not everyone has multiple destination plots, I do think that this principle can work on smaller properties with only a micro plot as the anchor feature for a block, although it won't have the same power to hold individual doe family groups right there without wandering further like the bigger blocks can.
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