Habitat Blocks; Creating Separate Zones or Areas for Deer?

[Mennoniteman]

Ben, that was a pretty new concept as far as I know back in 1991 when DR.Kroll published that in his book "Practical Guide to Producing and Harvesting White-tailed Deer" which I was surprised to see the other day is still on the market and on Amazon. I'm guessing that smaller properties weren't so much a norm then and the intensive management concept he presented may not have been fully tested on areas smaller than 160 acres. One of the many things I respect about Kroll was he tests things to the hilt before concluding anything. I have not tried the area procedure on smaller properties exactly but fully expect it worth a try in many certain applications. For example in one of my areas which is only in the twenty acre range I and the cameras regularly see mature bucks that are not seen elsewhere on the property. The twenty acre area borders a neighbors forty acre alfalfa field that we have seen hundreds of deer sightings in during hunting season with up to 56 deer at a time during daylight and hunting season. In thirty years though we have not seen a single buck in that field during the day. They prefer the staging plots we have just inside the brush for their daylight movement. So in that case "our" buck kingdom area there utilizes the neighboring property. The twenty acres has water,food plots, apples,pears, lots of browse, released nut trees and eighteen acres of bedding cover and a virtual 40 acre food plot in the form of the neighbors alfalfa field and it is one of our most active buck areas early and late in the season.

Chainsaw, I like this example very much, this is a must read for a new guy starting to manage a property. We could call it; How to hold deer on only 20 acres. Or, How to utilize your neighbors field to turn your 20 acres into 60. The whole reason that I'm posting about "Habitat blocks" is to help new managers apply some thought to their property before just going out and starting plots and cuttings randomly. Concentrating all management work in the middle of a planned cluster and making multiple clusters to fit a property will bring good results, rather than starting with poory planned, scattered layouts.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Spruce sounds like it would work our soil works well for hemlock and spruce trees. Would feathering edges of old logging roads and clear cuts be better to establish edges or row planting 3 or 4 rows wide to break blocks up? Water is a non issue wherever there's a drop in elevation of more than 20 feet theres vernal pools or springs.it always amazes me that people put more faith in men that live in hotel rooms and sell camoflauge products than farmers that have lived off the land for generations. Then knowledge the older men you grew up with about the land seems like it would fill it's own encyclopedia series. Also moose is some of the finest meat after bear, the tags are almost non existent in our zone and there almost a daily sight where I live. Hopefully one day well get to have a larger bag limit.

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Feather the food plots, don't do an area divider with spruce trees, that's bedding and thermal cover for deer, and you don't want to attract the deer to the area dividers, you want them in the center of each area. Without having seen the property my advice is worthless, but possibly on fifteen acres you could make two areas with a plot in the middle of each, and concentrate on surrounding the plots with spruce trees and bedding areas, which gives you two areas for two hunters. Keep the edges more open, and use that for human travel routes.

 

[Drewboy]

Was hoping to use the 15 acres as one of the blocks. There are 3 other definitive blocks with another hemlock grove in the middle that borders all blocks on the interior side of all of them. We have treated it as a sanctuary for 5 or 6 years. Never entering unless trailing a wounded deer.ill see if I can get some aerial pictures to show, where does one find them on the computer. My technology use usually ends when I leave work but deer hunter forum has changed that and my wife is thrilled.

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[George]

google earth.

G

 

[Drewboy]

google earth.

G

Thanks I'm looking for them now.

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[Double L]

Nice concept. I realized I have started doing this and didnt even know it. I've been taking my 350 and slowly breaking it into 3 units. Ive been looking at how to hunt the spots with the least amount of disturbance entering and leaving stands. I am also going to focus around my two major food plots for deer stands, my thinking is I may be able to manipulate the deer travel with my brush piles,hinge cuts and 71/2' deer fence and plot screen planted beside the fence to divert the deer travels. Rather than try and hunt them in there natural habbitat I am going to try to make better/easier stands to hunt around and near the food plots

 

[Triple C]

I've enjoyed following this thread. We bought in to creating habitat blocks after following Paul Knox's threads during his last few years. We center our habitat work around each destination plot in each of 4 blocks. The dilemma is determining which block to hunt on any given day.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Nice concept. I realized I have started doing this and didnt even know it. I've been taking my 350 and slowly breaking it into 3 units. Ive been looking at how to hunt the spots with the least amount of disturbance entering and leaving stands. I am also going to focus around my two major food plots for deer stands, my thinking is I may be able to manipulate the deer travel with my brush piles,hinge cuts and 71/2' deer fence and plot screen planted beside the fence to divert the deer travels. Rather than try and hunt them in there natural habbitat I am going to try to make better/easier stands to hunt around and near the food plots

The big advantage with designating Habitat Blocks on a property is that, once the blocks are designated the habitat manager develops a very clear picture of where to do improvement work next. There are many landowners who want to go out and do habitat work, but are unsure of where to start and what to do. By designating a specific area centered around a primary habitat feature such as a plot, it then becomes easy to identify areas closest to the center for improvement, and to refrain from from improving the outlying edges. And the next step is to identify what the block has and what might be missing. So, to summarize, "Habitat Blocks" is a design type to use to map out a hunting property, that is the same thing as a Lickcreek food plot (and should have one in the middle) something for everyone in one area.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I've enjoyed following this thread. We bought in to creating habitat blocks after following Paul Knox's threads during his last few years. We center our habitat work around each destination plot in each of 4 blocks. The dilemma is determining which block to hunt on any given day.

That's a great dilemma, when you have more good hunting spots than days to hunt them.

 

[Jon]

I went through your posts and notice a similar experience in approach. I create an entire plan, then subject that to a lower level of scrutiny. I think a lot depends on how your terrain flows (to include overall habitat) and the best method to connect pieces together, but I could see chunks being blocked in one acre to a 100 acres depending on purpose, use etc. For example, I have a plan on my piece that takes a macro view, then subjects it to further scrutiny of 3 basic chunks that are tied together. A lot of this is based on topography, environmental conditions, species diversity, huntability and overall animal preference (due to a host of others factors). As a result and in my case, the more huntable areas have more scrutiny and are blocked into smaller chunks to enhance areas of travel, bedding, ingress/egress etc. I think creating everything they need in blocks makes a lot of sense to some degree, but then you have to create interest to move or attract deer and that’s sometimes throws a wrench into the plan or the segmentation of the plan. I have a lot of points in certain areas that create bedding preferences, and in other areas I have steep sides with limited use that are essential dead zones, and I can’t covert those to something that much more palatable for the deer because of steepness (well I probably could but it may not be worth the effort and cost). So a lot depends on the environment you are a playing in. But bottom-line blocks are sensible, especially when you need to segment the volume of work you need to do and most of us are trying to optimize our time and effort and the end result.

 

[Triple C]

That's a great dilemma, when you have more good hunting spots than days to hunt them.

Ha! You don't know how true that is. My oldest son sometimes just stares at the property map on the cabin wall in the mornings trying to figure out where he wants to hunt. I've been known to stare a hole in the map as well. Worse thing you can do is second guess yourself and be in a stand thinking I should have hunted "over there". The the feeling becomes overwhelming, I've been known to get down and move in the afternoon.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I went through your posts and notice a similar experience in approach. I create an entire plan, then subject that to a lower level of scrutiny. I think a lot depends on how your terrain flows (to include overall habitat) and the best method to connect pieces together, but I could see chunks being blocked in one acre to a 100 acres depending on purpose, use etc. For example, I have a plan on my piece that takes a macro view, then subjects it to further scrutiny of 3 basic chunks that are tied together. A lot of this is based on topography, environmental conditions, species diversity, huntability and overall animal preference (due to a host of others factors). As a result and in my case, the more huntable areas have more scrutiny and are blocked into smaller chunks to enhance areas of travel, bedding, ingress/egress etc. I think creating everything they need in blocks makes a lot of sense to some degree, but then you have to create interest to move or attract deer and that’s sometimes throws a wrench into the plan or the segmentation of the plan. I have a lot of points in certain areas that create bedding preferences, and in other areas I have steep sides with limited use that are essential dead zones, and I can’t covert those to something that much more palatable for the deer because of steepness (well I probably could but it may not be worth the effort and cost). So a lot depends on the environment you are a playing in. But bottom-line blocks are sensible, especially when you need to segment the volume of work you need to do and most of us are trying to optimize our time and effort and the end result.

(segment the volume of work you need to do) Very well said, and welcome to the forum! I can tell by the things you said that you have good insight into deer behavior, and that you're up to your elbows in getting a hunting property into shape. I'm looking forward to reading and seeing more of your property. You may want to consider starting a property thread.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Ha! You don't know how true that is. My oldest son sometimes just stares at the property map on the cabin wall in the mornings trying to figure out where he wants to hunt. I've been known to stare a hole in the map as well. Worse thing you can do is second guess yourself and be in a stand thinking I should have hunted "over there". The the feeling becomes overwhelming, I've been known to get down and move in the afternoon.

You are so right, sometimes we're stumped with where to hunt next, and, just like a man will not stop to ask for directions, we forget we have a hunting map until we aren't seeing any deer anymore. Usually once we pore over the map for an hour with a pot of coffee, we find the hotspot we were overlooking all season and have fresh venison before dark.

 

[Jon]

(segment the volume of work you need to do) Very well said, and welcome to the forum! I can tell by the things you said that you have good insight into deer behavior, and that you're up to your elbows in getting a hunting property into shape. I'm looking forward to reading and seeing more of your property. You may want to consider starting a property thread.

Thanks, appreciate the welcome. I’m considering that because everyone’s info is so generous and fun to follow. You are right I’m not new to doing this I’ve been setting properties up for others for several years. Now that I’ve purchased my own it’s been a joy to begin to optimize it for my preferences. Im in the northeast, south of Syracuse Ny, As a result this terrain type, soil composition etc is a bit different than areas to the west of me. Those areas are really prime for generating and sustaining deer and heck our winters are just nasty on deer populations.... recruitment and deer health r tough things to sustain in certain pockets of central ny.