How will I be affected?

Native Hunter

Well-Known Member
My neighbor has a secluded 50+ acre field that borders me on the south that has been in fescue for probably 70+ years. This year he is changing over to soybean farming. I'm in an area where summer food sources like that are scarce, and none close to me before this year.

This field will be surrounded by cover with my tall NWSGs being to the north. The same neighbor owns the other cover surrounding the beans. He might let one person do some hunting but that will be all. He's a relative, and I have access to all of it - although I prefer to hunt my own land.

What do you think I might see different this year? Increased deer numbers? Just during summer or also into the fall? Or, will nothing really change much?
 
I have some land that borders 600 acres row crop - usuually beans in summer and wheat in winter. I plant five acres of bean on my place and five acres of wheat. The neighbors beans save mine from getting eaten to the ground. There has been a yearor two he didnt plant and my deer sightings go way down. Of course - he harvests his beans and they really get on mine hard. I have much better hunting when the neighbor as beans and wheat. His place is lightly hunted.
 
I think you will see 2 things:
#1 - more deer in general. If food is your limiting factor, then more food means more deer if all else remains constant. Keep in mind that field will even provide some food in fall and winter with waste grain and may even get a winter cover crop.
#2 - the travel patterns will change some. This new food source is going to change some of the bedding habits and routes between the bedding and feeding areas. It may not change much, but you may find popular areas may not be as popular any more and deer frequenting or using routes that are new as well.

Over time you may have to increase your harvest or enlist the help of others to keep things in check. I don't think it will be a stampede, but I think you will see numbers increase as long as you have the other aspects of good habitat to support them.

This is going to add a new "wrinkle" to your hunting knowledge of the property and it may provide some new challenges for you. 50 acres of soybean goodness in the summer antler growing and fawning season can't be a bad thing! Your place seems to have a robust habitat so I don't think it will be an issue as long as you keep an eye on things and keep numbers under control. If anything the challenges may come from that field changing from being a "dead zone" to now being something you have to consider from a scent control perspective.

The only constant in the world is change.....
 
Bean field of that size should equate to a 10+% increase in antler growth according to Grant Woods. Keep in mind he sells eagle beans for a living though...
Things are gonna change some no doubt about it
I bet the thick cover on your place will be utilized by more family groups of deer as bedding.
When i planted 2 acres of beans in an area surrounded by 10’s of thousands of acres of timber i pulled bucks in I had never seen before. Had over 20 bucks feeding in that lil bean field. That’s allot of my low deer density area. Beans could not withstand the pressure, so that field is now clover. I still get good amounts of deer feeding in that field but nothing like when it was beans.
Should be a fun situation for you Steve. I’d be thankful he is planting beans an not corn!
Keep us posted on how it goes!
 
He'll hold a lot until the beans start turning yellow then you'll have a bunch of fat big antlered deer looking for something to eat. Get the wheat and oats ready! You probably loose a little action after the beans dry down before harvest, after harvest they are all yours again. Just think about it as not having to produce near the food all summer on your place.
 
Yeah, I would say this is going to be an overall positive. Keep working on fall plots and fall cover!
 
This is a little like predicting the weather and the stock market! I'll bite. I guess it's a positive. On the surface the 'beans would seem to provide more nutrition at a key moment, but don't dismiss the value of a hay field / grass pasture even if it is fescue. Having said that I don't know how to put a measure to it. Fescue? Soybeans? Possible nine-month feed source (possible - fesuce is hardly ever 100% fescue). versus a summer annual.

Travel patterns might be different. And the time of year will definitely have an impact. Are you counting on hunting the beans? If so, are they going to be there? Double crops? Wheat after beans? Rules are never hard and fast, but in my experience beans will get hit harder in the corners where deer feel safer. Maybe you get 10 acres of benefit from the 50?

I've called a stock market crash everyday for the last two years! I don't even try the weather!
 
Thanks everyone for the great responses.

He just sprayed his fields a few days ago, and the fescue is browning out well. Right now the deer are really enjoying my fall planted clover and chicory. My guess is that they will wear out the small NWSG field that separates his beans from my food plot - going back and forth. I will keep you posted.
 
This is a little like predicting the weather and the stock market! I'll bite. I guess it's a positive. On the surface the 'beans would seem to provide more nutrition at a key moment, but don't dismiss the value of a hay field / grass pasture even if it is fescue. Having said that I don't know how to put a measure to it. Fescue? Soybeans? Possible nine-month feed source (possible - fesuce is hardly ever 100% fescue). versus a summer annual.

Travel patterns might be different. And the time of year will definitely have an impact. Are you counting on hunting the beans? If so, are they going to be there? Double crops? Wheat after beans? Rules are never hard and fast, but in my experience beans will get hit harder in the corners where deer feel safer. Maybe you get 10 acres of benefit from the 50?

I've called a stock market crash everyday for the last two years! I don't even try the weather!

Right now I can't answer all the questions you have asked. In two years I can probably answer them all. I've not really had a chance to talk to the neighbor much yet, but will at some point. This land is a little rolling, so I think it would benefit from wheat after the beans as an aid to preventing erosion. I'm not saying it's steep or anything like that - but I think it needs a cover crop. If it were mine, I would want one.
 
Steve
you mentioned this being a relative and you have access. Wonder if you could pay him to leave a strip on beans for winter food along your prop lines. I know you said you prefer to hunt your own ground but this could be an amazing thing in Dec/Jan! With him planting 50acres surely he could sell half an acre to leave standing ehh:)
 
Steve
you mentioned this being a relative and you have access. Wonder if you could pay him to leave a strip on beans for winter food along your prop lines. I know you said you prefer to hunt your own ground but this could be an amazing thing in Dec/Jan! With him planting 50acres surely he could sell half an acre to leave standing ehh:)

Hmmm....I hadn't even thought of that..... I won't do it this year but that is a good thought for future years. And I already have a stand in the fence row between us....;)
 
Soybeans are always the trump card in deer food. Which side of the 50 acre field they live is the variable that you can influence. E308 nailed it when he advised to have food ready when those bean leaves start turning yellow.
 
Adding 50 acres of the best food going should be a very major and positive change definitely!!! As Mennoniteman said, "Soybeans are always the TRUMP card in deer food", at least here. It is a given that new bucks will travel to your property and that they will follow the same patterns as the deer currently on your property except that they may bed off your property or even up to miles away. Property design alterations implemented this spring and early summer that I would consider to prepare for the big food banquet and resulting big buck influx this fall are;

1.Starting from the furthest ends of your property but of course not too tight to the lines, enhance travel ways the deer will choose for navigating to the fifty acre field using current travel way sections and obstructions where available to funnel the deer by existing stands. And add new travel sections and obstructions as needed for additional funneling where none had been before. Close to the beans of course works great for evenings but very far away works better for the morning and most of the day so I'd focus on both the far end and throughout the property as much as the close to bean field end.
2. Add some hunt-able staging areas near the beans. Use all legal tricks in the staging areas to keep the bucks happy waiting out their daylight time in the staging areas as long as possible ie; water holes, feed stations, mineral licks, small oats feed plots, scraping/scenting tree, fruit trees, etc.
3. Concentrate some of your current planted plot fields to oats to provide fall and winter attraction to hold deer on the property and possibly add more resident deer families to your property if desired. I'd still utilize the LC planting style around the oat field edges for consistency in food availability but would make the oats the main event space wise as the beans are expected to provide a great deal of summer food to the deer. As E_308 stated there is a period in the fall where the bean field will have close to zero attraction.
4. add new stand setups this spring and early summer to enjoy all of the new shooting opportunities.
5. Set up cameras by late this summer in the staging areas to monitor deer but also to watch for trespassers; word will get out about the beans and deer travel ways crossing roads may stand out a lot more than today. And of course a few cameras placed in the travel funnels by late summer to get a peak at the new buck inventory would be great also.
6. Invite us all down to help protect the bean field if the predicted migrant deer population explosion proves to be out of control! Too many of us hunting in a couple of days can scare them all away for you.

Note; I have no clue Steve, as to whether or not you simply can setup along the bean field there to effectively hunt the bucks without changing your property one bit, we have not gotten the bucks to consistently show in fields here and even if we could it just isn't our best, most enjoyable hunting option as setting up in trail areas and staging areas are.
 
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