Appreciate it
The understory is a ridiculous jungle, mostly briars, stump sprouted soft maples/elm/dead ash, as well as sugar maples on the north 5 acres. There is a pile of Paw Paw growing naturally as well that have now started to produce fruit after logging efforts. Not that those attract deer because the coons get the fruit as soon as they ripen, but a nice byproduct to see as the trees have been there forever, but never produced because of lack of sunlight.
We made a perimeter trail (30" wide) through this understory to make an easy path for bucks to cruise downwind of the middle bedding lazily and efficiently allowing us to hunt the very edges and keep the bucks upwind of us, and allow them to stay in cover and scent check for does that are bedded in the middle of the woods. This trail is about 20 yards inside the woods around the whole thing. We have the edge feathered (LC style) for our access screens and gaps coming off those perimeter trails going out to the farm fields that surround the woods. We don't do any more trails than that going to through the main bedding. Hate to give the coyotes an easy track to wander through those bedding areas.
The woods is an island surrounded by row crops on all sides, and have recently lost all the tree lines that use to go in/out of it the last 5 yrs, that connected it to neighboring woodlots. We never go any further than about 5-10 yards off the very edge leaving most of it as a sanctuary, and allowing us access on all sides that we only hunt with the wind blowing out of the woods.
Big thing I think we have done on all of our small woods is get them logged....HARD. When the logger gives us our bid that we accept, we have him take another size lower after that. Anything he can make a buck off of. If we left any trees of size in the middle the crowns would grow together and would have to eliminate later, might as well have the logger do the work and get it done in one season. Never ending work/pressure that we went down in the past not getting it cut hard enough when we had the chance. Small woodlots you better get it done the first time. Hard to get a logger back in less than 20 yrs later to get what he left behind, just not much left to make it worth their while. We don't have any hinge cuts in there, just really high stem count/brows below 4'.
The neighboring woodlots have high pressure, little brows, little cover, etc. pretty good situation if you have a 20 and the neighbor has a 300 acres. We just seem to get the oldest deer in the neighborhood to call our place home "most" of the time. They obviously wander in and out at night, some days gone, but a majority of the days during the season we have a mature buck bedding in there. If he moves or not, that's a different story. Being SO close to their food/does, etc. I think they actually move a lot less during daylight than they would in a bigger woodlot. Good thing is that when they do move, no matter where you are, you usually < 150 yards away no matter which stand you are in
The thing we do kind of struggle with it that we do always have the wind "perfect" for US, which 9/10 times if the buck isn't cruising for does and going to food, the buck puts the wind in his face and goes to the food source. Row crops surrounding the woodlot 360 degrees, they can do that every day, leaving us Holding them most of the year, but not killing them as easily as we could with food on one, or half the sides. I'd rather have it like that though, it allows us to hold mature bucks because they feel secure and have everything perfect for them, but can be frustrating knowing you have a couple mature bucks in a small woodlot, but just cant kill the SOB ! Those perimeter trail during the rut pay off big time when they finally start scent checking.
We have a lot of Hickories mixed in there, as well as it being a dominant species in a different 20 that we hunt. The other 20 that is dominated by Hickories use to have the forest floor covered in nuts in the fall. I have never seen a deer eat one. There is a mix of shagbark, pignut, and bitternut (I believe) and haven't seen any of them even get sniffed.
The woodlot houses a lot of does at times. It fluctuates with population daily when the crops come down. With it neighboring bigger woodlots with high pressure, and crops coming down continuously in the fall it is a different woodlot/population every time we hunt it. Most hunts I see about a dozen deer, but the late doe season that takes place the last 10 days of December, I have seen 40+ deer come out of there MANY, many times.
We hunt 2 other 20 acre woodlots and an 11, that all are se up like this. They all seem to function about the same. Also allowing us to spread the pressure out a lot. Which is huge for us.
Hopefully that babbling answered most of the questions
