Welcome to TheOhioOutdoors
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Login or sign up today!
Sign up

Developing new land for big bucks!!

bowtechexperience

bowtechexperience

Junior Member
222
0
Licking County OH
i just got 105 acres of land in Ohio and i am wandering what is the first things everyone would do when they got there to start getting it ready to hold some deer? i am going to plant around 18 acres of food plot and make about the same amount into thicket that i never go into. do you guys think hinge cutting everything small in that bedding area would be a good idea? Also wandering what is everyones opinions on posting there land?
 
cspot said:
I wouldn't go too crazy till you have some time to scout and hunt the place. Sometimes you don't need to do that much at all. Every property is different.
Click to expand...
X2. Give it a couple years before you do some drastic stuff. Could end up doing more harm than good.
 
First thing I'd do is walk every inch of the property in February and March, shed hunting. Scout the bejesus out of it. Keep a record of the trail systems and apparent travel corridors. Same with bedding areas. Once you do all this you should be able to sit down and formulate a plan. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. If the deer show you that they prefer a certain area of the property for bedding, work on improving THAT area rather than trying to create a new one. Hinge cutting is effective especially if done properly. If you find hard mast trees in an area you plan to hinge-cut, focus your cuts on trees that would provide relief for the nut trees. Opening up the canopy around nut trees and reducing their competition increases mast yields in a big way. Try to determine how each cut would benefit a deer the most... Which direction should it fall... How many... Which way do the prevailing winds blow... Etc.

Eventually I would probably experiment with placing cedar posts for rub lines and pulling down low limbs to promote scrape activity. I think it'd be fun to try things like that to see how the deer respond.

Most importantly, and most difficult, I'd try to limit the majority of my activity to the offseason - late winter through early summer. Then stay out as much as possible.
 
Bigslam51 said:
X2. Give it a couple years before you do some drastic stuff. Could end up doing more harm than good.
Click to expand...

This combined with Jagermeister's post. Every property is different. I learn more every year on properties I hunt. I learn the most in the early spring when shed hunting. I am far from an expert though. In the experience I have first hand, I think people underestimate the value of good cover. Deer are going to eat. Deer are going to sleep, move, breed, and do deer things. lol

Read as much as you can. The Deer and Deer Hunting TV series has some good habitat stuff. There are several shows I have seen good education on habitat improvements, but I don't know how realistic all these are. Unless you have continuous run of hundreds (maybe 1000's) of acres, I don't know how applicable these shows are. I live in NW Ohio. We have thousands of acres of food available. The deer can go wherever they want to eat. And they do. Often times they go miles away. Why would they travel 1/2 mile to a couple miles to eat in a corn field when they have corn 100yds away? Why do deer do anything they do? Who knows. This is why I would suggest learning as much as you can about your property before changing a ton. Your property might just be THAT property the deer love to travel to. Be a bummer to change something and make the property less desirable to them.
 
yea i do plan on scouting every inch of it and learning it but the food plots i wanna put in right away because that will pull deer off the other land around me because from the looks of what ive seen there are no crops right by me. i have 8 or 9 huge white oaks that i plan to utilize. as for the bedding i already know what part of the land the deer were bedding in from my last time through it and just plan to make it thicker with some hinge cuts and never walk into it. as for staying out of my woods as much as possible, i plan to do that for sure! i have safe zones on my land in PA that i havnt been into in years! with my PA land we have some thickets that r so thick you cant even walk/crawl into them but my land in Ohio only has one small section that is thick and seems to be where the deer that stay on that land bed. there is a thick valley in between 2 fields that will both be food plots so im going to utilize that. I do agree though it will take 2 years of hunting and running cameras to learn where the deer run the most but as for now i wanna get everything started thats going to help me in the long run, but i completely understand where you guys re coming from. ive studied this properties aerials for the last couple months and i walked it once and im going back again this week to walk it again so hopefully i can learn it a little better. just to throw out there i been managing deer on a big piece of land in PA for about 12 years so i know a little about that, but just like hearing what everyone else is doing and how its been working out. thanks for all the great replys!!
 
Sorry if I put anything out "assuming" you had zero experience. I figured you had some decent background with your chunk of land in PA. I think you are going to have a blast figuring this out. I know I would. Have fun! Good luck!
 
hickslawns said:
Sorry if I put anything out "assuming" you had zero experience. I figured you had some decent background with your chunk of land in PA. I think you are going to have a blast figuring this out. I know I would. Have fun! Good luck!
Click to expand...

No apology necessary, i just wanted to throw that out there so everyone wasnt thinking i was just getting into it and had no clue what i was doing. i appreciate every bit of info you guys have given me and love hearing how everyone else does it and how its been working out for them.
 
I have fooled with hinge cutting on our farm and really don't see me doing it again. I'd rather clear cut an area than fool with hinge cutting. To me, nothing makes for better hunting than thick cover, so I'd be preserving what you have and doing what I could to grow more. Next is food and I'd be seeing what gaps I could fill in their diet from soft mast to food plots to supplemental feeding. As for posting, talk to your neighbors before you do it. You're the new guy, its best to act like it. Not much will fire up a local like a newcomer putting yellow signs up every 50'. Believe me, I know... LOL
 
First thing I would do is scout this winter and then in the spring pour the minerals to it and run some cameras get an inventory see what there using then go from there.
 
bowhunter1023 said:
I have fooled with hinge cutting on our farm and really don't see me doing it again. I'd rather clear cut an area than fool with hinge cutting. To me, nothing makes for better hunting than thick cover, so I'd be preserving what you have and doing what I could to grow more. Next is food and I'd be seeing what gaps I could fill in their diet from soft mast to food plots to supplemental feeding. As for posting, talk to your neighbors before you do it. You're the new guy, its best to act like it. Not much will fire up a local like a newcomer putting yellow signs up every 50'. Believe me, I know... LOL
Click to expand...

im going to take your advice, i was kinda thinking the same thing about posting, people may get pissed at me because im the new guy. here in PA literally every bit of private land is posted so that will be different. from what i have found out so far is not many of the neighbors hunt and the ones that own some land below mine let the sellers of my place hunt it so hopefully they will do the same for me and then ill have about 170 acres of land to hunt and manage. im actually going to see if any bordering farms are interested in selling just there land so i could have a bigger piece of land.
 
love how you can hunt in ohio on sundays and have a crazy long archery season compared to what im used to, here in PA we dont even get to hunt the whole rut. im really starting to get excited about this, april first is the day im moving and it cant get here soon enough!!!
 
bowtechexperience said:
love how you can hunt in ohio on sundays and have a crazy long archery season compared to what im used to, here in PA we dont even get to hunt the whole rut. im really starting to get excited about this, april first is the day im moving and it cant get here soon enough!!!
Click to expand...

That is why being from Western PA, I looked for a camp in Ohio. We got ours last year at the end of April and it has been a fun 9 months. You will seen some posts on here talking about high hunter numbers, but it is mild compared to PA. The Sunday hunting is a big plus.
 
When you cut try not to get it to thick with tree tops. I made that mistake one time and the deer quit going thru there. You want it thick but make it so they can still have some walking lanes. The briars and grass will thicken it up with the open canopy. I prefer to checkboard it and leave some areas uncut. The ideal thing is to just do a little cutting every year so you have chunks in various stages of succession.
 
yea its going to feel weird to me at first being able to hunt on sundays but ill be loving it!! whenever i do some cutting ill be sure i dont over do it and ill do further research before i go doing anything. once i get moved out there im going to scout every inch of that land and c if i can get a game plan together! i feel like a little kid waiting on xmas morning to get here, i cant wait!!
 
bowtechexperience said:
yea its going to feel weird to me at first being able to hunt on sundays but ill be loving it!! whenever i do some cutting ill be sure i dont over do it and ill do further research before i go doing anything. once i get moved out there im going to scout every inch of that land and c if i can get a game plan together! i feel like a little kid waiting on xmas morning to get here, i cant wait!!
Click to expand...

We got ours at the end of April, but we had a good bit of work getting the camper setup and getting the old logging roads opened back up. This didn't allow any scouting until after the vegetation was really high. Learned alot from hunting it this season and will be making some adjustments. Since you live on the property this will be a big help. It has also been an adjustment for us since this is big woods hunting in SE Ohio vs fragmented farmland that I was born and raised on in Western PA.
 
cspot said:
We got ours at the end of April, but we had a good bit of work getting the camper setup and getting the old logging roads opened back up. This didn't allow any scouting until after the vegetation was really high. Learned alot from hunting it this season and will be making some adjustments. Since you live on the property this will be a big help. It has also been an adjustment for us since this is big woods hunting in SE Ohio vs fragmented farmland that I was born and raised on in Western PA.
Click to expand...



What part of PA are you from? im from washington area.
 
bowtechexperience said:
yea its going to feel weird to me at first being able to hunt on sundays but ill be loving it!! whenever i do some cutting ill be sure i dont over do it and ill do further research before i go doing anything. once i get moved out there im going to scout every inch of that land and c if i can get a game plan together! i feel like a little kid waiting on xmas morning to get here, i cant wait!!
Click to expand...

I can see how you would feel this way. It has been fun reading along with your adventure and you are just getting started.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.