Managing small acreage

For those of y’all that have small acreage. What’s your secret? I just grabbed two 300 acre parcels that have a history of having some pretty good deer on them. I’m looking for some suggestions on what y’all are doing on your small pieces to be productive year after year.

One piece is 50/50 planted pine and hardwoods with thick swamps. The other is an overgrown pasture with pockets of thickets throughout and has an 80 acre cedar thicket dead center of the pasture.

My primary plan for these leases is to limit pressure and human activity to a bare minimum. This will be a park and walk from gate scenario and only hunted when everything is right. Since I will be the only one with access, this shouldn’t be an issue. Especially since I have other places to hunt as well. Pretty much opening weekend a couple times and don’t show back up until rut for a few hunts.

Since picking these up, I have resurrected their food plots, placed stands and limed according to soil data. Since the plots are relatively small I won’t be doing any summer planting but I’m entertaining the idea of placing gravity feeders for protein/supplements during the spring and summer. How many would y’all recommend per acre, if any?

Another point that all the folks I talk to keep saying is FEEDERS, FEEDERS, FEEDERS!! Everyone is screaming that every plot should have a working feeder on it year round. Personally I feel this might be counterintuitive to trying to limit my presence on the properties. Those of you that run them on small property. What have you seen as the pros and cons? I have the resources to place as much as one per 50 acres but I’m a little apprehensive to get that extreme with them.

Any suggestions or tips will be appreciated.

Put in a couple plots, keep the woods thick, and stay out of there. No feeders. Have your taxidermist on speed dial.

Nice

Why no summer plots? I would plant as much food as I had room for, keep them on the property as much as you can. Food, water and cover and they have no reason to leave

They don’t have to have reasons to leave to do so. Lol. They just will because.

Biggest plot I have right now on the pine/hardwood piece is 1/4 acre, maybe a touch more. Not sure what I could put on those to withstand the grazing pressure. On the pasture property. The landowner still lets his cattle free range through that area and they have a tendency to destroy food plots

The only thing I can think that may withstand the grazing and be a good soil builder would be a buckwheat/sunn hemp mix

300 ac ,I'd hunt it like I was never gonna hunt it again . If I wanted to kill only mature , thats what I'd do
, I'd plant it to draw deer in . Be no safe zones , I'd hunt any good spot I found.

Keep food to them with hardly any pressure now but it flirts week then leave alone till rut.

A 1/4 acre plot might provide a little attraction in the fall/winter but can't think of anything that would work spring/summer if you have any deer at all. I have problems with deer wiping out 4 or 5 acre plots in summer and 2 acre plots in the fall

Just fertilize and lime them in the summer and let nature grow what it wants to.......Spread cereal grains and clovers in the fall.....white and red

The one thing to keep in mind on low pressure properties is with little or no activity there will be temptation. Poachers love those tracts. I would make sure there are cell cameras on the entry points. Cheap insurance.

Good neighbors!

I’d be on the edge if not in the swamp when time is right

Provide something better than your neighbors have. Food ,water and cover. Then leave them alone till you can slip in and kill one. Big difference between owning and leasing. We lease 98 acres and we own 55 acres of hills and draws that we select cut 8 years ago, and let it grow up in sage and briars. We keep a few roads mowed and do a few small burns. most of our stands are on the fire breaks around the edges. Only hunted once this season We have a 15 acre tract that crosses a big creek with cane breaks, beaver dams, and cypress trees. Just hunt crossings here. This one not hunted in 2 years. Most of my hunting is on the lease. Different land all together, land is mostly all flat in pine plantation, with 2 one acre plots with spin feeders, and 1 spin feeder along a large hardwood bottom that runs the length of the property. I have another feeder in the edge of a cane break next to a beaver pond. This is the hottest spot on the lease. You can bring deer anywhere you want them with corn. The location and how you hunt will determine whether you can draw mature bucks in the daylight or not. Let all the does and young bucks walk. This might not work for everyone, but it works very well for me.

Just me.........

I think driving on the property creates less pressure & spreads far less scent than walking in and out.

I would put a few corn feeders up (to hold does) and a few long food plots.

On the pasture area, see if the landowner is opposed to running a semi temporary 2 strand barbed wire fence in a few spots. Especially if there is a small corner area maybe where the field necks down. You might only need one or 2 sides if it’s in a corner. Especially if the pasture is overgrown it would be a good transition from medium cover to food plot.

Booner - your pressure cenario sounds awesome - I hav a 256 and an 80. 3 fields on the 256 and next year is my 3rd year - there - 2 small and one semi decent size fields - the field with thicker stuff all around it is my best producer - seen a shooter in it my first 2 seasons in muzzleloader and one was a mounter. I hav banks gravity on 2 and 80 pound capacity redneck feeder on another. For me low pressure is key. I hav created a few stands - one is long road stretch w lot of tracks in it - discovered it and it’s on road system. Got one spot in woods by road which is good for slipping in and out

Gone try protein for first time this summer and I always hunt wind

My 80 has one field and I got 2 redneck feeders on it - it was my first year on it - it is bow only - killed decent 9 and solid 6 on it this year

I am only one that has access to both spot and finding second spot was huge this year for reduction in pressure and bow only on small spot helped

My son kill nice shooter and we did not hint much the last several week of season

By early feb I had my best deer - 6 year old showing up daily in field w thick around it - I think because we left it alone so long and I had food there

i live on 46 acres in margengo county. Ive seen 25 deer a sit before. if you are in a good spot..plant it and hunt it normally. they will pass through. you're not just hunting the deer on the small track , your hunting the one mile circle around it. you just need to be there when they pass through.

Plant the best stuff that you can and make sure that whatever you do plant that it is properly limed and fertilzed. If you dont have hogs, I would put a timed feeder in the back of or off to the side of each field. Give them some variety and I'm saying off to the side on in the back of the plots due to the fact that you dont have much acreage that you can plant in green stuff. I'd map my entrance and exits so that I could enter, hunt and leave without the deer ever knowing I was there. If needed, plant a screen (egyptian wheat works good) to hide your entry and exit points. I would only hunt it when conditions were right. Less pressure is one of the keys to killing big bucks on small tracts. You want the deer comfortable coming into your kill spots on a regular basis during daylight hours. Lastly, I'd cut my shooting lanes and do any set up work that is possible right now so that there is minimal disturbance going into hunting season this coming fall. Good luck with it.

You can give folks general recommendation of what to do but every property is different......You gotta sit back and do a little brainstorming and create a plan just for that property.

Booner, What county?

Wilcox and Butler

My place is 320 acres and for the last 7 years I have been serious about making the place as good as it can be. I own it so I can do whatever I want. For me the biggies have been:

1.Neighbors-None of us have control over this but I am blessed. My 300 ac south neighbor feeds tons of corn/protien and has not shot a deer in 10 years, the 200 ac south of him is totally unhunted. There is no hunting to my north and little if any to east because of town. The west neighbors appear to hunt some but I never see them and have not heard them shoot in years.I hunted every morning/evening the last two weeks of January and did not hear a rifle shot other than mine.

What I do have control over is:

1.Timber Mgmt-I burn regularly and all of the varied planted pine tracts are thinned at appropriate stage. Because a buddy was a timber guy I have been able to clear cut smaller tracts every few years to keep bedding cover on my property but that is over. I am 64 so best case I have maybe10-15 hunting years left so I am gonna cut about 30 ac this summer and repeat every 3-4 years.

2.Food-I know the deer have PLENTY of natural browse to do fine, especially with the thinned/burned pines, what my neighbor feeds them and I also keep my field and plot edges in early succesion. That said I plant about 8 acres of summer plots and will never stop unless I am forced tp. I have been doing summer plots around 6 years and the benefits really started showing the last 2.There has been a very very noticable change in both quantity and quality of the deer seen. I also plant good quality fall plots, have about 2.5 acres of Perrenial Clover, and probably 30-40 pear, persimmon, chestnut and sawtooth oak trees in the ground. So they have more, high quality food than they can choke down.

3.Pressure- My place is lightly hunted, afternoons only, Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks and that is it until January 15 when I arrive for my yearly rut hunt. No does get shot in plots and a plot does not get sat on a bad wind. The number of daytime deer sightings have soared since I started doing this.

4.Plot Design- I like sitting on plots and seeing lots of deer, Unfortunately seeing a mature buck out in a food plot happens very seldom at my place. So I have tried to get the best of both worlds. Most of my plots are designed with not just a plot but also shooting lanes and lots of edge cover I can see into. My absolute go to stand looks like this.

View to front. About 300 yards to curve in road, huge crossing across it.I killed both of my bucks this year right at top of photo.



View to left. Heavy trail coming in from bottom left, all those woods are thinned so I will see them long before they get to plot.




View to right. About 300 yards to back of plot. Several heavily used trails cross the shooting lane. pic is worth a thousand words.

Here's ^^^^^ the biggest limiting factor. Just bout everyone has focused on food , I say make the place a bedding area / sanctuary with a little food near the center. Keep the presser to near zero, hunt it only when timing and conditions are right.

I have always felt deer will find food in the summer. You can't hunt them in the summer. Make your place an attractive place for them during hunting season, they will leave their summer haunts and someone else will have paid for growing them.

I agree and concur, Squatch. The larger the property , more likely to hold them year around. Small property I'd concentrate on holding them in season, cover and minimal pressure is the best bet on that.