Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum what's made the biggest difference on your land?

And that one of the biggest things i dont miss about a club - always had idiots go hunt best fields w wrong wind - they never killed - just educated

Staring blankly at CNC's charts and graphs.

Following this simply because I have 150 acres private but neighbors shoot whatever. Pines and hardwoods. Always have decent bucks during velvet then they disperse I’m sure I’m getting out fed. I try to have great greenfields and still feed but being 2.5 hrs away I can’t always keep feed out even with feeders. Pressure is very low until rut only been 4 shots fired over 6 years on our property.

I figured yours was shooting all the spikes so you eliminated that gene Bob.

Curious on what most mean by pressure? I see some guys on this thread saying they don’t even go to their properties to limit pressure. Or do you differentiate hunting pressure and just being on the land?

They don’t have hunters on 4 wheelers running to and from stands every morning and afternoon. They’re not running around checking cameras or filling feeders between hunts. They’re not hunting the wrong wind for the location of the stand. They’re not shooting every deer that walks out.
Oh wait, that was 2 guys that used to hunt with us. Thankfully they have moved on to other places.

Limited human presence until kill day. Kill day only occurs when conditions are right for a particular stand. I say kill day because a lot of times that’s what it ends up being. I used to hunt all the time. Every chance I had. Now I hunt only when my odds are highly favorable, and I kill more big deer because of it. If things aren’t right I don’t go.

Seriously, you can glean the same info from MSU Deer Lab, Craig Harper from UT Extension and our own Matt Brock's Southern U podcast. Hope this helps someone else save that $600 or so.

for me the game changer on my property was when I first started trapping Hogs. dang things have a huge impact on your hunting

This is the routine for my lease over the last four years.
8x for filling feeders (probably moving to 1,000lb feeders to cut this down)
1x for mowing and trimming roads and trails
1x for planting and last minute touch up

Never take an ATV on the property. Use either a golf cart or my truck.
I would say over the last four years I have probably hunted this particular place no more than 20-30 sits total and selectively only taken one deer.
I always see multiple racked bucks and a pile of deer there because they are not pressured.

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Thanks for all the replies, I purchased a property that was basically a blank slate ( no plots, limited access) I immediately went to work clearing food plots, roads, burning, going to the seminars mentioned above, creating access where I could get to and from stands without spooking deer. Done soil tests and started feeding. Im the only hunter on the property and I limit hunting to when the weather/ wind is good. I try to never spook deer and only go in to hunt or feed. There is zero foot traffic in the woods during season. Im at year 3 and haven't pulled the trigger on a mature buck. With that being said I feel the work has been a success I see bucks nearly every sit and have seen as many as 11 bucks in a set, in an area where any daytime buck sighting is rare.
I feel the limited access and controlled burns are the two biggest factors ive seen on my property to help the hunting. I run cameras all year and when the green up happens in the spring I see more deer in the burn areas than I do on any of the foodplots or feeders, ( yes I have the clover growing). Thanks again for all the replies.

Habitat improvement (thinning timber, burning, etc), reducing # of plots while increasing plot acreage by 3x, trapping and not shooting does on plots. We see a lot of deer and kill several mature bucks per year on a small acreage tract. The one thing that would probably change our hunting from good to great is human pressure, but we use our place for more than just hunting and I hope that never changes.

Letting the younger bucks walk is by far the most beneficial then I would say the fields I plant because nobody else is planting what I'm doing close by

When I say "pressure" I mean stop shooting at the deer.

I may shock someone here.... I'm on the fence about the "human presence" thing. I think I might hold the opposite opinion. I grew up farming so we couldn't worry about running a deer off. And they seemed like they were use to us or at least use to the tractors. Fast forward to today and another State known as Alabama... and my deer don't run from me unless I get within 30-40 yards but again... I am out there ALL the time and I started farming it a few years ago... so they are use to me. I can walk right through the middle of a food plot get in my stand and they don't pay attention to where I've been. Not even a little bit. They are use to smelling where I've been and don't associate me with "danger".... because well... I don't blast them when I see them.

That's how that works. I don't shoot at them. That's the #1. When I first got the place I cleaned all the old does that would lose their mind if they saw or smelled you out of there. We got rid of the trouble makers 1st season.

#2 - Another thing is plot size = 1+ acres minimum. Prefer 2 acres. 1 acre or less food plots are a joke that got played on you. There's been decades of theories that small plots are great. That NEVER worked but made the timber companies more money they gave you 4 each 1/4 acre plots for the price of one good plot. This is why you need to ignore people like Dr. Deer they got truckload of BS ready to sell you.

This is ALL common sense IMO. Show me a 2 acre food plot with low pressure anywhere in Alabama and you will have deer on it soon enough.

#3 - The last pro tip I've got - I like to set the shooting houses back and create a buffer zone of about 10 yards between the shooting house and the edge of the plot. I can hunt my shooting houses MORE than normal because you can get in/out and never spook the deer in the plots. 95% of the places I have hunted aren't setup like this. Maybe kinda/sorta the shooting house is set back BUT the key here is that you really need to create some screening cover.

#3 = one of my key things I think I've done that has tremendously helped.

yes they do i totally agree..

Goat, this sounds like my FIL’s place. He rides his sxs over the property at least 2X’s a day, just about everyday. The deer are so used to him riding around and not bothering them, they pay him no mind. He takes maybe 4-5 deer a year off it. They’re conditioned to his presence.

Now, go to our other hunting property 7 miles down the month. I ride out there once a month to check on things. During deer season the ATV’s fire up. I can ride out to the Power line see deer 200 yards away and they scatter like they are being chased by a pack of hounds. We only hunt it 8-10 sits a year, but it goes from dead quiet to presence of humans on certain weekends. We see plenty of deer on the plots and take 4-5 deer a year as well, but they are skittish.

If you are present in the property all the time, and not harming them, they get conditioned to you being there. There seems to be no middle ground.

Activity only a few times seem to have them on edge. I will say the kids ride around the land after hunts and I know this doesn’t help. We’re not too serious on killing, just having the family together and have fun on the property. I do notice the difference in the way the deer act from his place to ours. Way more skittish on us.

Hunting where the deer are and not where I think they should be. Reading sign and using that to make changes to my hunting plan. In addition to that, reducing pressure by hunting the edges of the deer's areas, and only going in to where the deer are when conditions are perfect ie. waiting for a rain so leaves are silent, waiting for cold front to help with thermals, taking the long way around to not have a deer cross my path later in the morning.

I typed this out three times yesterday and kept deleting it. Pressure is overrated. I live on my land, I’m gonna enjoy my land 12 months out of the year. If you’re not, you’re missing out. I also have several other properties close by where we go to a good bit. I hog hunt pretty hard before deer season and after season, but I will kill some during season. Doesn’t bother the deer at all. I take my dog and let her run around while I’m filling feeders, doesn’t bother the deer at all. Cameras prove that. We’ll go squirrel hunting during gun season, deer don’t mind. Mine don’t anyway. My kids ride the ranger, my dad drives through, we still kill deer. I do not hunt with a wrong wind, and that’s what causes deer to show or not show, but we enjoy our land. You should too. I don’t walk through what I know is good bedding just because, but I’ve never purposefully stayed off of my property to eliminate pressure. They also get use to you imo. Turkeys are another story, if I have a gobbler strutting in a spot I avoid it like the plague. Enjoy your land. Trap, walk, explore, have fun. The deer will move, and during the rut the bucks will come. Every single year.

Pressure and human presence are similar but different. You can have human presence on a place and not pressure it . Size of property , location , layout all are factors. A farmer riding around the fields or down the main road is human presence . Tromping off the beaten path , checking cameras and filling feeders in season , in or near a old bucks bedding area is pressure. Hunting the same stand day after day is pressure. Older bucks won't tolerate much of it. There's "deer hunting" , then there's hunting the old mature studs. I'll error on the side of caution.