Along with the 3 Chestnut trees and 4 Burr Oaks that I planted earlier, I planted 20 Chinkapin and Black oak seedlings along the first 1/4-mile of the driveway.

The deer that we harvested this year were full of grapes, alfalfa and acorns.

Far better to plant forage IMO, in my area forage chicory is an awesome base with some clover and brassicas mixed in. Radishes/turnips get eaten into winter but they hammer the chicory all summer/fall. In our area (WI) there’s a lot of oak, but it seems to only last a month or so before all the critters have them cleaned up or squirreled away.

Frank:

Friend Joe has set a tub of salt mixed minerals in his yard.

The place is full of muley's nearly every day except when the mtn lions and bears are around.

He gets things in 50lb blocks for cattle.

Just a thought. Wish you well with it.

George

Thanks,

I have a neighbor with two big food plots right on my boundary line and I have three mineral block sites scattered near watering/feeding stations.

The deer here have unlimited access to various feed crops, but will come from all over the area to the oak trees when the acorns fall.

My burr oaks are growing:

If you are depending of the trees production to be an attractant, I hope you are a young man.
I would scatter some food plots about on the property if you have room.

All this work is for the kids and grandkids. I'm just the steward of this land.

Two months after planting 12-16" bare root Chestnut seedlings:

Where I live well fertilized food plots draw deer the best .even with a good white oak acorn crop the deer will still hit the food plots in shooting hours. Cereal grain plots will pretty much be ignored if not fertilized. They can tell where the nutrition is. Security cover is probably the most important thing.

Driving through western Kentucky going to hunt kansas I never saw so many nice big deer dead on the highway .

My neighbor has 140 acres and has food plots set up all over, some of them 50 yards from my property line.

I'm going to put a food plot in on the opposite side of my property, in a clearing in the woods.

Apples and crabapples.

quote:

Originally posted by delloro:
Apples and crabapples.

I have two crab apple (20+ years old) and two Honey Crisp apple trees (two years old), already.

I have also put in salt blocks at three locations on the farm.

How many acres do you have? Acreage and cover/bedding, water sources,food,fertilizer/salt/minerals.

quote:

Originally posted by CanadianLefty:
How many acres do you have? Acreage and cover/bedding, water sources,food,fertilizer/salt/minerals.

I have 70.2 acres, about 30 in natural woods and my north and south sides are covered in neighbor's woods. My east side is in cow pasture and the west side has the county road and more natural woods. The other 40 acres is the house and hay pastures.

I have a 1/4 acre pond that is full year round, 1/4 mile northwest of me is a year round creek, and my south side border is a seasonal creek and there are water troughs in the cow pasture to the east.

My woods are a mix of hardwoods, with many Oaks, walnuts, ash, sycamore, hickory, maples, popular, hackberry, etc. There are also native cedars and some volunteer pines for winter cover. I've planted chestnut trees, and three different types of oaks and two varieties of apple trees to supplement the older crab apples and persimmon trees that were planted by the previous owner.

There are salt and mineral blocks in three open areas on the wood's edges that I maintain. The cow pasture has both also. My neighbors has fertilized food plots all along my southern border.

Thanks for sharing. Beautiful property. One crazy idea would be to connect North and South forests with a strip of tree cover (8ft wide stacked fast growing evergreens or similar) so that it acts as a funnel/corridor through your property and between the neighboring properties. That said, if the blue lines cover roads, it may be less enticing to deer. Corridors funnel deer and I have used them successfully to hunt.

You are doing all the right things. I have to believe that you will have your share of deer hanging out.

The only road is the the 142 feet along the west boundary. The only fencing is along my driveway (north side) and the cow pasture to the east. I am going to fence off the long narrow pasture going east to west, south of my driveway for cattle. The property lines, north and south of the house and barn are completely open for deer.

There is a band of trees along the east side boundary that the deer use to travel north and south. Since the pasture east of me is more open, the deer tend to travel on my side of the fence/tree line. I've planted 6 additional trees (Chestnut, Oak and Maple) in the southeast corner for more cover.

Excellent. You definitely have expert knowlege of your property and I like the fencing idea.

I am not sure what else I would do in your shoes apart from ensuring the property is properly posted, install a few trail cameras (if legal) to get more information about the deer on your property, have a variety of food sources (which you do), then maybe have a soils analysis then fertilize accordingly and also make sure you have 2-3 mineral/salt areas (or whatever is allowed by law) near your food sources.

In my experience, it's hard to hold WT deer to a core area unless you have a section or more (640 acres) for their home range. That said, with an area about the size of your property near upstate NY, I was able to hold or have deer spend the majority of their time on my property during hunting season. I also had a cedar swamp as a refuge and hunting pressure would actually cause more deer to move in as the season opened up. I knew where the travel corridors were and it was rare that after 7:15am opening morning, I didn't shoot a decent, mature 6-8 point buck. If I had passed on deer, then mid week or last day of the season I would usually head back out.

quote:

In my experience, it's hard to hold WT deer to a core area unless you have a section or more (640 acres) for their home range.

I told a neighbor it doesn't take long for a deer to run across a 40. He is always talking about his deer. Every year we shoot deer coming off his property.

One needs a lot more property to hold deer.

A few square miles would be better.

On smaller acreage deer come and go.

Unless you high fence it the deer will come and go.

Good food can make them come more often.