Small Acreage Question

Its got to have flow of deer moving in and out to do much for you. You can see this by pulling back an aerial to like 3 miles then 5 miles then maybe 10 miles. If your wood lot is random, it won’t bring deer THROUGH, it will just hold the couple that use it for bedding because its close to food (the couple does you are seeing).

The creek should mean there is some flow of cover/terrain through the area.

Some of the best luck you will have is LEAVING things alone until its rut time. Like get your couple stand hung now, and don’t go back in there til November 1st. Rut, you never know who will flow through a nice wooded pinch on his way through miles of checking for hot does.

If you don’t bump your does out in mid Oct (for example), then them being in there to lay hot scent is greatly to your advantage.

Look into Timber Stand Improvement (TSI) to thicken up your woods and release oak trees to grow and thrive to drop lots of acorns. Thick understory makes for excellent bedding and natural browse. Sunlight has to get to your forest floor for this to happen.

A small kill plot can be fun, but since it will be small, make it something to easily maintain like clover with wheat and rye mixed in. Nothing fancy like beans which will get ate out guaranteed for being too small of a plot.

Find your oak trees on the property and research how to babysit them.

Feel free to send me a PM so we can exchange numbers for text and I will take your location and show you the flow lines I see in the aerial of your area if you would like. I like that kind of prediction stuff.

I live on five acres in MN. My land is connected to a big block of timber to the east and south. The other directions are still woods but there is a house on every 5 acres. Here is what I can tell you.

I see does all year round. Get one or two velvet pics of bucks and that is it. But come late October the bucks start cruising through. And I get pics of some really good bucks.

Try to give them something they don't have nearby. Mostly by hand I have cleared a plot of about 40 x 40 yards. In the middle I have a water hole. 250 feet of garden hose from my house to keep it with water. I run a rotation of clover for 2 or 3 years then a year or two of brassicas. I do have a 4 wheeler because I have to move snow every year for like 6 or 9 months, so I do have a disc and drag which helps.

I dont hunt it much as I am in MO and KS at the peak times. I told myself I would shoot 3 year olds in MN but I have passed a couple good 3 year olds just because I have the other spots and have shot alot of deer in my life. I shoot a buck about every three years, but I always have daylight pictures of bucks I would have shot had I been hunting at that time.

I really like being able to go sit in a tree for an hour or two and then go to work. I do shoot a doe early in the year if the opportunity presents itself. I have a milk cooler in my detached garage for the early season doe. That thing is awesome.

Hunt it and put out a camera or two. You will probably be surprised what is running around your backyard.

Here is the buck I passed last year (8) and another buck I have 2 years of pics.