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Access to Quality Whitetail Habitat

Many of the well known public land hunters have said on podcasts they will just sit at a popular breakfast areas with a news paper and tune their ears to what kind of talk is going amongst the local as it pertains to hunting. I think that is great but you have to be able to decipher which is true talk and which is the common exaggerated story. But I definitely agree with you that good social skills can lead to many great opportunities. I am going to make a point to talk a little more to the hunters I run into on the public.
The bar, you want to go to the bar, boozing and loose lips run hand in hand, I don’t even drink but I can promise you your best free intel usually comes from a gin mill, yes there is a lot of BS to sort through but generally I have found there is usually some truth somewheres to start the rumor, especially when there is a contest going on.
 
Yep! Location, Location, Location. Good read!!! @Silvio said it before, (and I'm paraphrasing here) he sees more time and effort on this site relating to gear and gizmos and much less on scouting and location........ speaks volumes. But I love gear too!!!
I've posted several examples on hunting strategy and habitat improvements. Although I've shared some prudent equipment related posts...some of my replys have truly helped many members here...im really not a gizmos guy, but as I've grown older my buck hunting strategies are really proven methods of success. I started teaching the opposite corner buck strategy many years ago in my seminars and workshops...although I'm a published author...my book wasn't about hunting but about helping those who struggle in life. This site in my oppinion is pure, refreshing, helpful, and more importantly a willful sharing of information to advance a hunters skill level. Im proud this is the case. Other forums are full of jealousy and name calling..
We are Blessed
 
A lot of guys are, assuming the goal is ultimately to kill deer

...

We all have a finite amount of money, time, and most importantly, willpower and mental energy. If you want results, you have to channel those resources into the areas that give you the most leverage towards your goals. Finding a really good hunting spot will pay better dividends than any piece of gear you can buy.

@Nutterbuster - Okay, I just finished reading Dr. Sheppard’s book “Whitetails” for the first time thanks to your thoughtful posts advocating his approach. (For folks who haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth the $10 cost of the book and the time investment to read it.)

I learned a lot. The lessons I learned from the book will greatly influence what I focus on (and don’t focus on) when selecting and using deer hunting spots in the future.

The part I’m struggling with, Nutter, is that without *exclusive* hunting rights to some quality whitetail habitat, I can’t even try to limit use by others ... which means I’m vulnerable to having a perfectly planned & prepped ambush spot ruined by other people before I choose to hunt it in a given season. Without exclusive hunting rights, other folks can:

1. Hunt it when I’m not there
2. Prep trees or trail cams in the same area too close to (or within) deer season
3. Blunder through it throughout the season
4. Etc.

Other than trying to choose places most other hunters aren’t willing to get to, do you have any practical strategies to avoid this frustration?

Is the only effective solution to hunt property on which you have exclusive hunting rights? Even if it means paying for those exclusive rights?

Just curious about what serious strategies others have used to deal with this concern.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
@Nutterbuster - Okay, I just finished reading Dr. Sheppard’s book “Whitetails” for the first time thanks to your thoughtful posts advocating his approach. (For folks who haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth the $10 cost of the book and the time investment to read it.)

I learned a lot. The lessons I learned from the book will greatly influence what I focus on (and don’t focus on) when selecting and using deer hunting spots in the future.

The part I’m struggling with, Nutter, is that without *exclusive* hunting rights to some quality whitetail habitat, I can’t even try to limit use by others ... which means I’m vulnerable to having a perfectly planned & prepped ambush spot ruined by other people before I choose to hunt it in a given season. Without exclusive hunting rights, other folks can:

1. Hunt it when I’m not there
2. Prep trees or trail cams in the same area too close to (or within) deer season
3. Blunder through it throughout the season
4. Etc.

Other than trying to choose places most other hunters aren’t willing to get to, do you have any practical strategies to avoid this frustration?

Is the only effective solution to hunt property on which you have exclusive hunting rights? Even if it means paying for those exclusive rights?

Just curious about what serious strategies others have used to deal with this concern.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That's a good question and it's worth a good response. I'm out of pocket and indisposed atm. I'll air out my thoughts on it tomorrow when I'm back to a keyboard.
 
@Nutterbuster - Okay, I just finished reading Dr. Sheppard’s book “Whitetails” for the first time thanks to your thoughtful posts advocating his approach. (For folks who haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth the $10 cost of the book and the time investment to read it.)

I learned a lot. The lessons I learned from the book will greatly influence what I focus on (and don’t focus on) when selecting and using deer hunting spots in the future.

The part I’m struggling with, Nutter, is that without *exclusive* hunting rights to some quality whitetail habitat, I can’t even try to limit use by others ... which means I’m vulnerable to having a perfectly planned & prepped ambush spot ruined by other people before I choose to hunt it in a given season. Without exclusive hunting rights, other folks can:

1. Hunt it when I’m not there
2. Prep trees or trail cams in the same area too close to (or within) deer season
3. Blunder through it throughout the season
4. Etc.

Other than trying to choose places most other hunters aren’t willing to get to, do you have any practical strategies to avoid this frustration?

Is the only effective solution to hunt property on which you have exclusive hunting rights? Even if it means paying for those exclusive rights?

Just curious about what serious strategies others have used to deal with this concern.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Go to a place that is such a pain in the a$$ for other people to get to that only the most obsessed and dedicated hunter will dare venture. If they are willing to put in that kind of effort at least they will probably not muck the area up too bad. And have a backup area as well.
 
@Nutterbuster - Okay, I just finished reading Dr. Sheppard’s book “Whitetails” for the first time thanks to your thoughtful posts advocating his approach. (For folks who haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth the $10 cost of the book and the time investment to read it.)

I learned a lot. The lessons I learned from the book will greatly influence what I focus on (and don’t focus on) when selecting and using deer hunting spots in the future.

The part I’m struggling with, Nutter, is that without *exclusive* hunting rights to some quality whitetail habitat, I can’t even try to limit use by others ... which means I’m vulnerable to having a perfectly planned & prepped ambush spot ruined by other people before I choose to hunt it in a given season. Without exclusive hunting rights, other folks can:

1. Hunt it when I’m not there
2. Prep trees or trail cams in the same area too close to (or within) deer season
3. Blunder through it throughout the season
4. Etc.

Other than trying to choose places most other hunters aren’t willing to get to, do you have any practical strategies to avoid this frustration?

Is the only effective solution to hunt property on which you have exclusive hunting rights? Even if it means paying for those exclusive rights?

Just curious about what serious strategies others have used to deal with this concern.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
At least you aren't in a dog state. There's no place a dog won't go to harass a deer. Feel lucky!
 
At least you aren't in a dog state. There's no place a dog won't go to harass a deer. Feel lucky!
Amen brother, amen. I grew up dog hunting so I’m not knocking the dog hunters that do it the right way. My gripe is with the ones that run their dogs anytime of year with no respect of another hunter in an area. Nothing worse in bow season then hearing a vehicle pull into an area, tailgate drop, and 10 walkers/beagles come flying by your tree. And then you have some local clubs that think they have claim to public land spots and get mad when you walk past their stand, I mean truck, to hike back in a ways to get away from the roads
 
In my area we have old fat 100” bucks, somebody tell me why and I am all ears, I am dead serious, the only thing I can come up with is genetics.
In my area we have old fat 100” bucks, somebody tell me why and I am all ears, I am dead serious, the only thing I can come up with is genetics.

Just curious, is your area loaded with lots of oaks?

I used to be obsessed with turning my 240 acre parcel in northern Michigan into a ‘big buck’ haven. Tried learning everything I could about changing the habitat etc.

I followed Dr Grant Wood pretty closely, as I thought he was a good biologist to follow. He mentioned the three things you need to grow big bucks are age, food and genetics. I believe in that order too. One thing I always remember is he said something about when bucks eat loads of acorns there is something in the acorn that stunts antler growth. I’ve never heard of others talking about this.

Jeff Sturgis talks about never planting summer crops for deer. During the late spring, summer and early fall the deer have an abundant amount of natural food. Deer need winter food. So he preaches plant food for deer when they don’t have any food to get bigger deer.

Ed Spinazzola, Northern Michigan based. He said until he started planting tons of corn plots (great winter food) he didn’t start noticing larger antlers.

I think food, age and genetics are a good order of ways to have laantlers.
 
Not to derail your thread your already derailing any farther but, there have been some really convincing studies discussed on the MSU deer lab podcast that have shown nutrition FAR outweigh genetics in antler growth. Its' worth a listen to anyone that is interested.
Agreed, I have seen this myself...in several states. I was military for a long time, and I have been stationed all over. Genetics help, a lot...but nutrition is King!

@Nutterbuster great post, and good read! Thank you! This information is what helps guys see outside of the box! If used properly anyway!
 
Just curious, is your area loaded with lots of oaks?

I used to be obsessed with turning my 240 acre parcel in northern Michigan into a ‘big buck’ haven. Tried learning everything I could about changing the habitat etc.

I followed Dr Grant Wood pretty closely, as I thought he was a good biologist to follow. He mentioned the three things you need to grow big bucks are age, food and genetics. I believe in that order too. One thing I always remember is he said something about when bucks eat loads of acorns there is something in the acorn that stunts antler growth. I’ve never heard of others talking about this.

Jeff Sturgis talks about never planting summer crops for deer. During the late spring, summer and early fall the deer have an abundant amount of natural food. Deer need winter food. So he preaches plant food for deer when they don’t have any food to get bigger deer.

Ed Spinazzola, Northern Michigan based. He said until he started planting tons of corn plots (great winter food) he didn’t start noticing larger antlers.

I think food, age and genetics are a good order of ways to have laantlers.
No oak trees here by my home turf, but I believe you are correct, winter time nutrition is a problem here along with bad genetics in my opinion, I don’t hunt here much anymore because of this.
 
@Nutterbuster - Okay, I just finished reading Dr. Sheppard’s book “Whitetails” for the first time thanks to your thoughtful posts advocating his approach. (For folks who haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth the $10 cost of the book and the time investment to read it.)

I learned a lot. The lessons I learned from the book will greatly influence what I focus on (and don’t focus on) when selecting and using deer hunting spots in the future.

The part I’m struggling with, Nutter, is that without *exclusive* hunting rights to some quality whitetail habitat, I can’t even try to limit use by others ... which means I’m vulnerable to having a perfectly planned & prepped ambush spot ruined by other people before I choose to hunt it in a given season. Without exclusive hunting rights, other folks can:

1. Hunt it when I’m not there
2. Prep trees or trail cams in the same area too close to (or within) deer season
3. Blunder through it throughout the season
4. Etc.

Other than trying to choose places most other hunters aren’t willing to get to, do you have any practical strategies to avoid this frustration?

Is the only effective solution to hunt property on which you have exclusive hunting rights? Even if it means paying for those exclusive rights?

Just curious about what serious strategies others have used to deal with this concern.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dr. Sheppard's tactics were based on running an experiment on private ground. I consider his work the foundation of any good hunting strategy, but it is not the entire bucket of tools. When you make the move to hunting public ground, things change. The first thing you need to accept is that your odds of seeing and killing deer go down tremendously, due to the things you listed. This isn't something debatable. It's just the cold hard math. But, if you follow what he preaches on public ground, you'll still be more successful, across time, than someone blindly going at it.

Here's some tactics, if you want to call it that, downstream of his teachings:

- If you can't hunt somewhere where no one else hunts, go somewhere where there is dozens of hunters, not hundreds or thousands.

- If you can't hunt somewhere where no one else has been since march, hunt somewhere where people haven't been since August, or October.

- If you can't hunt a spot you haven't hunted all season, hunt one you didn't hunt yesterday, or last week, or last month.

Boots on the ground follows the Doc's work if you're hunting public ground. I hunt public ground almost exclusively. Almost all of it is crawling with hunters. But I go in with the foundation I've learned from the scientific approach, and then I adjust it to my current situation. Every season, I can find a small thicket, bottom, island, fencerow, something that no one has walked on that season, or that month, or that week.

Take your property apart on the map - find the best spots based on wind directions, natural funnels, food sources, etc. Save those spots for the ideal conditions. Have plan ABCDEFG in your pocket. Then go to that spot - if what you saw on the map lines up with the sign, and it's obvious no one is hunting there, hunt! If you get there, and there's three climbers in trees, go to spot B.

I logged something like 30 hours in a tree last year - and killed two deer, with the opportunity to kill a few more. But I logged hundreds of hours scouting/still hunting/etc. I don't climb a tree unless one or both of two things happen: I'm in one of the high percentage spots Sheppard writes about, or the sign just screams that I need to get in a tree right then( @WHW ). I usually find that it ends up being both.

Another thing to remember - Doc could kill two deer a day, all season long. And he shoots the first legal deer he sees. When you allow deer to move past you, and they can get your scent, odds decrease tremendously of seeing deer in that spot on the rest of that hunt and subsequent hunts. That's the whole "first sit best sit" thing. If you're holding out to kill a certain type of deer, you need to accept the reduction in odds. But use that information to your advantage.
 
@Nutterbuster - Okay, I just finished reading Dr. Sheppard’s book “Whitetails” for the first time thanks to your thoughtful posts advocating his approach. (For folks who haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth the $10 cost of the book and the time investment to read it.)

I learned a lot. The lessons I learned from the book will greatly influence what I focus on (and don’t focus on) when selecting and using deer hunting spots in the future.

The part I’m struggling with, Nutter, is that without *exclusive* hunting rights to some quality whitetail habitat, I can’t even try to limit use by others ... which means I’m vulnerable to having a perfectly planned & prepped ambush spot ruined by other people before I choose to hunt it in a given season. Without exclusive hunting rights, other folks can:

1. Hunt it when I’m not there
2. Prep trees or trail cams in the same area too close to (or within) deer season
3. Blunder through it throughout the season
4. Etc.

Other than trying to choose places most other hunters aren’t willing to get to, do you have any practical strategies to avoid this frustration?

Is the only effective solution to hunt property on which you have exclusive hunting rights? Even if it means paying for those exclusive rights?

Just curious about what serious strategies others have used to deal with this concern.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Alright. Coffee's brewed, inbox is clear, work seems slow. Let's get crackin. :)

The short answer is, if you have two hunters with equal abilities (deer knowledge, determination, woodsmanship, marksmanship, etc) and varying degrees of income, the one with more money will kill more deer in his lifetime. More money = easier access to quality whitetail habitat and lots of other things. Owning land comes with the obvious benefit of (barring trespassers) getting to control who hunts it and how they do so. Money helps with that. Leasing land comes with the benefit of POTENTIALLY reduced hunting pressure. The more money you have, the easier it is to get into a good piece of lease land. Even when it comes to public land, money helps buy plane tickets and free time to hunt good public during good times to hunt.

As warped as this might sound, I really didn't give two thoughts about money until I thought of how useful it was to deer hunting. It's what inspired me to take a personal finance class as an elective in college. It's why I hammer retirement savings. It's why I was chomping at the bit to own a home (and more importantly the dirt it sits on) as young as possible. It's why I want to own more land. It's why I budget and why I like to make money on interest and not lose it. We've talked about the value of resources to deer. Every organism needs resources to hit its full potential. Money is just the concept of "resource" made handy. Knowledge and experience have made me a better hunter, but so has MONEY and TIME. My current job provides acceptable money, and an abundance of time.

I think those that have the money to own land should do so, regardless of whether they hunt. They don't make land anymore, everybody needs some of it, and unless you live near a fault line or the ocean it's not prone to theft or depreciation. I've met people who regretted owning a structure, but nobody I've met has regretted owning land. And if you deer hunt, owning land offers huge benefits.

But land is pricey. Right now land in Alabama seems to be around $5,000 an acre, and you need quite a bit of acreage to effectively hunt and manage and not be at the mercy of your neighbors. So what's a resource-deficient hunting organism to do?

The first option people come to is public land. On public land, it's been my experience that you're paying in time instead of money to find the good property. You basically find the lowest-pressure spots on the best pieces of land, and accept that you're probably not going to have the success Dr. Sheppard has, but you'll impress the heck out of most of the other guys who are hunting public. This whole thread has mostly been about finding the best place to hunt on public. Once you find the best parcel, you find the lowest pressure spots, and then within those spots you find the right terrain/resource features, you figure out when they're being utilized the hardest, and then you hunt them at that time and hope nobody else is playing your game there. The more spots you devote time to finding, the better your chances of being successful. Some spots will go cold. I actually had a funny talk with a fella this morning that makes me believe another fella's spot is soon to go cold. So always keep looking for spots to replace them! This seems to be 99% of what gets talked about, the 1% of time we're not talking about gear. ;)

The other thing to do is to realize that humans have never been impressive as an organism, but we excel as a species. 1 lion vs 1 human is a gore-fest. 10 lions vs 10 humans...the odds start to tip. 1,000 lions vs 100 humans, and the lions don't have a prayer. We are social species. Leverage that. Hone your social skills. I am NOT an extroverted, talkative person by nature. My wife jokes that she had to hit on me for years before the lightbulb went off. I would rather cut my leg off than spend a night at a bar. But my dad is a very social guy who is good at reading a room and walking out of it with everybody from the janitor to the CEO liking him. I was blessed to learn the importance of literacy from my quiet mother and social skills from my outgoing father. The first came easily, the second...not so much. I deliberately got a marketing degree and a took a salesman job in college to make myself learn how to listen to people, understand them, and effectively communicate what value I could provide them with. I'm not a natural at it, and I screw it up sometimes. But the little bit of proficiency I've been able to gain has been invaluable.

If you can talk to people, make them appreciate you, and most importantly make yourself appreciate them and be able to express it, doors will open. If that sounds a little Machiavellian, just learn to make friends! Sit in the breakroom at lunch. Accept the invite to dinner. Start small talk with the folks at the checkout line. Whoever started the notion of the ideal masculine male being aloof and reserved probably didn't have any friends. Friends sack cities, settle continents, start empires, and kill deer. Loners rarely make history unless they are incredibly talented AND lucky enough to have a friend who is great at making friends. Or, ya know, stick a bomb in a mailbox. I kid...I kid.

Most really successful hunters I've met, big and small, are socially capable. They're fun to be in a duck blind or pickup truck with. They're the kinda guy you'd want to invite to your place to hunt. Learning to be a desired partner, somebody that the rest of the group wants to pool resources with, is an incredible boost to your hunting success. The largest buck on my wall is there because my dad is a cool guy to hang out with, and he raised me to be a polite and cool kid. Honestly, MOST of my dad's bucks are on the wall because people want to put him on deer. He killed 2 nice deer last year and never put in a single step towards scouting or paid a dime other than gas to drive there. I've had many opportunities to hunt with other people, and usually those trips hold an increased chance of success over hunts on the local public.

Of course, it goes without saying that just having social skills is only half the battle. A great salesman with a bad or nonexistent product will starve. Ask yourself, "Am I valuable?" God may love you unconditionally just because you're you, but the rest of the world wants to know what you can do. Everybody has value because they provide value. The more value you provide to others, the more value they will be willing to provide you. (And now we've come full circle back to money and resources!) I do not have a lot of financial value. I'm a good conversationalist, I know more about the outdoors than the average joe, I'm happy to share that knowledge, I'm fairly good at it, and I'm young enough that I don't mind doing the gruntwork. You invite me to do something, and I won't show up empty-handed. It may just be buying your lunch or dragging your deer, but you won't have to powder my butt and carry my weight. And if you put me on a critter, I'm happy to return the favor if I can. I try to continually improve my ability to provide value.

Knocking on doors to gain access to hunting property is, in my mind, for the birds. I sometimes wonder if Eberhart's advice on it isn't akin to my grandfather telling me I wasn't catching fish because I wasn't holding my mouth right, or telling me I could catch a bird if I put salt on its tail. Door-to-door is cold calling, and cold-call sales average a 1-3% success rate in the telemarketer world. People say they got turned down when they knocked on doors. No kidding! Did you knock on 33-100? Getting permission to hunt an area is easier when you're not going in cold. Have a social circle. Go to the family reunion. Go to church. Join a volunteer organization. Heck, go to one of the local saddle hunter getups! Cold calling has a 1-3% success rate, but a call after a referral or after the prospective customer sees and ad and requests a call has a 40% success rate. You tell me.

So, tldr, you need to either put in time, money, or societal value into one side of the equation before you can expect deer to pop out the other side. Figure out what you have the most of, and operate on that.
 
Good post...sometime you get lucky “cold calling”. I did recently, I was talking to a landscaper who was working at my neighbors house. Just a little friendly chatting and I landed a nice piece of private land to hunt 20 minutes from my house! Considering I have never met the guy before, and I grew up 250 miles from here, I got luckier than hell! But I we do my best to keep the land by helping the landowner with whatever work or help he might need in the future.
I have learned that being a nice human being can be very valuable! It has severed me very well!
 
... Here's some tactics, if you want to call it that, downstream of his teachings:

- If you can't hunt somewhere where no one else hunts, go somewhere where there is dozens of hunters, not hundreds or thousands.

- If you can't hunt somewhere where no one else has been since march, hunt somewhere where people haven't been since August, or October.

- If you can't hunt a spot you haven't hunted all season, hunt one you didn't hunt yesterday, or last week, or last month.

@kyler1945 - Good input - thank you. On your first point, I know Eberhart recommends going deep into the public land, especially hard to access areas, because most average hunters won't go there ... it minimizes the competition. In my post-season scouting earlier this year, I found several new spots of interest. The one that I consider the best, was a really good spot with crazy amounts of deer sign and I bumped several large deer there. It was in a pretty-difficult-to-access swamp with poor approach options. After poking around it and the adjacent timber for the afternoon, I found a homemade tree stand (2x4 type) nailed up in a nice tree overlooking the bedding area where I bumped the deer. The stand wasn't new, but it wasn't ancient either - probably a few years old. I'm struggling to find spots without ANY sign of other hunters, but I'm in a state where the public land gets a lot of hunting pressure. So that promising spot surely meets your first recommendation above.

On your second point, I haven't done much with trail cams to be able to know if others are passing through or using the areas since I've been there. Perhaps I need to invest in some good cell cams and strategically place them to know if others are scouting / prepping / planning to hunt my good areas. (Too late to do anything about it for this Fall season, but maybe I can place some cams post-season to gather the intel.)

On your third point, I surely can be selective about how often I hunt my spots - I have a number of them. When I read John Eberhart's recommendation about strategically selecting hunting times that minimize your chances of encountering other hunters, that also made sense to me. He suggests that most hunters hunt the weekends and like to take Friday or Monday off to make for a long weekend. By hunting Tue, Wed, Thu, you'll avoid a lot of competition. And if you want to minimize the chance that scent from other hunters is still alarming, hunt Wed and Thurs only, to let the prior weekend's scent dissipate.

I hunt public ground almost exclusively. Almost all of it is crawling with hunters. But I go in with the foundation I've learned from the scientific approach, and then I adjust it to my current situation. Every season, I can find a small thicket, bottom, island, fencerow, something that no one has walked on that season, or that month, or that week.

...

I don't climb a tree unless one or both of two things happen: I'm in one of the high percentage spots Sheppard writes about, or the sign just screams that I need to get in a tree right then.

Sounds like in-season scouting more so than post-season or pre-season - is that the case? (If not, please elaborate on your strategy & tactics.) Are you typically finding those public land spots well ahead of hunting them, or hunting them as you find them?
 
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