How to Improve a Hunting Property During the Summer | Land Management Part 4

I can remember when I was much younger, I thought that there was a big genetic influence on antler size of white-tailed deer. And research and practical experience have certainly shown, unequivocally, that that's not as important as the habitat. After all, we all are kind of a function of our environment. That's very true with all critters, including white-tailed deer, turkey, and other species. You may be in an area in the Smoky Mountains or where I am here in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri or Arkansas, you think going from Maine all the way down to Florida or east Texas or places in the north that aren't in areas of production ag. And we know that doing some pretty simple habitat management techniques can improve the quality of hunting and the wildlife quality in that area. I think it's easy to get lost in the talk about big projects like a big prescribed fire or creating a great big food plot or doing a big timber harvest. And sometimes we forget that smaller projects can be just as important and they don't take as much time. And I'd like to talk today about some of those projects that can help the habitat quality and hunting quality where you hunt. There's only so much space where any of us hunt and we want that space being optimized. So one thing, such as invasive exotic species, I'm going to take sericea lespedeza because it's so widespread, it may be kudzu where you are or other species that are competing for that space, that limited space. And there's only so much sun coming down. We want that sun reaching plants that are either providing high quality nutrition as forage or cover. And if we have these species that are taking up that sun's energy or the available acreage on the ground that aren't providing good food or cover, they need to be removed. And these are usually invasive exotic species. Some species that was brought over here for an ornamental use or something that didn't work out. There's all these species, depending on where you live, sometimes they overlap. That can be really messy, choking out native, more beneficial species for wildlife. So it may be as simple as a backpack sprayer and a little bit of herbicide or a hatchet and some herbicide or doing something where you can spend a couple of hours terminating these invasive exotic species and making room for native species to grow that provide much more benefit to wildlife. One reason many of these exotic invasive species are so successful is they produce a bunch of viable seed. And those seed can last a long time in the soil. So you may have a big patch of sericea lespedeza and you may treat it. And the next year, there's sericea there, but not as much as when you treat it. Well, that probably came back from the seed bank where that plant had made seed and put it in the soil and you freed it up. Well, those seeds are right there on top of the soil, so they're going to sprout back. So it may be a three or four year project, maybe one week a year or a couple of afternoons a year. You dedicate to controlling sericea and over a couple of years, you've freed that up and allowed better, more beneficial species to inhabit that area. Same is true with bush honeysuckle and many of these other species. They produce a lot of viable seed and it's going to take a while to get that out of seed bank and get more native, more beneficial plants producing seed and dominating that area. Controlling invasive exotic species is something we do about once a year at The Proving Grounds. We take about a week and, you know, I'll get backpack sprayers or something, go out there and work on that or maybe a couple of afternoons here and there. And to get around and do that, we need a good road network or to get in the stands quietly. Maybe you're walking down the trail or prescribed fire and you're using roads or trails as brakes. So that brings me to another point. Those roads don't just stay there forever. Even a blacktop road, you know, will have potholes or something developing into it. Well, a less refined road in the interior of a property requires maintenance. And one thing you can do really simply is not drive the same two tracks over and over and over again. That's going to develop ruts. Ruts collect water like a ditch and that's going to blow out in the big rain and cause erosion and a really rough ride. So we kind of drive like we're looking for deer all the time or something in a zigzag pattern or focus on driving the high spots. Don't always drive in the ruts. They just get deeper and deeper. Drive those high spots. We'll keep your road kind of level. So road maintenance or something we use frequently called BBDs, broad-based dips, and that's simply a structure you would create with maybe, could be a shovel, probably a piece of equipment to get the water off the road. Water is what causes a lot of erosion and wear and tear on roads. And by deflecting that water off the road to the downhill side will make that road last much longer. So doing road maintenance or creating new trails can be a great way to enhance your enjoyment of using a property. A really simple form of road maintenance, especially in timbered areas, is just trimming the limbs off the side. Those limbs are constantly reaching for sunshine. If you let it go too many years, unless it's a great big mature tree, you're going to have limbs coming in and whacking people in the face. So, you know, take a couple days out of summer, get your pole saw or something, and when you trim limbs, don't trim them right to the edge of the road. Back off a few feet because you know they're going to be growing. So go ahead and trim wide enough that you can get a few years of a clean drive with that investment of time. Something you certainly want to do annually is maintain tree stands. If you leave tree stands up, don't just go back out there the next year and climb it the first day of hunting season. Check those tree stands very carefully. Trees grow. They expand. It's best to take your stands down every year, put them in somewhere where rodents aren't chewing on straps or they're not being weathered, the sun's not shining on them. But if you don't get to do that, during the summer, go out, make sure you've got your safe line, safe harness on, you're tethered to the tree, slowly climb that tree and check every strap. We like to loose them up, move them to a new place on the tree. You actually kill that tree over time if you don't move those straps around, loose them up and retighten them. You don't want to kill your favorite tree that you like to hunt out of, so. And then trim the lanes. Again, limbs, just like on a road, are going to grow in and could shrink that shooting lane down to where it would be difficult to make a clean shot. So, we like to do that work in the summer so the area is kind of quote, unquote, cooled down before hunting season. Get that disturbance out of the way and make sure everything is safe. One reminder, I don't know why, but wasps sure like to hang around those tree stands in summer. So, climb carefully. And one of the things we take in our tool bag when we're maintaining tree stands is wasp spray. Stand there and look at it carefully before you climb up there. You don't want to be up the tree 15 feet and a bunch of angry wasps take it out on the back of your neck. So, have some wasp spray, look at it very carefully, treat that stand if you need to before you climb up there and do the maintenance. Hunting is like anything else. If you want to be good at it, you've got to put some effort or time into it. Maybe you're not even worried about harvesting deer, but you're preparing the property for your family or friends to have a safe, enjoyable, and hopefully successful hunt. So, preparing tree stands, changing the oil in your tractor before it's time to plant fall food plots, checking the air in the tires, all these preventative maintenance things makes habitat management much easier and more enjoyable. Just wrapping this up, we are all a function of our environment. And the better quality habitat you provide for the critters, the healthier they will be and it's most likely the better quality hunting you will have.