Hi Guys,

So, my family just acquired a 124 acre property in Floyd County, GA.  It's East of Rome, GA.

There are 35 acres of planted pine, (planted in 2000), 46 acres of natural hardwoods along a flowing creek and 43 open acres that were clear cut in the Summer of 2019.

We would like to optimize it for whitetail hunting and was thinking about using a wildlife or hunting consultant who could take a look at the specifics of the land and recommend how to best set it up.

We're thinking about putting a pond on it, planting trees that will attract deer and also food plots.

Any ideas on how to get started would be great.

Thanks in advance.

when is the last time fire has run through the pine stand? how thick is the underbrush and how thick is the hardwoods stand?

Food plots will definitely help. if there's already a creek running through i don't think a pond is neccessary based off of a cost benefit analysis.

The pines are walkable.  Not overgrown.  I’m not sure when the last burn was.

The hardwoods are pretty dense around the creek.  Harder to walk through that area.

We may do the pond for a place for the kids to fish....not just for deer.

Jeff Sturgis comes to mind. He's all about setting up "small" properties for taking the biggest buck in the neighborhood. Up north but the principles should be the same.

He might already be booked for the year but subscribe to his channel in the meantime; lots of good info there that could help you now.

If you have others who hunt around you might be disappointed as you can't QDM 124 acres. Others in the area are likely to benefit from your work, but you may benefit as well.

I have 173 adjoining acres (own 63 lease 110) and half of my property is surrounded by two or three other small hunting groups. With that said, my brother and I generally do better than the other groups considering man hours put in hunting. At least it seems that way.

We have 100+ acres in 6-7 year old pines (great bedding area) and about 40-45 acres in a variety of mixed hardwood oaks that have been producing acorns for about three years now, and the rest is a mix of grass and swamp/low area. We planted the trees by hand about ten or so years ago IIRC. We started them as saplings in buckets laid out on irrigation until they were three years old, then planted them in the field.

Why we do good? Simple, we don't archery hunt, we barely muzzle loader hunt when the time comes, and we don't shoot doe during antlerless days. In short, we try to create a small pocket of land where deer feel comfortable when the hunting pressure comes.

We monitor our game cameras and try to hunt only when nice bucks are moving during or near shooting light. Of course this means less time in the stand, but it also means less presence in the area.

I share information freely with one of the other groups and we get the same animals on our game cams... they are seeing and hunting what we hunt. Once I killed a few bucks this past season I told them they were welcome to hunt two of my stands in order to generate good relations.

Besides doing what everyone else does, food plots, feeders, etc., LIMIT YOUR TRAVELS on the property. Leave thickets alone, create dense bedding areas. Leave the doe alone, come rut time, the bucks will come to the doe. Let surrounding hunters pressure their areas and you will see a benefit.

Four of the five bucks I killed this past season were hassling doe.

I'm no expert, but the above approach works for us and has for years.

Thanks for the responses.

Keep it coming if anyone else has thoughts.

@Bowhntr6pt

In your opinion, if you were to use the property for recreational activities like shooting, fishing, ATVs, camping, etc in the Spring and Summer, would that negatively impact hunting season?

I'd suggest you contact a consulting forester.

IM inbound.

Feeders and food plots. They will come.

Probably not... I have a range facility on my place but I stop doing classes a month or so prior to the best hunting times.

It was mentioned above about feeders... if there is hunting pressure in the area you won't likely kill a mature buck off a feeder per se... you will kill a mature buck trying to fuck a doe who is at your feeder... two of the three bucks I killed on my place were doing just that.

If there's hunting around you... bedding thickets and doe are how you kill nice bucks.

That makes sense.

Thanks again.

Hire some of the tens of thousand Mexican day laborers that walk around Rome all day.  Give each one a shovel and you'll be done in no time.

Cool eagles at Berry though.

Call up your state wildlife biologists and invite one over for a look. Lots of them don’t get to speak to real humans much and most here are very eager to share their knowledge. And its free.

Where would I find a phone number?

I’m not aware of this resource.

Thanks.

Start here...

Landowner Resources

Wow, that’s a great link.

Thanks for sharing.

This 10000000%

I've worked with Jeff twice.  He is extremely personable, down to earth, and worth every penny to have him visit your property and draw up a plan that meets all of your goals.  I thought I'd save the money and just check out some books and Youtube stuff... how hard could it be?   I ended up doing things that are going to take years to correct (even though they were done properly) and spent a lot of money that ended up just being wasted.  PM me if you'd like.

I'll throw in my 2 cents.

set up the property to hunt/play  from the outside in, meaning never enter the heart of the property to ride quads etc.  Hunt the edges of cover, but never enter it during season except to bloodtrail.  In short, the more you are there the less mature bucks will be, during daylight anyhow.

Expand on that, please. What changes did you make after his visit? What was originally done that you think was a mistake?

@explodingvarmints

What's around it on the neighboring properties?

Awesome, sounds like bedding.

This part is just mind blowing to me lol.

Lots of other hardwoods and some pines.

There is farmland and pasture in the area, but not immediately adjoining.

I have seen signs of hunting [treestands] on adjoining property.

I don’t see any food plots or advanced planning.

@parshooter

I did a lot of hinge cutting (bedding areas) where I shouldn't have and established food plots where I shouldn't have.  Every property is unique in it's own way and just reading a habitat article or 5 isn't necessarily going to give you the correct blueprint for habitat success.  In my case I did all these "improvements" without having hunter ingress/egress and deer travel patterns in mind.  This is probably one of the biggest mistakes you can make on a property. The hunting pressure in my area is thru the roof so I have to hunt this property perfectly to take advantage of the slob hunters around me.  I'm only interested in shooting 3.5 year old bucks and older which, as you know, are a damn smart and weary animal.  Around here if they see you once from 100 yards away they're only going to be on your property at night (if at all) the rest of the year.

I also crammed the bedding areas too close together.  Doe family groups will take the best bedding area nearest the best food source.  Bucks, mature bucks especially, are fairly solitary animals and prefer to bed a few hundred yards (depending on the terrain) downwind of the doe's.  Stack them too close together and all you've done is told that mature buck to bed elsewhere.  Defining travel patterns by manipulating habitat is AMAZINGLY effective when done correctly and a huge hindrance to your success when it's done wrong.  I hope that makes sense.

I'm nowhere near an expert, but I love discussing habitat so whoever has questions, just @ me and I'll answer whatever I can.

Definitely shocking to a midwest hunter.  I'd have to wonder the buck to doe ratio and age structure on his property.

Very interesting, and yes, it made sense. Thank you. Understanding the concepts is one thing but properly executing them can certainly be a challenge at times.

I love the habitat design part of it too and know just enough about it to be dangerous at this point.  

State forester / biologist will work for the State dept. of Forestry.

Also several folks on here are foresters.  They have a wealth of knowledge.

I’d really like to get a subject matter expert out on the property to assess and help us develop an action plan.

With the amount of work and investment we’re prepared to put in, I want to get a good start and actually have a plan.

If there are any North Georgia members who would be interested, I’m not asking them to do it for free.  Feel free to PM or @ screen names.

Just trying to figure out who the correct resource(s) are to engage.

Thanks again to all who are contributing.

I definitely have some good leads based on input form this thread.

I agree with getting a biologist to make an assessment/recommendations. In Minnesota the local DNR station can be a free resource. Well it's funded by taxes, but you know what I mean. In my experience they love to help property owners who are willing to actually do something to improve the habit.

Careful with the DNR and their "free habitat" programs.  Most of them offer free seed, fertilizer, equipment, etc to improve habitat, but require you to do only what they say and when they say it for years.

Example:  DNR gives you 1,000 bareroot oak saplings to plant.
You have to plant them X amount apart in X area. (in the best interest of the trees, not deer habitat)
You cannot cut or alter them for 20 years.

Not something I'm willing to sign up for... my property, my rules... i mean habitat

You should talk with GA WRD and QDMA.

Also, make sure you go about building the pond the right way, so you don't get in trouble with the county.  I'm a civil engineer.  Send me an IM and I can share some info with you.

Cut all the pines.  Burn them.  Grind the stumps.  Work the ground up.  Plant Corn.  Leave corn standing.  Mow it with a bush hog in the spring and do it again.

After 5 years, plant oak trees, specifically White Oaks, Red Oaks, and a few live oaks.  Throw in a few Pecan trees, pear trees, apple trees, and similar for good measure.

You will have a deer mecca in 10 years.

Salt licks are a joke...don't bother.  Plus, they spread CWD.

Pine trees create a wildlife food desert.  Get them gone NOW.

IM sent.  Thanks

I hate pine trees.  I grew up in South Georgia and had way too many in my yard.  If I had a penny for every pine cone I've picked up or wheel-barrel full of pine straw I've raked.

That said, the timber company we bought the property from said we should be able to timber those acres in the future.  The trees are all about 8" right now.

Once we timber it, I would definitely not be looking to replant pine.

Well... while you're LOL'ing, my brother and I will continue enjoying taking two or three nice (IMO) bucks a year off our small track of land doing it the way I described. I also hunt other private tracks of land in central Florida to avoid pressuring my place.

Again, because deer move too much between bedding, food, and fucking, you're not going to QDM 125 acres IMO... especially if those around you are like the ones around us who shoot the doe during antlerless days and just about any legal buck.

Don't mistake the fact that just because WE don't take doe that none in the area are being taken... they are, as well as small bucks which I hate, and I fully understand the importance of taking doe for herd growth and genetic reasons.

Keep in mind... what WE are doing what works for US in the specific situation concerning our land, the surrounding land, and the hunting pressures overall in the two to three thousand acres surrounding us. If I had a couple thousand acres with little to no pressure in the surrounding areas my tactics would be different... I'd let some of the bucks I've killed walk... but the fact is they won't make it another season w/o everyone in the area being on the same page.

In the previous three seasons, my brother has taken a nice mature 10-pt off our property and this year I took this large bodied buck... not bad for a "Florida deer".  My son has taken a couple nice bucks in the years past including a 10-pt.

Pines, especially 5-8 year old pine stands in the SE (FL, GA) are PRIME bedding.

We're starting to enjoy the 10-year plan now... our Oaks have been dropping acorns for a few years now... it's only going to get better.

The buck we kill are coming directly out of the pines... on their way to eat and fuck.

The 110 acres I lease is pines (bedding), my 63 acres is for food (oaks, food plots). We aim to catch deer going from one to the other and for us it's working.

What did you think I meant by it? That I thought you were lying or something? I generally use lol to mean "oh man, this is a crazy situation." It is crazy to most of us in the rest of the country to shoot five bucks in a season. I understand that it's perfect legal and not that uncommon in Florida. It's just wildly different from my typical experience.

Oh... my apologies I mistook/misunderstood your post and the other one.

Up until this year we could take two deer A DAY... now we're limited to five deer a year and the state of FL has a healthy population so there's no reason for it. More .gov BS.

No problem!

What was the largest number of bucks you killed in a single year under the old rules?

OP,
I would advise you to look into 3 things;
1. Georgia Extension Service (ran by UGA) ......... they have Forestry/Wildlife agents just like we do in SC (Clemson Extension).  Some of them are local and are easy to talk to/with.  If you are an absentee landowner (meaning you live +1hr away from the land), I would talk with the county agent that is local to the land.
2. Georgia Dept of Natural Resources - Wildlife ........ you're wanting to talk to a DNR Biologist, not the Game Warden/LE.
3. your local 'Forest Landowners Association' ......... in SC we have them by county for the most part ..... again, 'local', not the state organization.  Again, if you're an absentee landowner, I would join the one that is closest to my home county.

After starting down the above mentioned path, I feel that it will eventually lead you to seeing the need of hiring a 'registered' consulting forester.  I'm sure UGA Extension can provide you with a statewide complete list of consulting foresters, as I know Clemson Extension and SC Forestry Commission can here in SC.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

QDMA is a stand up organization and can provide a wealth of resources.

I want to thank all of the guys who have provided input on this thread.

So far, I have:

-Contacted my country extension office through UGA

-Walked the property with a Senior Wildlife Consultant from DNR - He had lots of great ideas on food plots, etc

-Am meeting a Senior Forester on Friday to formalize a plan for fire breaks, thinning, planting, burning

-I am also working on the pond planning now and am going to follow up on some of the input from this thread to get that moving

These are good problems to have...

Excellent.....

Keep this thread alive and keep posting what you learn.  

We can all learn from your experiences

Thanks

Will do.

The pond project seems like it is going to be the most challenging to tackle.

I am hoping that @trails-end can provide some guidance to get started.  I'm trying to reconnect with him on that piece.

It's less about the planning and construction and more about doing it "the right way," from a regulatory perspective.

If anyone has any questions, please throw them out there and I'll answer what I can.  The local resources that I have met through my Country Extension Office from DNR and Forestry have been great so far.

Did you get in touch with Jeff?

I ended up:

1)  Contacting my County Extension Office who put me in touch with:

2)  Senior Wildlife Biologist at GA DNR ; he had lots of good ideas for habitat [5 handwritten pages] - he also recommended getting the Georgia Forestry Commission out to formalize a burn plan

3)  The GFC has formalized the fire breaks that we need to put in and will be bulldozing them shortly - We also have a plan for what parts of the property we need to burn and what parts we need to protect


Next steps will be to get a track hoe on the property to remove stumps for the 3 two acre food plots we plan to do.

The Senior Forester I met with also recommend that we apply for the Longleaf Pine program through USDA NCRS, so that I can get the clear cut areas replanted through that program.  I just finished that application process and should know if we've been accepted by Feb 2021.

That's pretty much where I'm at with things right now.

The pond project is on indefinite hold.  Everything else that I want to do on the property is attainable and I have met great resources to help with the planning and some of the actual work.  The Army Corps of Engineers and the process to put in a pond seem pretty daunting.

I am still hoping to hear back from @trails-end , when his schedule permits to get his thoughts on a pond.  I missed him when he reached out in March, which was a very busy time for me professionally.

If anyone wants specific contacts from the various agencies I have worked with so far, please IM me and I am happy to share.  I just don't want to put anyone's name or contact information in the thread.

Let me know if you guys have any more thoughts or ideas.  Following up on information in this thread has gotten me to where I am now, which is a lot further along than where I started.