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Start Now: Building Habitat

In the famous words of Ricky Bobby, “I don’t know what to do with my hands” may best describe my life once the whitetail season comes to an end way too fast…as always. After finishing up my 31st hunting season, I can say that my off seasons look way different than they did in 1993. When I first started hunting, I would clean my guns, wash my clothes, box everything up and begin the nine-month countdown. Now, the hunting really starts for me on February 1. After recently becoming a landowner in Southern Illinois, I have the opportunity to truly evaluate what happened each season. Whether to replicate the past year’s success or to go back to the drawing board to see how not to make the same mistakes.

After evaluating the season and deciding what needs to happen to increase my odds and increase the quality of habitat, the real hunting starts. So regardless of whether you are a landowner, a land lessee, or a public land hunter, here are a few pointers I would consider putting on your list: this is all in February?

“After evaluating the season and deciding what needs to happen to increase my odds and increase the quality of habitat, the real hunting starts.”

Brian Nelson

  1. Big projects/construction ideas. If you are looking at doing some major clearing or road building, now would be the time to have it scheduled. The leaves are down, and you still have a good picture of what the land looks like during the hunting season.

  2. Habitat improvements. This is a great time to create wooded habitat by hinge cutting trees to provide better habitat and edge improvements. I just finished cutting several acres of trees that I had determined during the season would make great areas to hold, direct or feed deer. A chainsaw and a habitat hook goes everywhere with me in February and early March.

  3. This is also the best time to scout for deer movement in your woods and all the areas that you wanted to go into during hunting season. Let me reiterate that the hunting season is not the time to do your deer scouting. Take this time now to scout so you do not affect your hunting nine months later. I also take the time to pull down stands and begin looking for sheds that have hit the ground around this time as well. February may also be a great time to frost seed some different seeds. This topic could be an article all on its own because so much should have been done long before frost season in getting the open ground ready for seed. I encourage you to take a minute and watch a you tube video by WHS or Northwoods Whitetail Seed concerning frost seeding.

  4. Coming into March, I begin looking into controlled burning for my big woods. I would recommend getting your friends together and taking a day or two to burn. Fire is nature’s greatest habitat tool and it’s super-efficient in fertilizing the ground and open a path to the forest floor for the sun. If you also enjoy turkey hunting, then your turkeys will LOVE you for bringing fire through.

  5. Soil test …. I won’t even say more.

  6. Late March into early April before green up, I begin the herbicides and soil treatment. Weeds are the worst enemy to grasses and broadleaves,therefore herbicides cannot be passed by. I plant a lot, so why invest money into seeds and labor all for nothing, if you can’t take the time to spray? My dad used to say, “spend money on your scope, not the gun” and I would second that thought process on site prep over the seeding process. In preparing for planting, you will possibly need to use Lime depending on the results of your soil test. Personally, I use liquid lime due to the speed of actively raising the PH but pellet or powder is fine as well. I will then spray Simazine, which is a pre emergent and should be in the ground before Spring green up. Once the weeds begin popping in April, I would then hit it with Glyphosate (the chemical word for Roundup) and 24-D to kill weeds. I would repeat this process three weeks later, before any of your Spring planting projects.

  7. Depending on your location and state laws, you may be able to supplement feed for your herd which can be great for the does, being they are coming into fawning season.

  8. Lastly, as you scout and do your habitat improvements, I would strongly recommend the implementation of mock scrapes. I literally have already built five new mock scrapes during my scouting and stand planning.

Hopefully, these are a few ideas of some simple steps that will get you going in the right direction and keep you busy while you dream of big bucks and wild ruts.  Hopefully, you will stay around to follow the crew at Mayhem Hunt, check out a few hunts from the Southern Illinois farm, and maybe even some work projects, before we make it to the Fall. 
 
In my next article, I will go more into detail on mock scrapes.  Until then, don’t forget to make your main target your personal health and wellbeing, because you perform how you prepare!