What Can I do to Enhance the Amount of

daytime shooting hours deer traffic onto my smaller property (70 acres) in SW Young county. I'm on year 8 and have gone from unpenned to penned feeders, spincasting just corn to corn with protein back to corn and now with a dedicated gravity protein feeder in the middle of the place. On year 3 of a 2 acre food plot with 10-12" oats/turnips/beans/clover mix. Properties to the north and south lightly to moderately hunted are multi-hundred to thousand acreage properties with western and eastern properties being smaller, hundreds acreage properties also lightly-moderately hunted. My property has a tank that has yet to go dry in my 8 years out there and moderate brush with some more open pasture in the middle. Do have 2 pumpjacks going 24x7 for the past 5-6 years. Just getting tired of seeing abundant nice bucks/does in the evenings on game cameras and feel I should be seeing more of those during hunting hours. My best hunting results have predominantly been while rattling/grunting during the rut. What additional or different things does the forum think I could do to enhance the daytime deer sightings? Thanks.

IMO, you have "overdone" it. With feeders, foodplots and a tank, you have too many options and cannot be everywhere at once. Try to run feeders ONLY for a season.

Interesting take on it, in my interest to provide more options/enhancements, I may actually be doing myself a disservice. That is definitely a theory I'll consider, what else?

Sometimes things are just the way they are. Sometimes changing things to try to make therm better just make them worse. The season is just about over and you never know how they will pattern next year.

How much are you there durring the day? Is this based of hunting or mainly game cam info? You live here or just a lease or weekend place?you have to drive through most the place to get to camp? What do you take to the stand? ATV? Sounds like your being patterned.. And is an easy thing for deer to do on a 70acre place.

I might suggest the opposite. Try having a plot with no feeders. Sometimes those mature bucks will steer clear of the feeders more so than a plot.

You have to raise deer under you feeding plan. I would also put one really big feed pen with the protein feeder and one really big feed pen with a corn feeder in a easily access hunting location. I would put those both in an area that would leave my best bedding/sanctuary cover untouched. I would never go into that bedding area. In order to see deer in the daylight they have to live within easy travel time from that feed location.

Sounds like a busy, busy place just saying. I would not stop year round feeding but might eliminate the protein.

Actually, I would say not so much. I'm out there about every other or 3rd weekend and neighbors maybe once every week on the weekend. So not thinking that's the problem.

What do the neighbors offer? 70 acres will not support a whole bunch of deer continuously. You may have a core group that feeds and beds there but I'm pretty sure that your deer don't stay on that 70 acres 24/7. They roam. Their basic area might another 570 acres around your place. Having water is a good thing, they need it if you're feeding protein.

Outside of that what stxranchman said.

I definitely get that 70 acres won't hold many if any deer full time, just wanting to see if any secret tricks to get them to intersect the property more regularly during shooting hours. Been doing this thing called hunting a long time, nearly 40 years down in South Texas but much less of being a landowner and smaller one at that. Just wondering what others with smaller properties are doing to get the most out of their situations. As for the surrounding areas, believe they are simply utilizing spincast feeders, corn. Not any other foodplots close to me that I'm aware of.

Compliment her. (Just read the title only.)

Yeah, try to draw you in, lol....Seriously, have any suggestions Creek?

You may consider enhancing your cover. You can hinge cut smaller trees and plant some type of tall, thick, perennial grass like switchgrass. Do it in an area you can keep off limits as a sanctuary. If they are bedding on your property, you're more likely to catch them during the day.

DQ, is your camp on the property? Do you walk in to hunt? Limit noise and vehicle activity as much as possible. Might try keeping free choice protein year round.

So now you have:
1.Hunt feeders Only, No plot
2.No feeders, Plot Only.
3.Feeders with just protein.
4.Do nothing, it is what it is.
5.Eliminate the protein feeder.
6. Increase the time you hunt.
7.Enhance the cover.
8.Shhhh, no noise.
Be interested in which option/s you persue.

HalfDoz, I don't camp onsite and generally walk in from just inside the gates, so minimal truck activity during hunting hours. Will drive out to pasture to check cams/fill feeders...No ATV traffic. What I have noticed is that I have less overall deer activity since penning feeders a few years back but also no hogs so not sure if the pens have improved or hurt the deer sightings out there.

how big are your pens? My experience with pens, the bigger the better, deer don't like to be confined with little escape route. Are you running cattle on the place? otherwise why do you need the pens to begin with.

I've wondered that myself, they're about 20'-25' in diameter, not huge. Cattle are placed on my place in offseason, Feb.- Aug. but before pens I had nightly visits by pigs, sometimes 8-10 at a time. I'm either going to go up with larger pens next year or no pens at all.

I've wondered that myself, they're about 20'-25' in diameter, not huge. Cattle are placed on my place in offseason, Feb.- Aug. but before pens I had nightly visits by pigs, sometimes 8-10 at a time. I'm either going to go up with larger pens next year or no pens at all.

Sounds like you are doing all the right things and I think you have found your answer, at least for mature deer, if you need to fence your pins in order to feed year round it is fine. I would never make a pin less than 50' in diameter and if your fence is built so to minimize pig traffic it will likely discourage deer ( mature deer for sure) from utilizing it regularly. Keep your fencing to a minimum to prevent livestock and let those silly pigs eat at night if they want to. If you keep the pigs eating there at night,(shoot every one you see during the day) the deer will likely show up during the day to eat. Its a competition for resources thing.

I took over the deer management on a ranch down south several years ago. The owner could't figure out why they hardly ever saw any deer, especially at their feeders. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

Their pens were 20' x 20' with -0- natural cover inside.
Deer had to cross open ground to get to feed pens.
Stands were 50 yards from feeders.
Blinds had nothing to black out windows, so animals could readily see the hunter.
They hunted what stand they wanted, with no consideration for wind direction.
They hunted the same stand multiple times in a weekend.
Lots of driving around and shooting.
Feeders were constantly breaking down, clogging up.

Since then, we've made the following changes.

Pens are 60 x 60 or 80 x 80 and all have a bunch of natural cover inside.
All pens are up against brush/woods on at least one side.
No stand closer than 150 yards to feeder. Some as much as 225. All stands have mesh, camo curtains on all four windows.
No stand gets hunted unless the wind is favorable.
No stand gets hunted more than once/week.
No more driving around the pastures and shooting.
Replaced old feeders and added some additional new ones.

Our deer actually bed down in some of our pens now

I feel your struggle the deer are nocturnal here also . If they don't come out during shooting hours you gotta get out of the blind and actually hunt on foot & do a spot and stalk in the day light , sitting over a feeder is not hunting its baiting . Since the ground is wet its easy to spot tracks just do some tracking and follow the tracks to the bedding areas and stick out a decoy and do some calls,remember to walk slow very slow and scan the ground all around you might walk right past them bedding and never know. Don't forget scent is a major factor they can smell your breath 50 yards away with this cold air in the early mornings,I feed apple flavored corn in my feeders, and I chew sour apple gum when I hunt and also shower with apple scented shampoo and it helps me from getting winded.