Keep Your Land and Deer a Secret

How to Keep Your Land, and Your Deer, a Secret. Your woods are too visible to neighbors and potential road hunters. Not only does the lack of cover raise the potential for poaching, but it also puts mature bucks on edge and makes them warier, more nocturnal, and more difficult to hunt because of intrusive human activity from road traffic and hunters walking along the boundary. Rx Create a fast-growing border of cover to block deer from seeing people and people from seeing the deer, solving both problems. These annuals can grow 6 to 10 feet tall and easily shield the view of your woods and fields from roads and bordering properties. Plant rows 15 to 30 feet wide. Avoid adding edible plants such as sunn hemp. Second, consider more durable solutions by planting mixtures of warm-season grasses such as switchgrass, Indian, big and little bluestem, and gama grass. These take a little more time to establish, but in one to two years will provide a lasting shield, standing 5 to 8 feet tall. Conifers offer another good option for a long-term solution.
9 point buck whitetail buck tall grass
Shielded: A Midwest 9-pointer is blocked from view by a tall strip of switchgrass.

Your woods are too visible to neighbors and potential road hunters.

If your woods and brushy fields are open to view from public roads or a neighbor’s property, you’re overexposed. This raises several issues. Not only does the lack of cover raise the potential for poaching, but it also puts mature bucks on edge and makes them warier, more nocturnal, and more difficult to hunt because of intrusive human activity from road traffic and hunters walking along the boundary.

Rx

Create a fast-growing border of cover to block deer from seeing people and people from seeing the deer, solving both problems. Good plantings include Egyptian wheat, BioLogic’s Blind…

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