The Future Of Buying Hunting Land

If I had a dollar for every time I heard an elder say, "things aren't the way they use to be," I would be a rich man. Well, as I get older I sure know what they meant by that. I am extremely grateful that my parents bought land years ago and kept it for my brother and I. Acreage has inflated in price so much over the years leaving it almost impossible for the average hunter to afford his own. I have seen something in recent years that makes it a little easier though. Below I will explain the trend I have witnessed here in Wisconsin and am sure it is common throughout the Midwest.

Years ago, if a person wanted land they would simply look in real estate books or newspapers. The other method people would utilize is they would approach landowners and let them know they were interested. Another way people would purchase land is they would research who was behind on their taxes and approach the owners to more or less give them a piece of their property in exchange for paying the back taxes. All three of these methods still work today but there is one more trend that is growing. This method is scary as well as an eye opener to what the future holds. It can however, allow a hunter to buy a much smaller property but hold the hunting rights to a much larger plot of land. Which if the hunter has a tight pocketbook, it might be the best option.

Let's say for explanation purposes their is an elderly person who owns a remaining forty acres from a once much larger farm. If this is the case, the remaining land is usually a good peace of hunting property that they might have held on to for that purpose.  Now let's say this property consists of twenty-five acres of farm field and fifteen acres woods or cover. What has been happening is "Super Farms" both dairy and agricultural are buying land up left and right. The obvious bidders are the crop farmers but dairy farmers need the land as well. By law dairy farmers need so many acres of land associated with the farm per head of cattle. So simple math would explain that if the dairy farmer wants to expand his milking head, he or she needs more land. So what does this mean for the hunter wanting a parcel to call his own? Well, it means that the price of good hunting land is going up beyond his or her reach. This happens because these "Super Farms" approach the small land owners and offer them an exuberant price for their land "when they are ready." One can not blame these people for selling to the "Super Farms" after they throw the figures out on the table.

There is one factor in these backroom deals that can benefit you the hunter wanting a piece of land. It comes down to how businesses work. See, at the end of the day these "Super Farms" are nothing more than a business. And like any business they are constantly trying to cut overhead. And for our example property I mentioned above; the farmer would be looking to rid himself of the fifteen acres. It isn't that they even want to dump the fifteen acres but that they almost have to. That fifteen acres offers no benefit to the farmer because not only do they have to pay taxes on the land but they also had to buy the land.

So now what do you do as the hunter looking for land? First you start by making sure you are 100% ready to purchase land. Then and only then do you approach the owner of one of the super farms. You approach them with the notion of buying a piece of the wooded property which is useless to his business. You can be picky but make sure you don't waste their time. By all means make sure it is a piece of property you would want, you are buying it and all. But keep in mind these guys are very busy as well. Most of these farmers will give you hunting privileges to the whole property instead of only the part you own.  In other words you would have a forty to hunt for the price of 15 acres.  This by no means is a fool proof method but rather something that happens more and more.

Taking Your Food Plot To The Next Level

Food plots are a big craze in the deer hunting world.  As they should be, they satisfy one of the three essential needs to keep deer in your area.  The one draw back I found in my area with a food plot, is it doesn't stand a fighting chance to draw deer in like it does in other regions. This can be explained by the simple idea of supply and demand. By my land there is more agriculture than a deer knows what to do with. With the amount of food the deer have to choose from, it is extremely difficult to entice them to regularly visit a food plot. It seems to not matter much what I plant either. So instead of giving up I changed my approach.  In doing so I have learned a trick that might be useful to others in a similar situation.

The trick isn't what you plant but rather how you hunt it.  So then what is the trick for optimising your hunt? First you want to select your stand location which is within shooting range of a good portion of your plot. Then but a roll of rigid wire garden fencing. You want the fence to be around four feet high. Cut several pieces of fence roughly twelve to sixteen feet long. Wrap each piece separately into a circle and connect the ends together. What you have now is several rings that you will use to block off sections of your plot. Now stagger these wire hoops around your plot within shooting range of your stand. They should stand up on there own and you can stake them down if you want. Once the plot gets grown up enough the deer will come to eat but will not be able to eat what is inside of the fence. Then the real trick comes into play. When deer season comes around, pick an afternoon to hunt when you have predicted winds in your favor. The morning of your hunt simply move one or more of your fences to allow the deer access to the lush greens. Then simply take a pruning shears and nip off the very tops of your untouched plot. For even better results at a trade off of more labor; make several cuts off of each stem. One cut or several, it will get the fresh aroma of food in the air for the deer to smell a long ways away. The more cuts you make the more scent gets kicked up. And when you are done hunting you simply leave your fence over a new section of the plot in order to allow it to grow in nice and thick without being eaten.  There are definitely some crops this method works better with than others one being clover. But it greatly depends on what the deer in your area are after.  I hope this gives you an edge the next time you plan on hunting over a food plot.

How To Manipulate Deer In A Standing Corn Field

To understand this article I will have to make sure you understand what hinge cutting is. In an earlier post I wrote in great detail what exactly hinge cutting is and how it is used but I will again give a brief description. Hinge cutting is when you cut a tree approximately 60% of the way through in order to bend it over. The tree while remaining alive can be used for various manipulation purposes. If cut low to the ground it can be used to block a path. If cut high it can be used as bedding or cover for safe passage. For more information on hinge cutting trees see my previous post which covers it in more detail.

Now for this post I am going to switch your gears a bit and focus on hinge cutting for travel manipulation only. Like the title says, I am going to discuss hinge cutting standing corn. For this I want to stress a few things. First off make sure you own the corn field. Secondly, unlike hinge cutting trees, the corn stalk you cut most times will yield no corn thus circumventing the reason it was planted in the first place.

I have never seen or read of anyone using hinge cutting on corn but I have and it works nonetheless.  In order to do it you do not need any power tools but rather a simple machete and a plan. Your planned outcome should be one that doesn't include trying to change the entire direction a deer is attempting to travel. It works best when you are trying to focus a deer's travel route to one area usually within shooting range of your stand.

To accomplish this task a few conditions have to be in your favor.  First off, the best results I have gotten have come when you are attempting to funnel the deer on their exit of the field versus where they enter. Secondly, you want to attempt to get as near as possible to the natural exit point to assist them to where they want to go.  When creating a funnel in a corn field you don't need to funnel them into a few foot gap but rather a several yard gap because you should be able to make a shot several yards away.

With that said, how exactly is it done? You want to start at the exit point or kill zone and work in to the field. Selecting one stalk at a time you want to cut in to the stalk at an angle just enough to allow it to bend over without breaking off. You then wedge the top of the bent stalk in to another living stalk.  Sometimes this may require tying it in place to make it more secure. It works well if you wedge it between the ear of corn and its stalk.  You continue doing this making sure to overlap the barrier creating a line as to have no gaps between the bent stalks which would allow the deer to slip through. The key factor to remember when cutting or bending the stalks is the cut should be done between knee and waist high.  As you work your way into the field you want to fan out a little more each time. When one side is done repeat the same steps on the other side. When completely finished and if you were to look down from a plane the manipulated stalks would look to form a cone shape open on both ends. Note that the further you enter the field the better you will harness the deer.

Now if you really want to maximize your results you can match your efforts on the other side of the picture.  What I mean is you can take your machete and hinge cut saplings at the entrance to the wood line if one is present.  These cuts should be done roughly at chest or shoulder level and bend the sapling over to create a desired entrance to the wood line.  If you read my earlier post on hinge cutting you will see I go in greater detail on how to make a trail.  It won't take long before you notice a heavily used trail right where you want it.

Once you have mastered this particular tactic there is one last thing that you can do to give yourself even more of an advantage. For this extra advantage your stand will have to be located close to the field edge. What I have done is use deer's natural instincts against them. Deer will usually stop before leaving cover to enter an opening which in this case before entering the open area being between the tree line and corn. If your funnel opening is big enough the deer will use it as an entrance as well as an exit. So you can cut a shooting hole into the area behind the hinge cut saplings on the woods side. Thus giving you that shot before they even fully step out.  For an explanation on what a shooting hole is reference my article on shooting lanes.  If your stand is close enough to the field edge, you can also create a shooting area into the corn field itself.

I hope you find this tactic helpful.  I always encourage feedback and would love to hear your comments. Feel free to email me with questions or input. Follow all my posts by requesting notifications when new posts are added by submitting your email on my main site: GetInsideTheRack

Filming Your Own Hunt

This post gets away from deer manipulation a little and explores hunting technology. I just want to say that although it would be awesome, I am not sponsored by anyone. The technology I want to strongly suggest is a weapon mounted camera. I have experience with two separate cameras one of which is out dated. Before selecting my current camera I did my research and spoke with many that owned various makes and models. I do want to highlight some key factors that I feel are important when selecting a camera.

When I bought my first camera which was a Midland XTC there were not many on the market to choose from. I didn't want to spend the extra dough to get the necessary mount to screw in a stabilizer so I just had one machined. It was a great camera at the time and was a wonderful starting point.  Let's just say it was enough to hook me into never hunting without one. I hunted with it a few years until one particular hunt where I had a trophy within bow range but had no shot.  I thought at least I would have camera footage of the buck but soon found out the low light of the early morning didn't allow me to see much of any antlers on the video. Being frustrated I set out on a quest which took almost a year to find the right camera. I did learn something on that particular hunt that would define the key features I was looking for. It had to be a camera that was designed for hunting. The Midland XTC was a camera made for action situations not necessarily detail.

In my quest I looked at different options including all of the popular makes and models like GoPro and Ion. All were great cameras but they didn't hit the nail on the head for what I wanted. The Ion was small enough and the GoPro had excellent quality. However, as I researched I found out more things I didn't like for the purpose of hunting and less things that sold me on those cameras. I wanted something that would only take a second to start recording and didn't require me to navigate a menu or press more than one button. I needed something that wasnt going to distort an image the further from the camera it got. I also wanted something designed to mount to my bow and would record a good image in low light situations.. When I found the Tactacam I found all of that and then some. I am not saying the others are not excellent products, anything is better than nothing. All I will say is it definitely is designed for hunting and you can't go wrong with the price. It can also mount to a gun or crossbow without adhesive.

I did say earlier that it took me almost a year to find the camera for me. So if this camera is so awesome why did it take so long? It was mostly because I wanted to go the mainstream route and didn't want to take a chance on a newer brand or product. But after I put the pro's and con's on paper I soon realized the paper had little written in favor of the mainstream cameras. I did however come up with a few things I didn't like about the Tactacam. I wish they would work on a better audio record feature as I feel it isn't as good as other cameras out there. I also wish there was a way to turn the blinking light off when it is recording. I have yet to have a deer even notice it but it would be nice nonetheless.  Whatever your needs are just be sure to weigh your options and be true to yourself as to what you want to do with the camera.

Besides simply being awesome, what practical purpose does having a camera on your weapon pose? I have found mine useful for various reasons. Number one is I always wanted to film my hunts but I can't expect someone to sit in a tree with me for days on end for that one particular moment.  I also find it impractical to have a camera strapped to a tree only to have to point it in the direction before I shoot without managing to scare a deer away. Now from a recovery aspect, by timing your shot you are able to to see shot placement on the animal and figure out which vitals if any you hit. A camera also allows you to follow the wounded animal until the last visible moment. That way you can review the video and figure out where to search for blood if you are having a hard time picking up the trail. And finally, if you simply can't get a shot off on a trophy at least you will have footage.  We hope it doesn't happen that way but it has to me.

Again I am not a sponsor but I just thought I should relay how excellent of a product Tactacam has for the hunting world. Definitely worth the price. Whatever you use to film your hunt send me a link of your hunt, I love watching them.

Below is a video shot from my Tactacam of my 2014 bow kill