Deer Habitat Plan and Hunting Strategy Holds More Bucks on 40 Acres In High Hunting Pressured Area 

Habitat Plans and Hunting Strategy Setups - StrategicHabita...
Whitetail Habitat Consultant - Randy VanderVeen - 616-560-7488
randy@strategichabitat.com
Back in 2017 a landowner in MI contacted me to come look at his property so he could have a roadmap on how to improve the habitat and hunting on his square 40 acre property.
Before he bought the property from his family several years ago, this was your typical MI deer hunting property where the hunters all had their favorite blinds and stands regardless of wind direction. He also has 17 different landowners who touch his property border.
He mainly saw does and small bucks during the hunting season. If he was lucky he might get a glimpse of a 3.5 yr old buck passing through during the rut.
This landowner was getting tired of the same ole same ole and he wanted to make some changes for the better.
A year before contacting me he did some hinge cutting with a friend to create some cover for bedding. But like what happens with many landowners, he started to 2nd guess himself on where to continue, how many trees to cut, and is this the right location for a bedding area.
So instead of making any mistakes he couldn’t fix later, he decided to get a plan in place with a hunting strategy that he could work from with the confidence that he wasn’t screwing up his property.
Fast forward 5.5 years later to today, now he’s passing really nice bucks he rarely even saw before.
The last few years he’s been texting me daytime trailcam photos of bucks to get my take if they’re 2 or 3 yrs old. He achieved his goal a few years ago by taking his first 3.5 yr old buck with a bow.
So since his property and situation was very typical in MI, we decided to do a quick overview of the work and changes made to his 40 acres the last 5 years in order to give other struggling landowners hope that better hunting is possible if you have a solid plan to execute.