Improving Whitetail Habitat

I cannot believe how many frustrated hunters there are this hunting season. Guys have been spending lots of hours on stand watching squirrels. Not only public land hunters, but land owners as well.  After a few days in a row of getting up early and sitting in a cold tree, burnout starts to set in, especially if you’re not seeing the deer like you hoped.

While you’re sitting there hoping even a doe or small buck shows up, you start thinking about what you can do to make next year’s hunting season better, like do more scouting for some better spots, improving whitetail habitat like plant some food plots, find more property to hunt, or say screw it, and go to Iowa next year.

Whoa, not so fast.

Before you throw in towel on your hunting property, I want you to watch a video which will get the wheels turning in your head. This video was shot in southern Michigan on Jake Ehlinger’s 67 acres. However, only 35 of his acres are usable by deer because of his house, barn, yard and lots of water. Jake has no fences. Instead, he is surrounded by other hunters who hunt close to his property line hoping to get a shot at the bucks that live on his property.

Why?

Because Jake has done his homework, and is a master at improving whitetail habitat where big bucks gravitate . It works so well, that he now shows other land owners how they can do the same thing. Last summer he gave a tour to about 200 hunters who wanted to see his property layout and why big bucks hang out there.

A couple weeks ago Jake gave me a personal one-on-one tour to show me all the rubs and scrapes from the rut that was starting to wind down at the time. Now he didn’t take me through the core bedding areas because it was still hunting season, and he didn’t want to push deer off to his neighbor’s properties. So we only toured 7 acres of his property. 7 Acres! How much property do you hunt? You can have the same kind of buck activity Jake does if you know how to do it.

Jake is going to share all of his knowledge about improving whitetail habitat step-by-step on video in 2012 starting in January.

Check out the video on the right side of this page.