The Blacktail Coach Podcast
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The Blacktail Coach Podcast
Transforming 22 Acres: Building Your Dream Deer Habitat
The dream of hunting your own land captivates many outdoorsmen, but what happens when your property is only 22 acres? Can you truly create a thriving deer habitat that supports quality hunting opportunities?
Responding to an email from Keith in Northern California, we dive deep into the science of deer behavior and habitat management for small properties. The secret lies in understanding the three critical components that make any deer habitat viable: food, cover, and breeding opportunities. Blacktail deer typically establish remarkably small home ranges—studies show they often live their entire lives within just 51 acres—making small property management not only possible but potentially highly productive.
We explore how mature bucks establish core areas in the thickest cover available, spending 90-95% of their time in just 30% of their range. Creating these security zones through strategic plantings like switchgrass can transform even modest acreage into deer magnets. Rather than thinking like a hunter with a one-season mentality, we encourage adopting the mindset of a "deer farmer"—someone cultivating habitat, monitoring deer patterns, and making improvements based on their behavior over multiple years.
The podcast also addresses whether to hunt your developing property immediately or wait while improving habitat. Our suggestion? Do both. Run trail cameras to catalog deer even if not actively hunting, while also exploring nearby public land opportunities that other hunters might overlook by focusing too heavily on clear-cuts rather than thick cover.
For those managing their own hunting properties, this episode provides actionable insights on creating sustainable deer habitat that will provide hunting opportunities for generations to come. We wrap up with an important update for Washington hunters regarding synthetic scent regulations that have changed since last season.
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron and I'm Dave. This week we are going to start. Actually, first thing I want to say is congratulations to Cully Scroggins. He on opening day. He attended our class last spring Yep and opening day got a very nice 4x4, eye guards, nice buck real heavy and the funny thing is it still looked like it was pretty young. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Beautiful buck, though Nice dark antlered. Got it done. Opening day Yep.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. We will probably have him on Sometime after elk season. We have three episodes with Smokey Cruz that we will be playing after in a few weeks of Dave and I here we want to give you some fresh content for the season before we really get into season rifle and all that and then we'll play Smokey once October hits they're pretty close and then we'll get to doing those success stories and everything. So anyway, we're starting off. We got an email from Keith down in California and there was a lot to unpack with this email, so I thought it would just make a really great episode to talk this all out.
Speaker 2:Yeah it was a really good email as far as man, just the way he delved into everything and was really honest about his questions. That's what I appreciated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just to give you some highlights. I live in Northern California. I bought some property that is 22 acres this year and want to create a good habitat so that I can hunt. Here on my land I have started a food plot, created a water hole, made a mock scrape, put up scent and doing what I can to improve the habitat over time. I'm in the foothills at about 1,700 feet. My property drops down 200 feet to a seasonal creek that is currently dry. I have trail cams up and so far have seen what I think is the same doe and two fawns all over the property many times, but saw only one nice buck once since or in July. Based on only seeing that one, my question is if you think I should focus on hunting my land this season or if that seems like a waste and I should focus on finding public land while I build my habitat and get more bucks in.
Speaker 1:The public lands around here don't feel too promising. Low harvest rates, lots of pressure and takes up even more time with travel and I'm already limited in hunting time to mostly weekends and balancing that with family time. In California our season ends a couple of days into November, so not sure how much the pre-rut and rut activity may bring some bucks in and also, I think there's only one doe. So again, not sure how much things will improve in the next couple months as the weather changes and the rut nears. Just asked for insights for all of that. So, with looking at all of this, want to start out. So what are for a habitat to succeed or to be viable in supporting deer activity? What needs to be present?
Speaker 2:So, in my opinion, I think that there are three things that you need. You need to have food, cover and the opportunity to breed. Now, of those three, I would say the two most important are the food and the cover. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The opportunity to breed. Bucks will travel like whitetails. Will go seven miles to find a doe in standing, yeah, like whitetails will go, you know, seven miles to find a doe and standing yeah, a blacktail. In our area. They've done studies and many people have heard me say this that they found out they live the entirety of their lives. Most of them this is like 99.9.
Speaker 2:You're always going to have an outlier live within 51 acres and I think if cover gets sparse, that range gets larger yeah so if you're living in an area where there's not a lot of thick stuff, I think those bucks adapt to that and increase their range. Big bucks want to be in thick cover they don't use the same trails does and small bucks do. They always want to stick to the cover, and if the car, if the cover is sparse or far and few between then, they've got to travel to get to that cover. Because that's where they're going to spend the majority of their life is in that thick stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like 90, 95% is spent in 30% of that range.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if they have to cover, always equals food, because cover is, whether it's jackfur or jonfur or alder patches or whatever. I mean you've got all these bushes and shrubs and stuff inside of that and that's food. Thick salal or Salmon berries, blackberries, all of that stuff, even viney maples, the fresh green shoots on viney maples. To me the two most important are cover and I would say it would go in this order cover and food. Cover equals equals safety, not just from hunters but from weather as well and potentially predators.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so those two would be the ones that I would say, but you need some kind of culmination of the three to hold on to good habitat. The thicker the cover, the more food you're going to have. The more deer you're going to draw in. The more cover you have, the more safe these deer are going to feel and they're going to have. The more deer you're going to draw in, the more cover you have, the more safe these deer are going to feel and they're going to stay there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, At some point I was doing some research on the 51 acres. I think we were trying to find the study that Washington did that led to that information. We were having a hard time finding that study but when I was doing the research one bit of information said they can have a range of 600 to 1,200 acres but state of Washington their study average of 52 acres. But I also saw that up in Alaska that some of the Sitka blacktail can have a range as little as 20 acres. So whether it's on an island or but they have everything. I think that's what it is is they have all three of those components available in a small area but that being temperate rainforest and a lot of our coast all the way down to Northern California on the coast falls into that category.
Speaker 2:Still very thick Yep to Northern.
Speaker 1:California on the coast falls into that category. Still very thick, yep, yeah, but if you know and we don't know Northern California as far as like, is it on the Huayrica side or is it on the Eureka side, you know, is it on the coast side or is I-5 corridor thinking? And so from what I saw, that 600 acre range seemed to imply, from what I saw that 600-acre range seemed to imply, from what I read, that that was maybe Roseburg South. So when it really opens up, it gets hot. They might have to walk further to get to a water source. They might have to walk further to get into a really thick patch. You know, it opens up more down there, it becomes more of an issue down there, right, right, but it's still.
Speaker 2:They still have their core area. Yeah, you know, and that doesn't change, and that doesn't even change for whitetail or mule deer. Those bucks still have a core area and they'll spend the majority of their life in that core area. I think that it's a mistake for us to think that if we see that buck out there in the summertime, or if we see that buck there in the off season, whether it's early spring or whatnot, that he's not going to be around when hunting season comes.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of guys make that mistake, because nothing can be further from the truth, because that buck, when he goes into his rut, the first does he's going to check are going to be the ones in his core area, and then, after they've either all been bred or he's figured out that none of them are in standing estrus, then he wanders outside that core area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and why I wanted to also bring this up is you have had some other acquaintances who have bought land and they want to hunt their land.
Speaker 2:That is like, I think, for any hunter to be able to just To lock it up and keep it for yeah.
Speaker 1:To just be able to hunt your own land. But is it possible on 22 acres? Is that possible If they've got food plots out? Well, there's a food source, water hole, so they've got one. There's dough and a couple of fawns walking, so there are does available. So I guess it just means the security. So is there some really thick stuff?
Speaker 2:that would be well, I mean it goes back to the initial question. Can I make this a piece of property that holds deer and keeps deer all year round, or is this the the question? Can I make this habitat good enough that he makes his core area here? Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, because it's two different things. The core area if you have five acres, you can make it so that's his core area. If you work on building that habitat, can you make it so that he solely stays on that five acres? I doubt that, but I get approached all the time with guys that got property that are like well, I want to kill a buck on my property and they have five acres, 10 acres, 20 acres. I don't know that the size of the property makes a difference as much as just approaching it with realistic expectations. Keith, here the guy who's emailed us says he has 22 acres. Okay, so 22 acres. He's seeing just that doe and two fawns.
Speaker 1:And a buck once. And a buck once.
Speaker 2:Okay, so chances are that's not that buck's core area, because you only saw him once and you saw him in the summertime when he was in velvet. So, he's out in the open, you know. So unless you start putting cameras in the thick spot, that could be why he's not getting pictures of that buck right now.
Speaker 2:A lot of guys make that mistake. We put cameras or mineral sites where we want the bucks to be, but we don't pay attention to the time of year that we do that. You know bucks they get on that summer pattern. They don't want to be in the thick stuff because they're in velvet, they don't want to hit their antlers and stuff, so they move to the more open stuff. Well, guys put minerals and stuff in the thick stuff, hoping that they'll get pictures of that buck. Then they go all summer and they got maybe one or two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he'll be there during hunting season because it's a different mode that those deer go into. You know to say that the it's not that difficult, but it does take time.
Speaker 1:So if the real thick stuff isn't there, it could eventually be there.
Speaker 2:There's a ton of things on the market that you can plant Switchgrass, which grows man. That grows up to like eight foot tall, and it grows fast. And that's great cover. That's great cover in the summertime cover from predators, from weather and everything. It grows back every year. Yeah. It provides a lot, and that's again one of the most important things is cover.
Speaker 1:So, as I was thinking about this, it's also not knowing the neighbors.
Speaker 2:Does he have? 22 acres in a yeah, does that butt up against Weyerhaeuser? Does that butt up against the town poachers? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:The urban, more urban land. Do you have neighbors who have maybe his quarry? Let's? You know what I mean urban, more urban land. Do you have neighbors who have maybe his quarry? Let's say the quarry is on the neighbor's land. Well, here's a chance to go meet the neighbors and talk to them about potentially hunting their property, right? So there's that aspect. Is there agriculture around there, too, agricultural? So maybe you're going to build their little habitat where they're going to go for cover and then when they're going out feeding, they'll walk out into the fields and start eating. So you can, like you were saying, there can be a big buck on five acres. You have the five acres in the middle of a suburb, right, right, nobody, you know urban bucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I just go back to realistic expectations, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so another thing I was thinking about. So seeing the buck in July made me think of two times. This is the first year and you know, if you buy property, that sounds like a long-term commitment to that piece of land. But with my deer two times on Riverside he came back the exact same time the following year. What was funny is I went out and ran since last year it was in between modern and late modern he had already walked through that area and I never saw him again. He shows up at night during modern season. I wonder what are the odds he'll see that same buck walking through? Oh really high, because they end up being like clockwork. They're habitual like that and I did think if, if you've seen a doe and two fawns and they've and it's stayed that way throughout summer, that's a pretty good sign that there's not a whole lot of predators around there. Every time I've seen two fawns by the end of summer, there's one fawn.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because, the bear or cougar's gotten a hold of them, or the coyotes yeah. Yeah, bobcat, anything else. If you saw one, doe thinking about that. You saw a buck and maybe he'll come passing through there again because it's in his range. Mm-hmm, he's proven that it's in his range.
Speaker 2:He's proven that. It's in his range. Yeah, she's been bred obviously before.
Speaker 1:So if you have a doe and a couple of fawns or a doe is just seeing one doe is that enough to work that property as far as, because you'll be creating an illusion if you sense that there's more, does it seems like.
Speaker 2:Right. So, if you're asking me, is that enough to bring a buck in and to kill a buck on it? Yes, if you're asking me, if I would do that, probably not, and the reason is that I would want to build it up. You know does are just, they're confidence decoys.
Speaker 2:You know, does are just, they're confidence decoys. If I can build a herd of deer in that area through food plots, generating cover, creating edges, hinge cutting, planting switchgrass and a feed and making a deer habitat, that's what I would rather do. And build a herd, and I think the idea of having your own property when you do that is so that you can harvest an animal every year from your property. That's the dream, right? I always wanted to hunt on my own land. If you're going to do that, then build a deer herd. Don't just build it for one season to get that one buck, but build it so you can repeatedly come back every year and have a shooter to go after. That's what we teach in our classes and in my seminars I try and really push that to the forefront. That that's what we are as hunters. We're deer herders, deer farmers, elk farmers, bear farmers.
Speaker 1:Preservationists, as Heather put it. She's a preservationist. She wants her grandkids to be able to hunt there. If you want your grandkids to be able to hunt that property, you've got to build it up to where it's sustainable. So meaning like, if that doe, if one of those fawns is a buck well, now you have a couple of bucks in that area. If he doesn't have any cover safety, he'll leave to go find that.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:So it might not end up being his range. You've got to create the reason for him to stay, which can take a while.
Speaker 2:But it'll go if you put five years in on it.
Speaker 1:And that's what I mean by a while.
Speaker 2:You're going to end up with a deer. If you really work at it, in five years you could have just an outstanding piece of land for deer habitat, and the deer will come.
Speaker 1:Depending on where you're at. I just noticed this. So I was filming some content up one of my sets. Remember you and I went in right after I first found my halfway set and we walked in and that skidder road was completely clear. There was no scotch broom on it. You could see from one end down to the other. That was early June when you and I went in. I found it before that. I think I found it May or April and then you and I went in, maybe late May or early June and wide open.
Speaker 1:But by the time I went back for season there was scotch broom all over that skidder run probably up to four feet tall. Maybe a couple that were five feet tall, but you could still see from one end to the other. Well, I just went back in there and I haven't gone in there. I put out minerals before they banned them back in January, february and I think the last time I was in on that set because I went and pulled everything. It was in March, so I hadn't been back in there in a few months because there was no reason for me to go back in there. Well, I just went in to film some content and look things over, kind of get my game plan ready for when season comes up. Well, that Scotch B broom. You can't see down that skidder road anymore, because that scotch broom is as tall as eight feet, maybe even more in some areas. It wasn't there 14 months ago.
Speaker 2:Like I said yeah.
Speaker 1:So there are certain things that just take off.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, like you said, we live in a rainforest. Yeah, so it's not like we're going drought to drought to drought. You know what I mean? We're going to go nine months of rain you know, so it's going to have plenty of water to grow.
Speaker 1:Blackberry bushes, get in there. Yeah, you're going to have some thick stuff real quick and I don't know about how long it takes Salal to. I'm in a huge patch. It's everywhere where I'm at it's super thick and it's like seven feet tall in some places. Yeah, and I had to go clear my trail back into my set because everything started to overgrow from last year and I don't know how fast that grows. But there's a lot of stuff that you can help things along, I would think. Right right.
Speaker 1:So that was interesting because I was walking in there thinking I'll still be able to see and I couldn't. I couldn't see from one end of the and I'm talking like 300 yards down this skidder road that I could see the whole way, and now you can't. You know, there's some places where you're completely surrounded by scotch broom that you can't see. You could turn around 360 and you're not going to see anything anywhere around you because it's so tall and thick in there now. So what would you suggest besides cover? Do you think he should be running pheromones once the rut starts?
Speaker 1:Like running California's synthetics only as well. And so even if he weren't going to hunt this year, do you think he should work his set as if he is?
Speaker 2:I would, aaron, because I like cataloging the deer. Yeah, you know, and especially if I find a young buck and I see potential in that young buck, I mean lucky, I killed him. Was it two years ago now? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I had watched him for four years before I finally decided to go in and hunt him and to see the progression of that buck. For me, that's part of this whole thing. We're deer farmers. You're raising that deer, I'm putting out the minerals. If I'm in a state that allows it, I'm doing everything I can to help him reach his maximum potential, watching him go from a young buck, letting him live that full life and reaching that maturity, and when I finally say, okay, this is the year I'm going to go after him, he's finally made the hit list. It's just fun to have that history when you finally get an opportunity to go after that buck. But I would run it like I was hunting it.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't hunt it, but I would run it like I was and then I would just start cataloging deer and watching them grow, finding out what doe if I had multiple does in there finding out which one has bucks, Because there'll be those does out there that all they ever have their offspring is always a buck yeah, that's the doe I want to take care of I think just around your house there's a doe we got one around the house has bucks all the time yep, every year she has two bucks yeah, because there's button buck.
Speaker 2:I I think this year we've seen a button buck, a spike, a three point and a forked horn, and we had two yearlings that were bucks, but one of them got either the bobcat or the coyotes got him, and then— One of them rather.
Speaker 1:One of the big ones from last year got hit down at the end of the road, and there was another, even bigger one.
Speaker 2:He showed up. We had no idea he was around.
Speaker 1:There's a ton of bucks that just hang out. They had no idea he was around. There's a ton of bucks that just hang out. That's all they're having. So she's busy Probably hiding out and stuff.
Speaker 1:This also made me think about running the set. You never know what's going to show up. The season and season is very different down in California because some places it starts mid-July but a lot of it is by early August and it sounds like it runs through early November, first couple of days of November, whereas ours up here are mid-December to late December. Yeah, but we've had some sets where last year I kept my sets going all through late season, even archery, and into January, just to see what shows up. Right, that's where I saw Sneaky Pete, which was one of the two dominant biggest bucks that come into that set. Came in on the last day of Modern Rifle right after I shot my first spike. So if I just waited one more day, one o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:But what's cool is I know he'll be back next year and around the same time. It's one of those where this could be a year where I just eat the tag because I want to focus on him, but even thinking about just watching those bucks as they grow, looking at these bucks as they grow up year after year. I've done that with Anakin. I want to really run that one set, my hilltop set with him because I just want to see how he's grown. I didn't get a great picture last year, but I think I know the spot where they're going in and out of their bedding area and it's 30 yards, 40 yards from the pullout at the gate. So it'd be real easy to go in there with a camera and run some scents or do some synthetic not baiting, but something like An attractant, an attractant Nose candy. Is that what it's called?
Speaker 2:Yeah, tinks has got nose candy now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's funny you say that because last weekend I spent a day out with Mike Dippo. Mike and Dan Dippo are the knockaholics on Facebook and Instagram. Great guy, they're the founders of the Archery Trader. If you get a chance, go to that. It's a great place to find archery equipment. But anyway, I spent the Saturday with him and was able to kind of go over some stuff and you know he come to the realization that it's not a matter no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Well, I had the opportunity, I chose not to, and maybe, but the same way I am, we both get fixated on a buck and that's the buck we want and we'll let other bucks walk, but that's our hunt. It's not everybody's hunt. If that's not you, then you be you If you want to shoot that. But you're going to have the opportunities. If you start becoming more of a conservationist and helping that deer herd be healthy, helping that deer herd, you know, be prosperous, and comfort that they have around there as far as breeding and food and all that stuff, you're going to see a significant jump in deer activity if you just make a little bit of efforts in those areas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things. Actually that would be a good one. So, keith, or any of our listeners, if you can still do minerals and attractants, go back and listen to our episode called Managing your Herd and that'll give you an idea, because you'll want to start in February with putting out some minerals, some attractants. It's creating more of a draw to your property and that's the whole. I think the whole next year. That should be the goal creating more of a draw to your property over the next few years.
Speaker 2:And the biggest draw is going to be survival. Yeah. And really that's all that you're doing when you're putting out minerals and creating cover and all that. It's just about survival. That's all that's on their mind all the time.
Speaker 1:That's why they have the nose that they've got.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:And so should he abandon his property and look on the public lands. Honestly, from what we've talked about, you should always be doing that, absolutely, because you should always be looking at at least two sets, because you never know what's going to happen on one.
Speaker 2:You always want to have a plan B. Number one, number two when I start looking at harvest reports, I kind of look at that through a filter, in the sense that if you stop and think about it, 90%, maybe even more than 90%, of hunters are the guys that drive up a park and start glassing clear cuts. They want to hunt the cuts, whether they're driving in, hiking in or riding a bike in. You know, a lot of guys spend a majority of their time on clear cuts and that's not what we hunt at all. We don't even consider clear cuts. We have multiple opportunities at bucks every year, and when I say multiple, I think our average pro staff, if they wanted to, could probably kill five deer a year with the number of bucks that come into our sets. So when I see that number, I'm taking into account well, there's not a high harvest rate. Are most of those guys hunting clear cuts? Chances are, yeah, okay. And.
Speaker 2:I'm not necessarily beating the deer with a clear cut. Sometimes I'm beating the other hunter to that deer. I just happened to be there the one time he decided to come out, or one of seven times he decided to come out and it could be a spike, it could be a forking horn, it could be whatever. So when I see that number on public land, that doesn't discourage me. I start looking more for habitat. I get on onyx. I'm more interested in finding the habitat.
Speaker 2:We don't hunt private property. I hunt either DNR state land or I'm on timberland that everybody else gets to hunt, so I don't have any private property to go in and stuff. But you can attest to this as well, aaron, because you're in the same boat. We go areas where there's not many deer and everything, and we start doing a set in there and all of a sudden we got deer coming out our ears. It's because we're hunting it a different way. We're approaching it from an angle or a position of I don't want to be by the clear cuts, I want to be where the thick stuff is, and when you learn how to do that, you're going to find there's a lot more deer out there than you realize. Number one. Number two there's a lot more big bucks out there than you realize. Number three you don't have to go very far in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It changes the whole game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I'm third year in and I've got three sets at least a half dozen shooter bucks, a dozen bucks period that I could go in and harvest. It's areas that other guys aren't hunting or if they are, they're walking by where I'm at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thinking it's too thick, it's unhuntable or there's no deer in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Really good point, thinking it's too thick, it's unhuntable or there's no deer in there. Yeah, really good point. Anyway, one of the things I wanted to bring up as we replayed our episodes and it didn't really dawn on me until recently that was from information from last year and that was pre-ban on synthetics, or pre-ban on urines and pheromones that were glandular based for Washington State, and ban on baiting and everything else. So please make sure that you're reading and understanding your regs in your area, because it took six months for all of that information to be outdated. We had recommended James Valley because they were a very good brand but they're not synthetic so you can't use them anymore. I don't like saying that don't use this company, we just can't. A lot of good companies, but I know Tinks and Conquest Sense. They do very good synthetics. That's what I think we're going with this year. Just make sure that you know what your laws and regs are in your area. We did confirm actually Dave went by the WDFW office today synthetics are legal to use in Washington.
Speaker 1:So just make sure you're ever calm your bedding pheromones and your buck urine and doe urine are all synthetics.
Speaker 2:So that was a Region 5 office that I went to and spoke with two game wardens and one of the biologists there. They confirmed it and the reason I did that because it is a little confusing how they word it. We've had several people say well, you can't use synthetics, you can't use anything Straight out of the horse's mouth today down there. No, you can use it, it is legal and we still have that option.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us again this week. Keith, thank you for sending in that question. It was great Dig into that. That was a lot of really helpful information for a lot of guys. We always welcome your questions. If it's enough where we can dig into, we'll do an episode, or we'll answer at the start of the episode or just hit reply. This was one that I thought we need to do an episode on hitting reply.
Speaker 2:That was very well thought out, you know.
Speaker 1:Will take us a little too long. So, anyway, thanks for joining us and we'll see you again next week.
