Habitat plans

I almost never create circular movement around the outside and call it good. I try to take advantage of other features deer will use for travel and also use “sidewalks” and hinge cut doe bedding to increase woody browse production, the cheapest over winter food you can grow. If you look at that plan, every one of the extra sidewalks are along natural deer travel features (ridges, points and cuts). I don’t care how good your travel corridors are, unless you blockade them, deer are going to travel those features anyway.

For example, go back and study the drawing again and I bet you can find several I don’t have “sidewalks” on. One example is on that center top food plot, follow the ridge back into the woods. It’s a lock that deer will travel down that point heading to the NW. In fact, as soon as I’d need to create more browse, I’d add a “sidewalk” there (and in other locations), leading down to that stand. Taking that approach allows me to continue producing new woody browse on an as needed basis. However, I’m under no delusions that the deer won’t use that point before I did that. All you do with any of these things is “encourage” deer to react the way you want them too. Ultimately, if they want to go from point A to point B, they will, regardless if you’ve created a trail or “sidewalk” for them or not. The only thing that can possibly stop them is a blockage of some sort, and it better be a dang good one or it probably won’t.