Ok so I got a 65 acre ranch. On the north and south side it is high fenced by the other ranch owner. The east and west side is low fenced. Also, got 6 feeders running throughout the ranch. This season we have only been able to see only (1) 8 pointer on camera and in person but only seen this 8 pointer once. There has only been doe and wild hogs running around. Some days we go hunt and it is completely quiet and dead (no movement). Do we have too many feeders? Are we maybe just in a bad location? It's weird that we have only seen that buck once on camera and in person.

FYI - the ranch has not been used to hunt in about a good 5-8 years. So this is the first year we feed and start hunting.

any advice to what we can do to maybe lure in some bucks for next year or improve our ranch to where we can have more movement?

What is on the east and west sides of you as far as cover or food? How thick is your cover on your land? Do you have water on your land? Do you stay on the place when hunting? How often do you hunt? Do you ride around the place after or before you hunt your feeders? IMO 6 feeders is way to many and only spreads out the deer you are trying to draw in. The odds are in the deer favor to pick a feeder you are not at. I would have one blind location with one feeder or two feeders that are good in any wind direction. I would be able to access it with minimal disturbance. I would also have a selected dense area on the place as a sanctuary that is a no travel zone.

[quote=stxranchman]What is on the east and west sides of you as far as cover or food? How thick is your cover on your land? Do you have water on your land? Do you stay on the place when hunting? How often do you hunt? Do you ride around the place after or before you hunt your feeders? IMO 6 feeders is way to many and only spreads out the deer you are trying to draw in. The odds are in the deer favor to pick a feeder you are not at. I would have one blind location with one feeder or two feeders that are good in any wind direction. I would be able to access it with minimal disturbance. I would also have a selected dense area on the place as a sanctuary that is a no travel zone. [/quote)this

As said before, 6 feeders may be too many. How many hunters on property? How much activity on property? Do you walk to stand or ride? Cut it to 2 feeders, one stand that you can walk to without getting busted getting in and out . On 65 acres, that's too small to risk getting busted because they can run plumb off your property in a hurry. I would think you may be able to make it a honey hole if worked correctly but very little room for error.

ta THF. u been seeing more than me best wishes

I have one feeder on 134 acres. Deer movement is good.

What STX and Therock said, need answers to most of those questions. 65 acres IMO is 1, maybe 2 feeders and definitely a food plot or 2.

bucks range is usualy lot bigger than a does. were my set up is. will get & see the does raisen the fawns coming inta feeders & food plots. it recently went 4 deer county. LF all around. been concentraiting on hogs, the other wild game . havent seen a deer this year, cant complain. each set up & place is different. lots of rain here, & warmer weather. just gotta make due with what ya have. economy bad. price of meat tis going up. wages, just getting by here. got 5,727 acres ta hunt just down the road, cant aford insurance best wishes, manage it right, be Thankful ya have place ta hunt. Best Wishes

we got 6 hunters on this property. and we drive to our blinds and park about 30-50 yards away.

There are certain areas on the property where it is open and then there are other parts where there is alot of brush. At least one of us hunts every weekend. We are 6 hunters.

On 65 acres? Might have something to do with it.

Ah yeah!! Like 5 to many!

A general rule of thumb is one hunter for every 100 acres.

WAY too much pressure and disturbance. Y'all will never get very far with that many people on the place, unless most of you don't intend to shoot a good buck every year.

Just having that many will make it tough for one guy to get it done, but your neighbors will like it.

Too many hunters and too much pressure. Good luck

....and the north and south sides were HF and all 6 you expect to kill your limit each year?

Easy; HF the remaining two sides, and purchase all the deer you want to shoot.
You can even put collars and leashes on them so they don't run away when you pull-up to park.
Heck, they prolly come with names, so you can just 'call' them by name when ready to shoot.

Are we really far from that approach with our constant tracking of deer with game cameras and feeding them protein as if they were cows?

The days of just heading to the woods to see what might show up are long since gone for most of us.

I see why they high fenced the two sides now.

Are you feeding protein or just corn? I would cut back to two feeders one on each side of the property with two stands on each one, to be able to hunt the wind. You should be able to walk to any stand on 65 acres by parking at the gate. Use the extra $$ that you would spend on the other 4 feeders to have 2 protein feeders that accompany the corn feeders. I know hunting is different everywhere, but where I hunt the bucks will avoid corn and hit the protein until about the second week in November, then feeders turn into check points for hot does, then about the second week in December they start hitting the corn (I think to replace lost body mass from the rut). I also mixed in some golden nugget this year about one bag per 5 bags of corn and the deer do seem to like it. You can sure smell it when the feeder goes off.

What the OP is doing is exactly why ARs were introduced -- and high fences. I'm surprised all four of his property lines aren't high-fenced.

Too many hunters + too much activity = no deer

Wow! And I thought the ranch I hunted had too many hunters and there were only 8 hunters on 700 acres...lol

There should only be one hunter on this place. If it's family then you need to decide who will hunt it each year and the other guys find somewhere else of take a five year break until their year rolls around.

Surely this is a prank, 6 hunters on 65acres all parking 30 to 40 yards from stands...................