Making a wildlife Food Plot

[kmcconaughey]

Oh yeah, I also fixed the time and date on all the cameras yesterday, so they are all correct now. The 4 trail camera photos in my post below were taken on the 11th not the 12th.

 

[aaytay]

Kraig-
Excellent work on your food plots!

you're going to have some excellent hunting this season, but I did see one problem.......

You have three "food plot" areas, and only two hunters! <font size="-2">hint, hint, hint!</font>

 

[kmcconaughey]

Art, thanks for the nice comments!

Thanks for pointing out that "problem". I'll have to give that some thought.

 

[aaytay]

Kraig-
To add to what I mentioned earlier...

Based on the pictures you posted of the deer in your food-plots, I already know which deer I would like to shoot. LOL!

 

[kmcconaughey]

Art, I think I know which deer that is.

 

[bbranstetter]

Kraig,

Is that Deer sticking its' tounge out at you?

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Brian, yes he stuck his tongue out at the camera, I think he' taunting me!

 

[dfrisk]

KRAIG - I've seen that disc advertised in Northern Tools....Looks like it tears the ground up really good. Are You satisfied with the way it works? How many times did You have to go over the food plot and how deep did it till things up? I like the design....nice & simple....not much to go wrong with it!

 

[kmcconaughey]

Denny, the disc belongs to my friend Jonah. It's an expensive disc, it does work good and might just be well worth the cost. The 4 JD suitcase weights belong to my brother and me, 2 each. I bet Jonah asks to borrow those next time he tills his plots.

It cuts quite aggressively and gave the ATV a workout pulling it. I had the ATV in 4WD low range. If you look back on the archived page you'll see I plowed the "food plot 1" area first then disced it. The photos on this page are from the second time I disced it to knock down the re-sprouting grass and weeds. It does a good job of digging up decades old sod too, note the photo of the "food plot 3" area I posted a few posts down. I would have disced the center area but decided to leave the dead branch there and just disc around it. I didn't count how many passes it took but it wasn't all that many. Here are a couple more action shots of the disc. I was using a ratchet type tie down strap to hold the suitcase weights in these photos but later experimented with bungee straps and they work great and are much easier and quicker to install and remove. There's plenty of room for more weights on the frame, perhaps 3 more on each side. I bet it'd really cut with 10 weights! Might need a bigger vehicle to pull it though.

 

[bbowman]

Dennis & Kraig; I have a similiar disc I use and it does a good job as long as you add weight; the weight helps it cut and stabilizes it a bit. It does great on a plowed field and yes, a 12hp cub will pull it just fine; the drawback being no way to lift it. Got mine from the local co-op,they're pretty common down here.

 

[kmcconaughey]

I think I'm going to have to reseed the food plots. On the 12th when it rained all morning it only amounted to 0.3" and we've not had any measurable rain since.

At least I only ended up using half of the seed. I've not been out to the food plots since last Saturday and at that time the seeds had sprouted but I'm afraid that it's most likely dried up. I'm planning on stopping at the farm on my way home from work today to download the photos from the trail cameras and to see if there's any sign of live plants, other then weeds.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Here's some photos that I downloaded from the trail cameras last Saturday.

 

[fcurrier]

Man yan a, Manyana, Manyana iss good enuff for me.

and P.S. -- The beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert.

 

[aschumacher]

Kraig, those trail cameras have a 'smile' feature on them so you get them head on??

 

[kmcconaughey]

Allen, I'm not sure why they look straight at the camera, could be that the flash gets their attention and when they look to see what it was they get their photo taken. I have the cameras set to a short delay between photos so that I get LOTS of photos. Trouble using that setting is then I get a bunch like these.

\

 

[kmcconaughey]

It started sprinkling out shortly after I left work today and it's been sprinkling lightly all evening.

As I drove out to the pines I saw 7 turkeys that were feeding in the alfalfa field just south of the pines. Then I found this on the cameras.

Wait a minute, they were probably eating my seed!

When I got to the food plots I was surprised to see that not only were the seedlings not burnt up they had actually grown a little bit and more had sprouted. Though they are all still tiny.

 

[kmcconaughey]

I do believe the velvet will be coming off soon and the bachelor groups are about to break up.

I see that one camera is still an hour off. I prefer the 12 hour (am/pm) to the 24 hour type.

I took all the cameras down for now, my cousin will be pasturing his beef cattle in the alfalfa field for a week or two and I don't want them wreaking any of the cameras. We desperately need rain here. The food plot is alive but not doing much growing so I doubt the cattle will really spend much time there. The bow season opens in just under 3 weeks. I have a wedding opening day, how typical.

 

[aaytay]

 

[bbranstetter]

Kraig,

I've got some advice for ya....Send a card.

j/k

 

[kmcconaughey]

Well it rained nice and steady for about 2 hours this morning, it's just sprinkling now.

It's my nephew that's getting married and he's a bow hunter!