Making a wildlife Food Plot

[kmcconaughey]

Art,

 

[lbuttke]

Kraig,

I hear you on the wedding on the opening of bow season.

Kind as bad as one of my brothers getting married opening day of fishing season.

The faimly wanted to "grumpy old men" him in the worst way.

 

[bbowman]

Kraig ,invite your nephew, hunt that morning,then rush to the weddin',(still in your camo), and have backstrap for the weddin' dinner! Ooops! Forgot you ain't from Alabama!

 

[kmcconaughey]

Bob, I was thinking of sneaking out early for an evening hunt. Wonder if my nephew would want to sneak out to go hunting too.

Last night it rained for several hours and we got just shy of an inch of rain. We also got about 0.2" yesterday morning so for the 24 hour period we got over an inch. That should make the food plot grow.

 

[kmcconaughey]

I just got word that there was 2.5" of rain at the farm! My home is 6 miles north of the farm and I only got the 1+" of rain.

 

[aaytay]

Kraig-
I'm not surprised they got that much at the farm. When you said you had gotten "just shy of an inch" I was surprised, because I know we got quite a bit more than that.
<font size="-2">Although I don't officially "measure" our rain-fall...</font>

 

[kide]

Kraig:
Interesting that the Michigan DNR just
banned <u>all</u> baiting due to the DNR's confirmation of chronic wasting disease in a white-tailed deer from a privately owned herd in Kent County (Grand Rapids area). They say that the baiting draws too many deer into a single feeding area at one time, helping spread disease.. Food plots still safe at this time

Afterthought - based on those glowing eyes, are you sure that's from camera flash?? Zombi deer????

 

[kmcconaughey]

Night of the Living Deer?

Wisconsin outlawed baiting or feeding of deer in Southern Wisconsin several years back. Food plots are still OK.

 

[kmcconaughey]

It's raining today, the food plot has been growing nicely due to several recent rains. Today is the bow hunting season opener and I have a wedding to go to.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Well, here it is October 3rd and I STILL have not been hunting.

Too busy cutting firewood and my weekends keep getting planned out by others. Sunday my daughter and I hope to get out turkey hunting. I stopped at the farm on my way home tonight and checked the cameras. Three weeks or so back I put in a small plastic tub to provide drinking water as it had been such a dry late summer. It was bone dry so I hauled 10 gallons of water out to it. Anyway here's some photos looks like the boys are getting frisky.

I have a short MOV video clip of the white antlered deer drinking out of the tub then raising his head. The other deer was not in the video.

Enjoy.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Couple more pix. Note the vegetation, the large leaf plants are Rape or Brassicas. The deer wont eat it until it's experienced a frost or freeze which could happen any day now.

I believe this is the white antlered deer that is drinking out of the tub in the video I mentioned below.

 

[bbrigham]

Looks nice Kraig. The only thing I've seen with horns this year is a little one with 2 points on one side, the other side must have been broken off. We can't get many of the hunters around here into any heard management programs. There big into food plots, but that's just to draw them in to kill em all. A buck around here is lucky to make it to 2 years old and there few and far between. Some guys are tryin to help but it's not enough. Parts of NY have a 3pt on one side minimum and there having good results but here it is still "brown is down". You have some nice stock there. Keep it up.

 

[tstewart]

Nice trailcam pics... one of these days I am going to get me one of those cams... but on the families farms things like that and treestands have a tendancy to come up missing.

We just moved this summer and have seen lots of deer and lots of bucks out here in the country (last few years I lived in columbus...). neighbor is gonna let me hunt on his small woods that buts up against a small woods thats a nature preserve. Seen several nice bucks back there. Problem is since we moved we have been fixing up are old place to sell and its occupied all my time off up until about now. Only been out in the woods one weekend. I mostly bowhunt (compound), but also hunt gun season and muzzleloader season both with muzzleloader. Nice to see other hunters here.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Here's an update on the food plot at my parent's farm.

Last year when I put the food plot in I used an annual seed mix. This spring I had intended to put in a perennial seed from Whitetail Institute called "Whitetail Clover". We had such a dry spring that I decided to hold off and do a fall planting. The fall planting window starts August 1st and as it worked out I was able to plant it this past Saturday which happened to be August 1st. Earlier this summer I had sprayed a weed killer a few weeks later I mowed the dead weeds. A few low growing weeds escaped getting sprayed. Here's what the food plot area looked like before we tilled it on Saturday. In case you are wondering, that's a plastic "watering hole" in the middle of the food plot, is one of those preformed "ponds" for small yards. Someone had given it to my mom and it sat collecting dust in the garage for years until I found a use for it.

My daughter drove my parent's JD X585 tractor out to the back of the farm towing the broadcast spreader while I drove out in my SUV and hauled the fertilizer, lime, seed and several trail cameras.

Here's a photo of my daughter on the tractor as she drove into the food plot area. That's an alfalfa field behind her, photo taken looking south so the photo is quite washed out.

A week or so ago I had hauled an old disc/drag out to the food plot. This is an old disc and drag that we used to use in the garden. It really needs weight on it in order for it to work well however there's no good way to mount weights on it. So I had my daughter drive the tractor while I stood on the disc as weight. This worked quite well to really dig up the plot. Last year I had used a friend's disc but that's somewhere up in northern Minnesota right now at his hunting property.

After we had the plot all tilled I unhooked the disc and hooked up the broadcast spreader and spread some lime and then some fertilizer. I then switched back to the disc/drag setup and tilled in the fertilizer and lime. With the soil all tilled and amended I unhooked the disc/drag and had my daughter drive just the tractor around as a cultipacker to firm up the soil while I placed the trail cameras. After she had the soil all firmed up I used a hand broadcast spreader to seed the food plot. Here's what the plot looked like when we were finished.

Timing is everything when planting seeds and I think my timing was pretty good as we had a bit of rain last night, not sure how much fell at the farm yet but 6 or 7 miles north at my home I got just over a 10th of and inch, yeah, not a lot, but all summer the farm has been getting at least twice what I've been getting. I plan to put up a rain gauge out at the plot ASAP so I can tell more accurately what it's getting for rain.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Here's a better view south, after we were finished, with the sun much lower in the sky the view shows up much better. That stack in the far background is from the Allen S. King power plant located in Oak Park Heights, MN along the St. Croix River. The St. Croix River forms the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota around here. I believe that the deer hide out along the river bluff during the fall, as soon as the hunting season starts.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to entice them to stay on the farm instead.

 

[bbowman]

Kraig;

Nice job on your food plot! That drag/disc is pretty neat. Is that all you used to till up that plot? I have an ATV disc like the one you used last year,but I likey your new set-up!

We won't be making food plots until mid-Sept;I'm getting itchy! I've used the Imperial Whitetail products before; they work great if you do your homework. Checking ph,lime and fert.,off season treating and mowing,...but the results are worth it.You saw the pics of the buck I killed last year;he had been visiting my clover regularly.Good Luck!

 

[kmcconaughey]

Bobby, thanks.

Yep, that old disc/drag was all we used to till it up, it cuts good with me standing on the disc (I weigh around 190lbs wet). It will even cut up sod if you make enough passes. The drag also helps it cut by adding weight at the back end. I'm not sure what brand that disc and drag are but my dad got them back in the early 1970's from one of his older brothers. They were from an old two wheeled tractor. It also had a turning plow but that ended up going to one of the cousins. They were old back when we got them in the 70's and they were not setup to link together. My father added the draw bar onto the disc so that we could connect the drag to it. I suppose the drag is more properly called a spike harrow.

Yes I remember your nice buck from last year.

 

[kmcconaughey]

More rain last night!

 

[kide]

Kraig:
Farmers around here have planted hundreds of thousand of acres of wildlife food plots........mostly corn.

 

[bbowman]

Kendell;

Good ol' corn is a favorite down here also.
However;..us rednecks know it buy Golden Buck Lure,Yelper Helper,Dove Love,and my favorite,...Duck Luck!
Baiting IS illegal in the great state of Alabama,but our Florida cousins pour it out by the ton!LOL!

!