Food Plots

[Jes]

Have any of you put in food plots? What type? Single crop, mix, spring/summer/fall plant?

I just picked up 100# of the Pennington Rackmaster Deluxe Spring/Summer mix. It is mostly soybeans and cowpeas with buckwheat for quick cover and sunflowers and Sorghum for bean structure. Hope to get it in by the first of August.

Deluxe Spring/Summer Deer Mixture

Anyone ever used the Rackmaster products?

 

[DJ58]

I'm surprised you haven't had any replies.
The property I deer hunt the owner and his son put in a type of grass for deer but didn't seem to take off real well. Not sure of the brand will look next time out and see if I can find some info for you. There is a big food plot just down from this property and it sounds like there's is working real well. The property I hunt is only 18 ac this doesn't give us much room.


DJ58

 

[AR Hammer]

We do a little bit of everything, the garden fence is usually covered with climbing vines, like climbing peas & beans, and we use it to keep the tomatoes off the ground instead of cages since you can get to both sides of the plants,

The little woman likes flowers, so we usually have things like sun flowers and other edible seed bearing flowers.
I don't much care for some of the stuff, but she likes the 'Pretty' part, so it's OK with me.

I'm not much on 'Foraging', so I do GARDEN plots,
Feed the scraps to rabbits, let them breed as much as they will, and slaughter for meat in the fall so we don't have to feed them all winter,
VERY good use of garden scraps, and the little bunnies produce a PILE of the best fertilizer you can hope for along with meat...
(MEAT! Like I said, I'm not much of a 'Forage type'...

We do allow Sorghum and Milo to grow, mostly wild, in the event we need sugar substitute (I'm allergic to bee stings, so no honey for sugar unless we just HAVE TO)

I would rather have fruit trees, nut trees, berry brier stands instead of what is basically 'Weed' plots, but that is a personal choice...
Anything I don't have to mow is a GOOD THING in my book!

The Deer and Turkeys REALLY love the milo and sunflowers!
No shortage of game in the late summer/fall around that patch!
The guys were hunting for turkeys all season, came and saw 40 or so in my side yard,
Wound up filling their tags out my bathroom window!

That's the patch I like best, no mowing, and produces fruit/nuts, AND GAME MEAT!

If you want big racks, then don't forget the mineral blocks and salt blocks!
Give them buggers some vitamins and minerals and they turn into 'Rack-Zilla' in a hurry!

 

[Jes]

Wow...

I finally got a couple replies. I guess most people on this forum aren't into hunting. Or don't think about it until the week before gun season.

Thanks to the ones who took time to give input. I have not put out mineral/salt. The farm we lease has a couple natural scrapes that yield nice mid-night photos, but they almost never visit during shooting light. Our property is surrounded by large corn plots, but most is chopped for silage so it is usually gone by the time gun season rolls around. I am hoping that the soybeans and cowpeas will pull them in. We put out free choice feeders last year with corn mixed with dried molasses and saw exactly ZERO deer in that corn. We did a little CSI on the deer we shot last year and they seemed to be eating a little feeder corn (from the neighbor I guess) and WEEDS. I may try making a mineral lick when we go up to put in the beans.

Good luck to all this coming season.

 

[wolfhunter]

Sorry I didn't give you a reply on feeder plots. I don't use them and haven't helped with one, so my non-reply was the information I had.

Good luck with your efforts.

 

[ricbak]

Sorry I didn't give you a reply on feeder plots. I don't use them and haven't helped with one, so my non-reply was the information I had.

Good luck with your efforts.

That sums it up.

 

[AR Hammer]

Seems there are a ton of 'Scared Of Their Own Shadow' types here that don't actually get to the range or out in the woods much...

For myself, since I live in the 'Boonies', and our feeder plots are close to the house, I prefer to keep them something WE can eat also,
Along with attracting wildlife.

Also good for keeping pesky critters from raiding my garden!

We have a tendency to have a double fence around the garden, woven wire around the garden, then a two or three strand electric around the outside of that to keep the deer from eating EVERYTHING...

The open pasture feeder plots help,
If it's easier to get to, they will do that instead of doing my garden!
I've seen as many as 30 deer in the side yard/pasture and as many as 50 turkeys at one time out there,
So the feeder plot DO WORK to keep them coming back...

Soy beans and corn grow all around us, so they aren't big attractants, but the 'Sweets' really bring the deer in!
Sugar beets is one thing they will paw up out of the ground once the tops are gone! Looks like hogs have been rooting out there!

Milo and Sorghum plants will bring them in, the sugar content is real high, and they just LOVE them.

If you want big racks (I don't rack hunt, just freezer hunt.. And I usually leave the racks to multiply) don't forget the mineral and salt blocks!
Mineral deficient bucks won't grow big racks even if they have the genetics for it.

I try and leave the racks in the Gene pool, where some guys take all the big racks, then can't figure out why there aren't any good racks anymore!
One once in a while is OK, but when they get over-hunted, then you wind up with small, atypical racks (instead of symmetrical racks) that don't really make good mounts...

 

[buckslayer]

I would have posted a reply if I would have actually looked in this area more often.

I'm a big fan of food plots for deer and other game. Not really to grow bigger antlers really (though it is nice), but for more of a healthy herd reason. We don't have a lot of quality natural foods on our land, so by putting food plots on it, we are improving the health of the deer. We use mostly high protein foods for early in the year, but we also have corn and other winter foods to keep them fed all winter long.

 

[Scarecrow]

I have yet to get my first deer, so still learning all I can. I like the idea that this thread gives, but not having my own land (yet... I hope) it would be hard to grow something to keep the deer coming around... the thing that sucks is there is a huge field of corn right behind me but 1 don't know the owner and 2 this is not a hunting zone. and I guess people see deer out there a bit.

 

[Jes]

food plots

Well, we got up to the property last weekend. We put in 3 new ladder stands and repositioned one from last year, so we now have 8 good ladder stands. The 3 ground blinds we left up were flattened and we pitched them in the trash, so there is some more money we need to spend. Even my good primos blind with heavy duty 10in pegs was blown down and ripped.

The good news is the farmer was willing to put in 3 food plots for us if we supplied the seed, which we were happy to do. He is putting in the 100# of Rackmaster spring/summer and will put in some winter wheat if that runs out. I can't wait to get back up and check the trail cameras the first of October.:yu:

 

[Texas_Hawg]

Down here in TX I have never used a food plot tend to stick with Feeders(Corn) and Mineral Licks. Up in Missouri where I hunt with family we plant a combination of turnips and clover. Have done this for last two years and saw a good stand of both this year and could really see where the deer have grazed on it.

 

[rugerfan.64]

In my neck of the woods I plant a mix of winter wheat,rye grass,bob oats and a little clover to sweeten the pot. The deer seem to like it. Getting it in the ground at the right time is the trick. Always aim to get it in between mid sept and the 1st of oct.

 

[DJ58]

Well, we got up to the property last weekend. We put in 3 new ladder stands and repositioned one from last year, so we now have 8 good ladder stands. The 3 ground blinds we left up were flattened and we pitched them in the trash, so there is some more money we need to spend. Even my good primos blind with heavy duty 10in pegs was blown down and ripped.

The good news is the farmer was willing to put in 3 food plots for us if we supplied the seed, which we were happy to do. He is putting in the 100# of Rackmaster spring/summer and will put in some winter wheat if that runs out. I can't wait to get back up and check the trail cameras the first of October.:yu:

This sounds like a great deal. If the farmer is going to plant for free you just have to supply the seed you can't beat that. I would say your going to have some great property to hunt.

have fun be safe


DJ58

 

[Mobuck]

I've used both spring plots with corn/soybeans and fall plots with wheat. I really like the wheat because it's green when most everything in north MO is brown. The deer clean out the corn before it has much chance to make grain even when we plant 5+ acres. In addition, the ground is easier to get worked in late summer when we plant wheat. When I can, I plant both types and hunt the best places. We have several hundred acres of CRP which provides most of what the deer need in the summer plus I keep mineral out year round for herd health and antler growth. I just worked two plots yesterday in preparation for planting wheat. I have tried turnips but the seed is difficult for my equipment to handle compared to wheat.

 

[OldOwl]

I have been planting apple seeds here in Boston for four years now. Last year I bought 20 apple trees at Lowes, and planted them on my land in Maine, 300 miles away. Some jerk cut all the branches off and skinned the bark off with a knife. 18 out of 20 died. They also dug up and stole 20 lilac bushes.

So last week I started bringing up my home grown trees, and found stones knocked off of my foundation I'm building. So I decided to give all 40 saplings I've grown which range from 4 inches to 6 feet to my buddy. He lives near me here in Boston and has 50 acres on the other side of my river in Maine, and another 50 acres 12 miles away with a log cabin. He plants red and white clover, and apple trees and winter wheat. I spent most of last week end planting trees on his land. Yesterday I started welding a custom tree stand in my garage, and I'll be adding that to the ones he already has up there.

 

[Jes]

Well, the rackmaster spring/summer soys were eaten down to the dirt last year. 700+ game camera photos. Had a shot at a 6pt and a nice 8pt... missed wildly. :hang3: Ended up with a nice freezer doe during gun season.

We just put in about 2 acres mixed - oats, austrian winter peas, and turnips saturday. It rained like crazy saturday night. When we went in to finish up sunday there were already tracks all over the plots. A lot of pre-season hope!

 

[Couzin]

Probably not many hunters on this concealed carry forum. Depending on where you live, there should be a hunting forum that will get you a bunch of replies. I enjoy the Texas Hunting Forum - there are lots of others.

 

[JohnD13]

I've got a row of apple trees along a stone wall with a small stream at the bottom. I don't need another feed plot, this one takes care of itself!