Food plots are worthless for hunting

[H20fwler]

Most of my plots are around an acre in size and they are not “clean” plots like a lot of guys like. I don’t spray for weeds and the deer dont seem to care they still get plenty of use weeds and all...but it’s almost exclusively after dark. With the proximity to roads and the idiots that road hunt in my area even a plot 400 yards away from a road hardly gets used in daylight hours.
So for me setting up in a staging area is way better than hunting directly over a plot.

 

[SwampCat]

My property took too much of my money to be dedicated to only deer hunting. In the past year, I have hunted deer, hogs, squirrels, coons, doves, ducks, crows, coyotes, rabbits and turkeys. I trap fur bearers. I frog gig. I trap crawfish. I fish. I have three gardens in various locations. I have over five miles of four wheeler trails that we use on a regular basis. I cut firewood on my property. I cut trees to mill lumber. If i could only deer hunt my property - I wouldnt have it. My wife and I live full time on my property. Thank goodness - my deer have learned to accept me. We kill two or three every year - but we provide them 30 acres of high quality food, we provide fawning cover, we remove predators. It is somewhat of a symbiotic relationship.

 

[Bill]

We don't really do that. If our only goal was to harvest mature bucks we certainly would. While I make every effort to minimize my impact when hunting personally, we don't put any restrictions on our hunters as to the frequency they hunt. One of our goals is to introduce kids to hunting. We also have some older guys who may not have many years left to hunt. The last thing I want to do is killjoy either of these.

Your guys wouldn’t hunt with me

I have lots of rules. And don’t tolerate them being broken anymore. If you don’t want to hunt mature bucks only my farm ain’t the spot.

I do have a youth hunter that pretty much gets a pass but that’s for 1 weekend.

Everything is fluid, our hunting routine may change some day as I age but for now it’s pretty strict.
My guests don’t seem to mind though, because I don’t have any :)

 

[swat1018]

When you have 15-20 doe in one place the first couple weeks of November, your going to have a mature buck. Night or day, by my experience.

 

[Rit]

You can have the perfect food plot but without really good cover you won’t see a lot of daytime use. If you are seeing a lot of night time use that means the deer are bedding quite a distance away.

When you let it grow up into weeds and diversity it sounds like it added structure and security cover that the deer felt more comfortable in.

Hunting directly on destination plot is rarely a good ideal. Every time you blow that field or get busted you move those deer back until they appear to be nocturnal. Hunting that transition between bedding and food with really good access has been more productive for me. I have a few smaller plots that border bedding and the travel routes to the destination source that serve as a passthrough. This past year a lot does moved through in November and a lot of different bucks followed.

It’s nice to see what the experts say in their videos but I am fairly certain Jeff also has a video stating why you must plant a foodplot.

 

[Telemark]

Deer hunting and deer management varies so much across this country - you have no way of knowing what will work on your place until you try.

I think this is one of the most important things to remember about habitat management. There is no single magic bullet.

Try new things, and give it time. And monitor their use of what you offer. Give the deer what they like. Don't get upset if they turn up their nose at what you think they should like. And remember their tastes may change over time.

And don't neglect their other needs: security, water, breeding opportunities.

 

[EarthySpirit]

I've watched that Jeff Surgess video before, and frankly, he does not do a good job of making his point. I agree with what he really meant to say, but didn't do it well. What it really comes down to is, food plot or not, if the bucks are being alerted by our presence, they will not be around at daytime, perhaps not at all. So, the main issue is whether we can get into and out of our stand without busting deer. Food plots are necessary. We need both: food plots and a setup that keeps our scent to a minimal, which ususally means having our stand access on the periphery of the property with the wind blowing away from it toward the edge of our property. Regarding hunting over the plots, I think if they are large plots, mature bucks are less likely to go into them because of the security factor for them. I don't know about you all, but the size of my plots on my 51 acre property are 1/3 acre in size. I have three of them, and deer feel comfortable in them like others on here have said. Good luck all.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Interesting thread. Some important comments...particularly this one...

You can have the perfect food plot but without really good cover you won’t see a lot of daytime use.

and this...

Deer hunting and deer management varies so much across this country - you have no way of knowing what will work on your place until you try.

Like the OP, I too hunt the big woods (of the Northeast). I live on a 2,000 ft. high plateau...basically a cold, spruce and fir/mixed hardwoods swamp. Brutal winters, moose, snowshoe hares, no oaks, no mast, no ag....low hunting pressure, lots of low quality browse and LOTS of cover. I actually have TOO MUCH cover as deer can feed and bed just about anywhere, and they are extremely tough to pattern. I do not see many mature bucks on camera spring through early fall. But in mid November, I get bucks that begin showing up and cruising through my property and my food plots during daylight. I don't hunt my plots early though. I largely stay out of them and hunt elsewhere until the time is perfect to sit in a stand overlooking a plot and catch a buck cruising through.

Check out these 3 pics from last year...had 3 bucks show up 3 mornings in row in one of my small plots at about the same time. The last pic is without a doubt, the biggest buck I have ever seen on camera. He would be a once in a life-time buck around here. The first two pics are typical of the size of bucks I most often see.







And then this year in the same plot, this buck walked through during daylight...ended up getting him about a half hour after this pic was taken about 500 yards from this plot.



No doubt that food plots are not the magic bullet for everybody. But in my big woods, as the only game in town, my puny little rye plots tend to be social hotspots during mid-November, and I try to be in this stand as often as I can in the morning from Veteran's Day on.

 

[Dukslayr]

Northern big woods are something I know squat about. But from everything I hear it’s hard hunting.

I like my Midwest farm lot hunting. Jeff nailed it for me at 10:05 into the video. “Unpressured food sources are golden”
We try very hard not to teach the deer they are being hunted. Low pressure is the name of the game at my place.

You and I are in the same environment Bill but I think unpressured food is the key. Hunting deer that don’t know they’re being hunted is the key, regardless of whether in the timber or field. Someone earlier said the best odds at a good buck are often to never set foot on the property until 10/31...there’s something too that as well. My mature buck sightings have had a directly inverse relationship with the amount of time I spen on my in the heart property from September through January. I now try to have everything done by Labor Day and then I mostly disappear until I’m ready to start trying to hunt a mature buck somewhere around Halloween.

 

[EarthySpirit]

You and I are in the same environment Bill but I think unpressured food is the key. Hunting deer that don’t know they’re being hunted is the key, regardless of whether in the timber or field. Someone earlier said the best odds at a good buck are often to never set foot on the property until 10/31...there’s something too that as well. My mature buck sightings have had a directly inverse relationship with the amount of time I spen on my in the heart property from September through January. I now try to have everything done by Labor Day and then I mostly disappear until I’m ready to start trying to hunt a mature buck somewhere around Halloween.

I completely agree with this. This past year I visited my property for the last time, June 15 and did not set foot on it till Sept 1, the archer opener. When I checked the cards that day, I was astounded by the daylight mature buck visits to my plots (both morning and evening)!! I'm excited about this coming year, because I've fixed a couple access problems from the previous year. Deer will have no way of knowing I'm hunting them, because all my access will be upwind of them, and coming in from the road and 200-300 yards away from their bedding areas. As others have said, the furthest point away from my stands is the cover (bedding), then, closer in are the travel corridors to the food, then the food is the closest to my access points. The principle is quite simple, but depending upon one' s layout of property, it can be tricky picking access points. But with time, we all can reshape our properties to fit this idea.

 

[Tap]

Saying plots are worthless for hunting is a bit of a broad brush statement.
I will say, that in some circumstances, plots can actually be damaging to the huntability of the herd.
Guys plant them, then pound them. They hunt over them and over hunt them. They educate every deer in the herd. Or they use plots as part of their access routes to their stands. Twice a day, dawn and dusk, they walk through their plots and blow everything out. An educated deer is a deer that's difficult to hunt.
Plot wisely and don't set expectations overly high.
Certain plot varieties improve and build soil and mine deep nutrients. They are often the "weed" fields that attract deer and other critters.
Take care of your soil with proper plantings and maintenance. You will be doing more for the herd than you may realize.

 

[SwampCat]

The largest buck we killed this year on our place - and the second largest buck we had on camera, was killed in a plot that has a pond in the middle of it where we fish and feed the fish almost daily up until deer season opens, has a trail around it that we use several times a day (year round) on side by side, tractor, or even truck, is 300 yards from deer camp where everyone stays - including four young screaming grand daughters, and has the rifle range right through the middle of the plot. The deer was killed twenty feet from the 300 yard target. There had probably been fifty shots that day on that rifle range - some an hour before the deer was killed. And that isnt a fluke. We often have deer walk out into the food plot while we are shooting. But, this is on property where we live and are out and about everyday. Every year, I will have some of the biggest bucks we have, feeding in my front yard on acorns, ten feet from my bow target - thirty yards from my two barking dogs, fifty yards off a paved highway.

 

[SD51555]

Take care of your soil with proper plantings and maintenance.

Like putting on an annual shot of gypsum.

 

[Dukslayr]

The largest buck we killed this year on our place - and the second largest buck we had on camera, was killed in a plot that has a pond in the middle of it where we fish and feed the fish almost daily up until deer season opens, has a trail around it that we use several times a day (year round) on side by side, tractor, or even truck, is 300 yards from deer camp where everyone stays - including four young screaming grand daughters, and has the rifle range right through the middle of the plot. The deer was killed twenty feet from the 300 yard target. There had probably been fifty shots that day on that rifle range - some an hour before the deer was killed. And that isnt a fluke. We often have deer walk out into the food plot while we are shooting. But, this is on property where we live and are out and about everyday. Every year, I will have some of the biggest bucks we have, feeding in my front yard on acorns, ten feet from my bow target - thirty yards from my two barking dogs, fifty yards off a paved highway.

Funny. The two biggest bucks I’ve killed were killed in the closest stand to my hunting camp/house on the farm. I didn’t live there but obviously the house was where the majority of our human activity took place. The stand both those deer were shot from was less than 200 yards from my front porch.

 

[EarthySpirit]

Funny. The two biggest bucks I’ve killed were killed in the closest stand to my hunting camp/house on the farm. I didn’t live there but obviously the house was where the majority of our human activity took place. The stand both those deer were shot from was less than 200 yards from my front porch.

Yes, I believe deer get accustomed to their location and tolerate certain smells, house smells, and low intensity smells because they have not come to associate danger in relation to them. But when they smell something in a more concentrated form or closer than they are accustomed to, then the white flag goes up. In some ways I think it can be a benefit to have camp close to the hunting areas because deer get used to them and we can approach our hunting stands in the wind stream of the scent of the normal house smells coming from the house.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Like others have said, every area is different. We have our camp in a non-ag area of mountains. Miles of oak, hickory, maple, tulip poplar, birch, cherry, hemlock and white pine forest. Before we had plots, nice bucks were a rarity. We think the plots have added much needed GOOD nutrition to the whole herd. Our deer are bigger, heavier, healthier & we have more big-racked bucks than before plots. A typical buck used to be 110 to 120 lbs. with a 4 or 6 pt. rack you could span with a #2 pencil. Now we have 8, 9, and 10 pt. bucks of 150 to 180 lbs. and racks of 100" to 140" with 16 to 18" spreads. The plots are a magnet for deer here. Year-round high protein, high mineral food has definitely helped our deer herd. Such good nutrition has helped does and fawning success. And come fall - the more does hanging around, the greater chance of seeing nice bucks cruising through.

We also added more cover. 3 loggings and then planting spruce, balsam fir, witch hazel, serviceberry, hawthorn, ROD and caging stumps has thickened the surrounding areas to our plots. With more thick staging areas, we have better chances of seeing bucks approaching the plots. But like Natty said in his post, having plots lures does = cruising bucks checking in at all hours. From the last week of October on into mid-November, I've seen bucks cruising from first light to noon, with a red-alert period from 8 am to about 10:30 am. I don't know why but that time slot seems to produce regular sightings here.

Stand access is always important, no matter where you hunt. Gene and Barry Wensel have said for years, that un-pressured, un-educated bucks are the best ones to hunt. If folks are always at their camp or working a farm, deer will get used to that activity. It's when there's a CHANGE in that activity that the deer notice something's up. At our place, there's almost no activity all year long in the woods. ATV's ride around the fields, but the woods are basically left alone. But come September, guys start showing up to clear trails, work on tree stands or blinds, ride ATV's in the woods, scout through the woods, etc., and deer activity changes. Daylight sightings change from 4:00 pm-ish in the plots to just before dark - then to after dark. We educate the deer by a sudden change in our year-long patterns.

 

[BuckSutherland]

Some of you seem to have luck. We don't/didnt for 5 years with plots. Food plots are a GREAT draw if all you want is deer. Most "deer" I ever captured on cam was 14 at one time. They hammer brassica plots when we have done them. I think they work too good cause they draw in too many deer. Have routinely seen 10+ "deer" on a sit. And have three times watched at least 20+ "deer" walk by my stand on the way to the destination food source and I have no clue I was there. Too bad not one of them was ever a 6+ point buck. Again we just hunt travel corridors with pretty good access. Just tired of watching all the best bucks of the area only stop by in the middle of the night.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Yep - they're just teasing us at night. Like ghosts we can't put our hands on.

 

[yoderjac]

Your guys wouldn’t hunt with me

I have lots of rules. And don’t tolerate them being broken anymore. If you don’t want to hunt mature bucks only my farm ain’t the spot.

I do have a youth hunter that pretty much gets a pass but that’s for 1 weekend.

Everything is fluid, our hunting routine may change some day as I age but for now it’s pretty strict.
My guests don’t seem to mind though, because I don’t have any :)

I would certainly hunt with you. A lot of my early hunting was on Ft. Belvoir and Quantico which are regulation intense and enforced. I was one of the founders of Suburban Whitetail Management of Northern VA and it was very rules based. At the time, suburban folks had big issues with deer but no experience with hunting culture and were highly worried about litigation. We set up that rules based program to ease the minds of suburban home owners and bring more properties into the program. We had shot selection and distance restrictions, tracking and retrieval restrictions, carcass and gut pile removal regulations, and some property had special rules for the property owner like "no hunting on Tuesdays cause it is my kids play date".

However, when you go in with other folks and buy land, everything becomes a compromise. Nobody gets 100% of what they want, but I'm fine with that. If I owned my place outright, I would probably keep archery season to myself and focus on mature bucks, and then open things up to youth and new hunters for the rest of the season. But, the older I get, the more I see hunting and wildlife management as simply tools and enjoyment in the much bigger scheme of life.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Telemark]

Try putting up cameras in other areas to see where the bucks are spending daylight hours and where they are coming from when they visit your plots. Then you can try building staging areas.

Or maybe try making an ideal buck bedding area or two that are isolated enough that they feel secure, but near enough that it's a short walk to the plot.