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Kill plot stories
- Thread starter shawnv
- Start date
Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
I am new to food plots. I hunt 150 private acres (30 of which I own) and just 2 years ago began creating 2 small kill plots. I am in deep, heavy forest...no ag for20 or 30 miles...and no hard mast. Low pressure and low deer densities. One plot is boomeranged shaped and the other is hourglass shaped....the are both under and acre in size and all I have in them now is rye. My plots attract deer. They have become kind of central social hotspot as well....I see rubs and scrapes developing all around them. This year I missed what would have been my biggest buck ever on the last day of bow.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Natty - good deal ........ the only grocery store around for miles !! I'll bet it IS a social hotspot for deer - especially during the rut. Sounds like a great set-up.
Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
Thanks Bowsnbucks! You nailed it. The rye is the only game in town. I can't even imagine how it would transform my late season hunting if I can eventually improve the soil to the point that I can do a Lic Creek type of rotation. Got a real low pH right now...about 4.8.
I'm thinking about clearing one more area for a small dedicated clover/chicory plot. But again, got to log the land, remove stumps, bring in lime....it will be a while.
chummer
5 year old buck +
As we have discussed before our properties are very similar. Have you tried planting without adding lime? I am not sure if it is because my om is so high but I see no difference in where I plant limed vs. unlimed. I will be planting my new plots this spring with no lime, I will know then if it works on a large scale.
Bill
Administrator
I guess you could call this a kill plot. I think of it more as a man made pinch point. It's produced two nice bucks in about the last 5 years. My son would have smacked a nice one this year out of it but the buck didn't follow the script and stayed to far out for bow range.
Blue arrows are acceptable winds to hunt it.
Green is the plot, it's about 1/2 acre total clover plot that winds through the woods and leads to a bigger field of food, the yellow area.
Orange lines are blockades deer can't get through.
White line is a row of cattle panels that push the deer towards the red dot, which is the stand.
You can see the holes in the timber canopy which are hinge cut areas for bedding. Not marked but there is a rubbing post and water hole in the field near the stand. I have more to do to enhance it but for now it's doing its job.
In theory deer get out of bed and feed up the clover towards the the larger field. Then get squeezed into a 20 yard shot as they leave the clover and enter that field. And or a cruising buck passes it to check the larger field for does.
Nothing's perfect but every so often one cooperates.
Sorry for the hokey pic, I did it on an iPad with my finger.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Blue arrows are acceptable winds to hunt it.
Green is the plot, it's about 1/2 acre total clover plot that winds through the woods and leads to a bigger field of food, the yellow area.
Orange lines are blockades deer can't get through.
White line is a row of cattle panels that push the deer towards the red dot, which is the stand.
You can see the holes in the timber canopy which are hinge cut areas for bedding. Not marked but there is a rubbing post and water hole in the field near the stand. I have more to do to enhance it but for now it's doing its job.
In theory deer get out of bed and feed up the clover towards the the larger field. Then get squeezed into a 20 yard shot as they leave the clover and enter that field. And or a cruising buck passes it to check the larger field for does.
Nothing's perfect but every so often one cooperates.
Sorry for the hokey pic, I did it on an iPad with my finger.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Bill
Administrator
I've posted this before but here is a deer following the script. Notice he has to work up the edge of the field because behind the weeds are downed trees. Then he goes around the cattle panels putting him 15 yards away.
It's almost not fair when it works :)
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
It's almost not fair when it works :)
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I'd think that even if you got it up to 5.5 you'd be doing well.
So the white squares are my bow stands, and the white polygons are just clover I broadcast. I guess they are as much of kill plots as I have. The orange is the outline of our property, the red square/diamond at the bottom is our butthead neighbor's blind.
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Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
Interesting chummer. My soil test also revealed that all my nutrients are locked up in the soil....very poor soil. I added about 1500 pounds of lime to one of the plots last spring. I'll do a test this spring to see the effect.
What's your soil pH?
Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
I agree. I'd be thrilled to get to 5.5. I'm looking forward to a soil test this spring to how the 1500 of lime I added last year changed the pH.
The green outline is an area on my neighbor's (the NON butthead people) that he lets me hunt. He's got a few hundred acres, and doesn't really go on that part during the season. The second picture is just a more general picture showing the surrounding area.
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Bill
Administrator
Yep. There is an Elk farm down the road. We hear them bugle all fall.
shawnv
5 year old buck +
It will probably grow but not as well and it will be on the short side for nutrients so it's quite possible the deer might not take to it like they would otherwise. A good test for you if you cannot lime the entire field is to lime portions of it so you can see the difference in growth and usage.
shawnv
5 year old buck +
This might help you out...
I did not need any lime for my winter rye plot but I will provide this example: If you have a 0.25 acre plot on sandy loam soil and you need to raise the pH from 5.5 to 6.5, multiply 1.3 tons by 2000 to get 2600 pounds of lime per acre. Then multiply by 0.25 acres to get 650 pounds of lime. Note that often, like in my small winter rye plot, your soil test will give exact per acre recommendations on lime based on what you will be planting. It is best to work the lime in as early as possible, but if needed, you can till in with your fertilizer.
Credit: http://www.deerhuntingbasics.com/food-plot-calculators.php
Jordan Selsor
5 year old buck +
I hadnt seen this Bill! Awesome vid!!! I want to get a small handy cam and get some footage this fall
Natty Bumppo
5 year old buck +
This might help you out...
I did not need any lime for my winter rye plot but I will provide this example: If you have a 0.25 acre plot on sandy loam soil and you need to raise the pH from 5.5 to 6.5, multiply 1.3 tons by 2000 to get 2600 pounds of lime per acre. Then multiply by 0.25 acres to get 650 pounds of lime. Note that often, like in my small winter rye plot, your soil test will give exact per acre recommendations on lime based on what you will be planting. It is best to work the lime in as early as possible, but if needed, you can till in with your fertilizer.
Credit: http://www.deerhuntingbasics.com/food-plot-calculators.php
Thanks shawn. That's good info, and a big help.
Bill
Administrator
Thanks Jordan,
That was taken with my iPhone.
I was worried about the buck in the video. Hadn't seen him since that I could be 100% sure it was him. I got a good picture of him this AM taking that same route.
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