Food plot hunting strategies.

Peplin Creek

5 year old buck +
we all talk about how to plant food plots and seed blends etc. I want to start a thread about how we as hunters hunt them. When I first started doing food plots I used to sit over them all the time like every 3 out of 4 hunts. I figured eventually I would get lucky and big buck would walk by. I wasn't that successful with this approach. I would occasionally see a nice buck or two but found that I was mostly educating deer to my where abouts and in turn seeing less deer in daylight hours. About two years ago, i bought a couple cell trail cams and put them in my plots and the information I gathered was priceless. They helped me figure out when deer hit the plot (morning, night) and found that a lot of times deer enter the plot at the same time almost daily if not disturbed. They also tell me when the bucks are crusing for doe and I need to be in the woods in real time and not a week later. Through this information gathering I still have stands on my plots but I rarely, ever sit in them unless my intent is to kill that night or morning. Instead, I have deployed a new strategy which is too sit anywhere from 50 yards, to 400 yards away sometimes further in areas I have found to be high traffic areas to and from the plots and bedding. By implementing this, i have been detected a lot less by deer and can get in and out of my woods easier. Plus I have been able to take 2 wall worthy 8's in back to back years. I also don't disturb the deer when they are feeding and it keeps them on a regular schedule. I think it would be nice for others to share ways they hunt theirs. I feel like new posters and guests reading this forum can get some ideas and hopefully implement something that works for them by hearing about our successes and strategies.
 
Hunting directly over plots is great for does or for kids killing their first buck. Outside the chase phase of the rut when mature bucks can be about anywhere at any given moment, it is rare to see one in a plot during shooting hours, even a small sub-acre plot. During our early archery season, one good strategy is figuring out the travel routes between bedding and feeding. This is more simple in the mountains and can be challenging where hunt in rolling patchwork habitat. As bucks begin to become interested in does, I find hunting cover about 100 yards down wind of a food plot can be effective. Mature bucks will often stay out of sight during daylight hours but will scent check the fields for hot does.

Thanks,

Jack
 
One killer strategy is to leave a late season plot (soys, beets, corn, brasscias is my order of preference) completely undisturbed until a December cold snap/snow storm.
 
I guess it depends on the location. You hear people say to hunt the Edges of a property, well my food plot is on the edge of swamp and thick pines and brush, so hunting my food plot is edge hunting, i have several stands in the thick stuff but they are hard to hunt with out bumping deer.
 
I hunt about 40 yards out of my plot. I can see in the plot and have a decent shot, but I can see the trails that go around the plot as well.


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Sorry this is probably the longest post I've ever made. But the setup is my favorite parts of the game.

This could turn into an interesting topic. Obviously not all strategies will work everywhere. Lots of differences in heard pressure and landscape.

I'm sure the way I do it won't work for everyone or everywhere, but I can share what has put at least 1 good buck on the ground every year by one of our guys for the past 7 years. No, I don't kill one every year. At my place there are no assigned or claimed stands. We hunt them based on wind direction, camera Intel and gut feeling. But if a buck goes down at my place I take a bit of the credit.

Here is the disclaimer: many of the rules go out the window during rifle season. MO allows rifle hunting right smack dab in the middle of the rut. Between rutting activity and neighbor pressure any buck could come from any direction at any time.....so the hunting methods I describe apply to bow season.

I love hunting food plots and we do hunt them. For us, when and how you hunt is as important as where you hunt.

If you're one of those guys that loves to hunt and be in a stand this strategy won't be preferred.

No hunting until October 31. If mature bucks aren't pre rut and moving we won't stink up the stands.

No morning hunting. The way the farm lays makes it very difficult to not get busted by deer feeding in the dark.

The one exception is if a target buck is in a Summer pattern when early bow season comes in. In that case if the cameras tell us to go and the wind is right we hunt. Usually, its my brother and I. One of us hunts and the other is the driver. Very hard to get off a food plot at dark without blowing deer. The drivers job is to bring the side by side right out in the plot at dark and spook the deer. It turns out to be way less detrimental than a person getting out of tree with deer around.

We're fortunate that neighboring hunting pressure is very light on most of the surrounding lands during archery season. We do see mature buck cruising plots during the rut in daylight.

I'm in favor of picking at the edges until rifle season or the chase phase. (If that happens). The edge isn't necessarily the boundary of your property. I have set ups that blow scent onto my place were deer can smell us. We don't hunt theses spots and don't care if the deer avoid them.

I'd love to see examples of set ups and why you think they work. Here is one I posted recently in another thread. It is the edge of what we hunt but not the edge of the property.

Let see if I can explain the set up without being able to draw on the picture.

The green field that turns to a narrow trail through the timber heading west is clover. The tilled field in the east portion is beans and Rye.

The stand and camera are located in the group of cedars on the south side of the transition between both fields. If you look close you can see a fence on the north side of the transition. Fence goes into the woods a bit. The timber that comes to a point N of fence is edge feathered with trees piled up to discourage deer travel.

The round part of the clover field is also edge feathered so deer can only enter two spots or walk down the clover strip. It's basically set up so the deer moving from the clover to the beans leisurely stroll right by the camera/stand or they crawl through downed trees and blackberries. Most of the time they take the leisurely walk.

I don't know how old this pic is but what it doesn't show is on the south side of narrow clover strip in the timber is a large hinge cut area on a south slope. That's deer bedding. There's also smaller hinged pockets and areas left open for bucks to use. Deer typically move from west to east in the PM to feed or bump does. Hunting a W to NW wind puts them within 25 yards of the stand 90% of the time. Both my brother and I have taken our best bucks from this perch. One in early Sept and one mid November.


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On the "top farm" I have the majority of my food plots in the center of the farm. There is a wooded draw that runs N-S where I have plot planted on the West side and two planted on the East side. I would like to call the wooded draw a sanctuary but the farm is used by multiple family members for different recreational activities. I get a little worked up over it but I don't own the farm and am happy to have access to private property in a fantastic area where I can plant food plots and manage the habitat.

My son shot his first buck out of a double ladder stand that is sitting right on top of a food plot (turnips and rape at that time). It is the Southern most plot on the East side of the draw. I have hunted it several times with a bow and have learned that It is less than ideal for bow hunting and that the more often it gets hunted the fewer deer are seen. I would like to build a "shooting house" about 75 yrds. to the south of the food plot and take down the ladder stand. In the past I have had stands on top of each of these plots but now only the double ladder remains.

My idea of putting the food plots in this location was because it is in the center of the farm, and I was hoping to pull deer from the edges of the property and hopefully also off of the neighbors to the center of our property. My goal is more oriented towards feeding deer over the winter, having a place for youth to hunt, and possibly a spot for late muzzleloader season. With a permanent stand 75 yrds to the south I think we would have more success. Couldn't bow hunt it but that is fine with me. I have tons of other stands.

I clear cut a new food plot last winter that runs E-W on an inside corner of the timber. It was planted this past fall in a blend of oats, rye, peas, and chicory. The soil needs some work and It has yet to be seen weather or not this 'kill plot" will be a place I can get in and out of to hunt over without busting to many deer. This past season I was able to do just that but we'll see if crop rotation has anything to say about it.

The "valley property" has two food plots. One is just under an acre and the other is just under a half an acre. The bottom land is planted in native grasses and flowers (weeds). The main goal again with these plots is to feed deer over the winter months and not for hunting. The plots were planted in places that just plain worked the best to plant them. Luckily for me those areas were already in high use areas. I have a tree stand in a tree between the two plots on a mowed path connecting the plots close to where the deer already were crossing the creek. It looks like I'm just sitting out in the wide open but I have a great view and during the rut I have been very successful at calling in deer that are out of range right to my tree. This past October 27 I called in a monster typical 10 pt off of 3 doe from this stand. He gave me a perfect broadside, standing still shot at 40 yards as he was watching a couple live decoys in the smaller plot. I estimated him to be closer and hit low behind the front left shoulder. He was sighted a couple of weeks later limping but chasing a doe so I'm hopeful to be able to catch up with him next year. There is a trail camera photo of him floating around my area and he was estimated to be 180". I dont think he is that big but a large racked deer none the less.
 
This is a picture of the central finger where my plots are located. Any advice or opinions on this setup? If it isnt obvious the areas outlined in red are plots.
 

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I tend to hunt them one of 2 ways. I either hunt right on top of them or I hunt a well defined trail or funnel that leads to it back in the cover. I won't start hunting until the early signs of the rut show up for the most part. I use the food sources to draw the does and then the does bring the bucks. A lot also has to do with stand access.

Most hunting right on the plot gets me does and younger bucks. Hunting back off the plots more in the cover - has gotten me cracks at the bigger bucks.
 
This is a picture of the central finger where my plots are located. Any advice or opinions on this setup? If it isnt obvious the areas outlined in red are plots.

Hard for me to do without boots on the ground. The only obvious one that would stand out for me is the two east food plots. I would have an impenetrable wall between the two in the timber. Clear a trail between the two plots or use the one that must exist. Get a stand on the wall just east of it so you can shoot to the trail. Hunt a NW to SW wind and your scent is blowing into the crop field on the east.

I might go as far as a hole in the wall so the deer can turn east and head to that crop field. In that case I'd have two stands on either side of the whole for different wind conditions.
 
Just retread your first post. You may already something like this going on.
 
This is a picture of the central finger where my plots are located. Any advice or opinions on this setup? If it isnt obvious the areas outlined in red are plots.

Just from my quick glance.....how do you access your stands? Do you hunt right on top of the plots or back in the cover? Something I have really started to focus on is getting into out out of stands without educating deer in the process. This not only includes the route you take but the wind direction during that process as well. The more I focus on this the more I seem to see more use by the deer of the rest of my property. I always plated the wind when I hunted, but I didn't pay near as much attention as to how I was getting in and out of those locations.

Hunting right on plots is fine, but it is a great way to educate deer and a lot of them as well. Just based on what I see I would put shooting houses in the far outside corner of these plots and hunt them during your firearms seasons. Make sure you have good cover for your access to these. If your a bow hunter your going to have to try to get between where you think the deer are bedding and those plots and that may trickier or plant some sort of "candy" in your plots closer to those shooting houses to get you close enough for an archery shot. That valley concerns me as I bet the wind does some funny things down in there and may make hunting in that area difficult.

I would assume the deer follow the valley and cover from the larger block of cover north of you and then distribute to your plots. The thing is this is sort of a dead end street for them - at least from what I can see from the picture. This means those deer are going to work that route often and as soon as you start to educate them they will catch on quickly and then you see a drop in daylight activity.

This all jut my 2 cents - you are far more familiar with your property than I so there may be reasons why you can't do something and why you have to do others. Something I am very guilty of is putting plots where I can and THEN trying to figure out how to hunt them......Ideally you want to do just the opposite. Find a killer stand location based off of some sort of funnel and then plant a plot to ensure your pulling deer past/thru that location. All just food for thought.
 
I love to tell this story about this stand/plot. Way back when I first got into hunting I had a buddy that thought he was god's gift to deer hunting. Well I was/am a self taught deer hunter and he is partly why. Sometimes not all help is good help! Anyway, I put this "2-man" ladder stand up over looking about an acre food plot. This plot was formed when I enrolled in some CRP programs and they would not cover this 1 portion of the corn field. So I use about a 1/4 of it as a perennial plot with a few apple trees and plant the larger section is corn or beans every year and then add some brassica and cereal grain as well. Well back to the stand location. As soon as I put that stand up all I heard from my biddy was how dumb that location was, how stupid I was for putting it there an bla, bla, bla. So I told him - you don't like it fine.....don't hunt there. Now again he is a self appointed gods gift to deer hunting! Why I chose the location. In the picture below the white lines are the property lines and N is at the top. The green lines show a edge of a major transition in elevation the blue is a large stream and the red is my food plot. The black square is where the stand is and if is overlooking the plot.
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Why this location? The creek makes a sharp turn right there and the bank gets real steep so this acts as a funnel and forces the deer to either go north or south of the stand location. I access this stand from the creek so I am low and out of sight and the sound of water is far less threatening to the deer. My plot is surrounded by lots of weeds and saplings for cover and the point across from the plot is an "on-ramp" for deer wanting to get from the lower elevation tot he higher elevation. I also have lots of cover in that area but most of it isn't mine. Now is when I tell you about how I'm a dirty neighbor. I hunt this stand when the wind comes from the west for the most part - that blows all of my scent right to the neighbors place and down into the stream bed!!! When I hunt this stand with a firearm if the deer is in the plot I can reach it.

We have killed several deer out of this stand over the years. I have records from 2010 to present......we have taken 9 deer from this very stand (and other in the general area).

A few cases that has my buddy singing a different tune about this location.....

2008 - at this time this was the biggest buck taken from my farm at that time......taken from this "stupid" stand. 123 1/8" / 129 3/8" Does in the plot in November and he was looking for a girl friend.....got him killed!
Jason 2008 buck inside barn 1.jpg

2013 - I took this buck from the same "stupid" stand - 131 6/8" / 143 5/8" - same deal looking for women got him killed. This is currently the biggest deer we have taken from the farm.
Jason 2013 buck inside barn 2.jpg


My son took this deer in 2013 as well off of the point opposite this stand - 130 6/8" / 142 3/8" - this was in december - he was looking for late does and getting a high carb snack in the stand corn. My boy had a snow day from school and went on a slow walk with the gun.....
Tom 2013 buck inside barn 1.jpg

So this "stupid" location now has my buddy singing a different tune. For a while it was the only place he would hunt. As I built shooting houses he migrated to those for their comfort, but this stand produces a deer every year. It may not be a big one, it may not have antlers, but every year since at least 2010 we have tagged a deer out of this stand. I even killed 2 deer in one hunt from this stand and could have killed a third, but I wasn;t sure how many I was allowed to kill so the 3rd one got a pass.......that really upset my buddy!
 
Thanks-j-bird. Stand access is from the building site to the S.E. of the finger we're talking about. (Walk in only) The ladder stand on the plot is the one I would like to take down and replace with a shooting house in one of the two selected locations. The ladder stand N.E. of the finger is in a high travel area. Currently getting in in the afternoon isn't an issue but getting out after the hunt is a problem. The deer generally come out of the woods to the E. of the stand and cut the corner over into the N. plot then continue S. into the others. I would like to plant a screen of some sort running the entire distance from the N. edge of the N. food plot to the field road to the South. Maybe I don't need to plant it the entire distance but I suppose that would be ideal. How wide would the screen need to be to offer unnoticed exit at sun down? This area is only hunted with a N.W. wind.
 

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I have one of those stupid stands on our valley property. My uncle has always criticized the location but I have had more bucks walk past me during the late pre rut/rut than I can count. Many of them have been P&Y class deer. One was a 3 y/o non-typical that has tons of potential. One 150 class 10 winded me. He stopped dead in his tracks facing me at less than 5 yrds. He backed up the way he came and turned and ran off. This past year I wounded a clean 10 that MAY have netted Boone.

Wind can be an issue but I have been busted by very few times. The stand is far enough off of the hillside that the wind is FAIRLY consistent. I make scent control a top priority and only hunt the valley in the morning when the thermals keep my scent pushed down. It took me three seasons of watching the in season travel patterns from a couple of other stands to figure out that almost every deer crossing the valley would cross within bow range of the "stupid stand" I'd go as far as saying every deer crosses within range of a firearm. I dread the day this tree dies. Like I mentioned earlier this stand offers great visibility and I have been very successful at calling them in. The red lines are the routes that every deer in the valley will travel. Plots are also outlined in red.
 

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I have nothing to add as I am a beginner when it comes to food plots. Just put a few small ones in in the past two years and hunted them for the first time this past fall. Despite over-hunting my plots and doing it all wrong, I did see more deer last fall than the previous 5 or 6 years combined. Just wanted to say that I am enjoying this thread and a learning from and digesting what you are all posting.
 
I have nothing to add as I am a beginner when it comes to food plots. Just put a few small ones in in the past two years and hunted them for the first time this past fall. Despite over-hunting my plots and doing it all wrong, I did see more deer last fall than the previous 5 or 6 years combined. Just wanted to say that I am enjoying this thread and a learning from and digesting what you are all posting.

We were all there at one point in time just like you, it's one of the reasons I wanted to start a thread like this. It took me years to learn what I know now and if we as hunters can help each other achieve our goals faster, then that's what it's all about. There is no greater feeling as a land manager/hunter than having your hard work pay off for you, your family, and your group.
 
Looks like a perfect setup J-bird, thanks for sharing.
 
It took me three years to learn to get as far away from the plots as possible. The trick is to find where they are coming from and hunt them on that end. They have no problem waiting till dark to eat in the plots.
 
It took me three years to learn to get as far away from the plots as possible. The trick is to find where they are coming from and hunt them on that end. They have no problem waiting till dark to eat in the plots.

That's because your neighbors have them afraid of their shadow. But it's a good point. Hunting food plots for highly pressured deer might be a waste of time.
 
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