Food plots are worthless for hunting

[Telemark]

I'm a little of an odd duck here. I plant plots in my yard, shoot guns off the deck constantly, drive go-karts, burn trash, play ball, fish, work cattle, have parties, and do habitat work constantly. I'm on the land a lot, but I refuse to hunt my plots. I see mature bucks in the yard on a regular basis and they pretty much ignore my goofing around the house and yard. I go to great lengths to keep my hunting secret to them though and tend to hunt "almost foolproof" stands as close to a mile away from the plots as I can. I have a decent track record of being satisfied with my hunting outcomes so my methods are good for me.

I've hunted plots before and the outcome were always the same; the regular bucks became nocturnal. My first sit of the year was always my best sit of the year and sightings waned every hunt after that (based on using the same stands on the same plots). To each there own and I'm hopeful that whatever plan you use keeps you happy.

Sounds like you know what you're doing. Feel free to share some tips with the rest of us.

 

[Northbound]

My wife is the most successful deer hunter on my place. She hunts one stand. It overlooks a two acre durana/wheat food plot. She goes there morning or evening, doesn't matter if the wind is from the west or the east, raining, hot, cold - doesn't matter. I don't doubt here scent is as strong in that food plot during hunting season as it is in our house. She sees deer almost everytime she hunts. She will see a big one, sooner or later. Every big deer on our place will show in that food plot, during the day time, at some time during hunting season. Her theory is, the more time she spends there, the more likely she is to see one. She kills a nice deer every year - if we have one to kill. Me and my son - we follow the sign - if we start getting pictures of one somewhere, we move in there and start hunting - when the wind and weather is right. We find fresh buck sign - we move in there and start hunting - when the wind and weather is right. We follow the sign - the key word there is "follow" - we hunt the sign, AFTER it has been made. My wife hunts a spot before the sign has been made. She catches them coming in. My son and I are following behind them. We might hunt ten or twenty stands in a year - she hunts one. Of the deer heads on my wall - she has killed three times as many as anyone else

Think we all would appreciate pics of your wife's rack(s), you know cuz the wall sounds impressive. This actually reminds me of a customer I met years ago who was a photographer. She'd sit in places with wrong winds all the time trying to get wildlife pics. She actually said she wanted them to wind her as that's when the best picture opportunities would happen. She did have pics of many nice racks

 

[Tree Spud]

After having food plots from 2013-2017 on 40 acres and many more untouched state land acres around I have come to the conclusion that they are WORTHLESS. Land was purchased opening weekend of 2012. I shot a nice 8 pt the first week of owning that property before we did any work. From 2013-2017 we had ONE buck sighted in daylight that I can remember and it was far away from any food plot. That's right, one buck in 4 years. And the property is hands down one of the best in the area. We have the biggest bedding area right on the south side of the property and the big destination food source on the north side.

Fast forward to this year and I let the stupid plots grow up in weeds. This year I had 4 sightings of nice bucks. Twice a great ten point for my area, once a great 8 pt and, once a small 8 pt. Should have connected on the big ten, but didnt. From my cameras and my sightings I know he moved during daylight 4 times during hunting hours. Almost all of our trail cam pics for 2013-2017 show only night time buck movement. Never did we have a camera pic of a buck moving in daylight during hunting. All buck movement in the food plot years was at 3am.

This video does a pretty decent job of explaining how I feel.

You are the exact neighbor I want ... impatient and expecting immediate results. Always ready to make a decision on 30 minutes of game cam pics relative to 6-8 months of actual deer activity.

 

[yoderjac]

You are the exact neighbor I want ... impatient and expecting immediate results. Always ready to make a decision on 30 minutes of game cam pics relative to 6-8 months of actual deer activity.

I prefer neighbors who don't permit hunting on their land!

 

[DIY]

You are the exact neighbor I want ... impatient and expecting immediate results. Always ready to make a decision on 30 minutes of game cam pics relative to 6-8 months of actual deer activity.

Not sure how you confused 4 years with 30 minutes....

 

[SwampCat]

Think we all would appreciate pics of your wife's rack(s), you know cuz the wall sounds impressive. This actually reminds me of a customer I met years ago who was a photographer. She'd sit in places with wrong winds all the time trying to get wildlife pics. She actually said she wanted them to wind her as that's when the best picture opportunities would happen. She did have pics of many nice racks

My wife is also a professional photographer. These deer are not the caliber most of you are used to. We live in the pineywoods of southern AR where a 4/5 yr old buck will average 115/120 - and then they start down hill. They all came off my 400 acres. To keep it clean, I will show just the deer racks. The buck upper left was killed by my son’s buddy and scored just over 150 and is the largest to come off my property. The next deer to the right was killed by my wife. The deer below it with the 14.5” G-2’s was killed by my wife - upper 140’s. The deer to the rt of it was killed by my wife. The split main beam buck just to the right of cedar beam was killed by my son’s EX. The deer to the rt of it was killed by my son’s girlfriend. The smallest of the bunch on the far rt was killed by me and the one just left of it was killed by my son. The women hold the upper edge on our place.

 

[Mortenson]

Many people have said it takes 3 or 4 or 5 years for their deer to take a liking to brassicas for instance. So yes, sometimes it takes patience.

I like plots and plan to add more this year. I also plan to spend a lot less time hunting on them. On my farm, the biggest bucks need to be killed in the timber. They'll come into the plots, but you gotta play the odds. I'll still be near the plots. I did kill my biggest buck 2 years ago in a white clover plot. He was with a doe who wanted to step into it for a quick munch.

 

[yoderjac]

Not sure how you confused 4 years with 30 minutes....

I collect data on my property continuously and analyze it frequently. Some changes an impact deer very quickly. We went from high deer densities to low deer densities with a convergence of multiple factors that occurred in 2014 (double average doe harvest, mast crop failure, regular farm use by coyotes, very icy winter). Other changes can take many years with deer behavior changes occurring slowly. It took us several years to put in firebreaks, conduct a timber harvest, and execute controlled burns. Deer went from avoiding these areas during high activity to only using them for transit when they were open, to feeding and bedding in them as sunlight promoted undergrowth food and cover. A food plot that is totally ignored one year may be hammered 2 years later with the same crop as things change. At the same time I'm managing habitat including food plots, the habitat is changing off my property either with management or simply with natural succession. At the same time all of this is going on there are natural cycles like disease and other fluctuations beyond our influence going on.

I'm constantly making decisions using the best information I have to tweak my program. Some of that information comes from the metrics we collect but some also comes from learning about more sustainable approaches and trying them cautiously as we move forward. I think many things need to be evaluated over decades.

I certainly understand the sentiment of the OP and in his particular case, it may be that he is wasting his time on food plots. I don't know enough about his situation to judge. In managing a tiny property for maximizing hunting success, cover is probably more important than food in many cases. Having said that, planted food plots probably have significant value to both the small property guy as well as the deer manager in most cases.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[SD51555]

I learned a lot this past year, and it took some real life buck encounters to illustrate it. There are lots of southern guys on here that have shared they have daytime buck activity in their plots, no problem. Haven't seen any zone 5 or colder guys say as much. Here's what I observed and why I think it's this way.

In the south, the rut can last 5-6 months and doesn't seem to ever really peak, but rather slowly ramp up. In the far north, the rut is quick and intense. The reason bucks don't show up in plots up here is they have zero interest in them. Spend time observing a buck up here from October 20th-November 20th, and he'll step right over a pile of corn in pursuit of a doe, and not even look at it. I spent years hunting plots to never see single antlered buck. The entire time, I'd bet my third nut there were bucks 50-100 yards back in the woods circling and scent checking does in those plots, but never stepping into the open to expose themselves.

 

[yoderjac]

I learned a lot this past year, and it took some real life buck encounters to illustrate it. There are lots of southern guys on here that have shared they have daytime buck activity in their plots, no problem. Haven't seen any zone 5 or colder guys say as much. Here's what I observed and why I think it's this way.

In the south, the rut can last 5-6 months and doesn't seem to ever really peak, but rather slowly ramp up. In the far north, the rut is quick and intense. The reason bucks don't show up in plots up here is they have zero interest in them. Spend time observing a buck up here from October 20th-November 20th, and he'll step right over a pile of corn in pursuit of a doe, and not even look at it. I spent years hunting plots to never see single antlered buck. The entire time, I'd bet my third nut there were bucks 50-100 yards back in the woods circling and scent checking does in those plots, but never stepping into the open to expose themselves.

I'm sure the peak is sharper further north, but my observations are similar in zone 7a. My bucks will use plots heavily during the summer and on occasion will do so during the daytime. If, I put a little cover in the plots (a light mix of corn in soybeans), they will use them a bit more. The bachelor groups will sometime use them into archery season which starts in early October. Chances are small but it is possible to shoot a mature buck on the way to a food plot (or even in it) in early archery season.

Our best chance of shooting a mature buck is during the rut like you. Our first rut peak activity is nominally mid-Nov and it can be fairly sharp for about 2 weeks. Our second peak which nominally starts in Dec is much broader and less intense. You are right that our breeding season is much longer. But bucks seem to have little interest in daytime use of plots once hunting pressure ramps up during archery season but they are in them a lot after dark chasing does. The primary way bucks relate to our food plots during the rut is to cruise 50 to 100 yards up wind checking scent for a hot doe.

Sounds like my experiences are somewhere between yours and the deep south but closer to yours.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[BuckSutherland]

You are the exact neighbor I want ... impatient and expecting immediate results. Always ready to make a decision on 30 minutes of game cam pics relative to 6-8 months of actual deer activity.

Can you read or are you just a complete idiot? We bought this 40 as a foreclosure in 2012, the day before rifle season. We hunted a few junky stands that already existed on the property. We had never even walked the property prior to closing. Me and a couple other people took turns hunting it the first week. We passed on a few smaller bucks and after about 17 hours of hunting it I shot a decent 8 pt. I only count 8+ pts as a sighting cause were not shooting 4pts. During 3rd weekend my brother in law shot a smaller 8 pt from the same stand as me.

2013- We start doing "habitat" work to this select cut. Tons of browse/regrowth some great hiding spots, but more importantly its just north of the BEST bedding in the county. A 3-4 year old clear cut, and just to the north of it is 70 acres of prime alfalfa. We clear spots and put in food plots and stands along travel corridors. ZERO bucks spotted that fall by anyone on that land.

2014- Lets add more plots and clover trails. ZERO bucks spotted that fall by anyone

2015- Lets add onto the plots. They are just gorgeous and the does and fawns are hammering them. ZERO bucks spotted that fall by anyone

2016- Lets do the plots again. One buck spotted in our far corner and its not within 250 yards of a plot. Just a stud running around at night.

2017- Lets do the plots again. ZERO spotted that year again. Couple great ones running around at night.

2018- No more plots. 4 nice bucks seen by me moving about the property, and 2 of them strolled into bed right where we made bedding 3 years ago. Daytime buck movement on cam finally. More rubs and scrapes than ever before, hitting my mock scrapes regularly.


I have 2 years without plots= 5 sightings for myself. 4 of those sightings would be on the wall. Probably a total of 90-100 hours between those 2 year by everyone. 2 kills.
I have 5 years with plots= 1 sighting by my brother. Was a basket 8 pt. Probably a total of 300+ man hours on stand for those course of those years. 0 kills


I figure I have over 30,000 pictures since we bought the property. Never ONCE, not ONE time did I catch a shooter buck on camera with foodplots in daytime. This year I actually had a nice 10 pt stop by twice during the middle of the morning and hit my mock scrape. You can take your high and mighty bullshit and cram it if you think I havent thought long and hard about it.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Bucksutherland, it certainly sounds like you have the data and the eyes on the ground to support your decisions. I'm sure it's frustrating to put all that work in to food plots and have them not live up to your expectations.

Just my 2 cents...and this may be way off? It sounds like you have some GREAT bedding. 40 acres is not a ton of land, and it might be tough to have BOTH good bedding AND great food plots. Any chance the deer are bedding on your property and feeding in that 70 acre alfalfa plot? I forgot if you said how big your plots are, but man, it would seem tough to compete with 70 acres of alfalfa.

Second question, you repeated that "no bucks seen by anybody" on your land. How many guys are hunting your 40? Again, 40 acres is not a huge parcel. Any chance you just had way too many guys hunting way too many days on your new plots.?

Maybe you could post a pic of your land. I went back and re-read you initial post. You say its hand down one of the best properties in your area. Sounds like you have a bedding area and a destination plot. How big is that destination plot? Can it compete with 70 acres of alfalfa? Something's not right if you have the best parcel in your area and are not enjoying success...even just seeing bucks. There are some pretty sharp guys here who could take a look at your layout and make suggestions.

 

[roymunson]

Second question, you repeated that "no bucks seen by anybody" on your land. How many guys are hunting your 40? Again, 40 acres is not a huge parcel. Any chance you just had way too many guys hunting way too many days on your new plots.?

Seems like a pretty accurate assessment to me. I only have 50 acres an cannot imagine not seeing a single buck all year. Smells like something else isn't right. I get not seeing the caliber or quantity of bucks that you want to kill, but not a single buck (and I understand your criteria for bucks)? Yeesh... Something's running them all off. Because your property's not better off without habitat than it is with habitat.

 

[Livesintrees]

How many acres in plots do you have on your 40 acre piece? I own 60 acres and I couldn’t imagine have much acreage dedicated to plots as I don’t think I would have enough depth of woods to set it up as I need too. Also I have to wonder if possibly your access to and from stands could possibly be hurting you? I know it doesn’t take very much or very many guys hunting “their way” meaning poor scent control, access, or wind directions to legit ruin a property.

If you have enough major Ag in the area to feed the deer throughout spring and summer then perhaps you need to consider planting strictly high yield annuals. Basically deer candy for fall and some grains to get into spring. It’s alot of posts to go back and re read to see exactly what you are planting so you may already be doing so.

The best property I’ve hunted had a clover trail between an annual plot and a small orchard of mixed old and forgotten fruit trees. It saw lower numbers of animals in the offseason but come October the trails were beaten down deep mud ruts. We couldn’t compete with the summer food sources the farmers provided, but we had the only game in town come fall and winter.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I'm in a vastly different situation that you, Bucksutherland, but if I had 70 acres of alfalfa next to our camp, I'd be planting something else not found in the local ag properties. Crab apples for fall / winter hunting maybe - given your location in the cold north country.

But if you are in open ag country, (or if my camp had ag around it with so much alfalfa available ), I'd concentrate on making / having the best security cover around for miles. Various varieties of spruce trees, balsam fir, hinging, etc. may enhance your cover. Access trails using wind direction to get to your stands, and small trails cut for deer to use getting into & out of your cover. In my experience, big wide trails make older bucks suspicious. I've cut many narrow, "sneaky" trails in thick mountain laurel here and bucks take them over. If your prevailing wind is from the west, I'd cut my trails for the deer running from north to south, so the bucks have to travel more distance of the trails to wind-check for up-wind does. This will cause a buck to expose himself along a greater percentage of the trail - maybe giving you more shot opportunities. FWIW.

 

[yoderjac]

Even in the best habitat, the home range of a buck is measured in hundreds of acres and in average habitat it is around 1,000 acres. This "home" range does not include excursions or the rut where bucks can range for many miles looking for hot does. While a buck does not spend his time equally distributed across his home range, the statistical amount of time he spends on any 40 acres, except perhaps where he beds, it tiny.

We have just under 400 acres that we own with another 400 in adjoining properties that are supportive of our program. I run a wireless camera network with solar panes 24/7/365. Our hunters record every hunt and what they have seen in a log. I often get complaints from hunters saying our deer numbers are down based on their anecdotal observations. It is amazing the difference between unbiased data and hunter observations and conclusions. In some years, our hunter observation log correlates pretty well with camera data. Other years they don't.

Hunter observations across a few years by themselves don't hold a lot of value for making management decisions. I'm not at all suggesting that the OP needs food plots. Generally cover is more important in making a small property more huntable than food, but it really depends on the specifics of the property and what surrounds it. I'm not suggesting food plots are needed or should be avoided for the OP.

I'm simply saying that there are so many factors that affect buck movements outside his 40 acres that no real conclusions can be drawn from his data. Had he not planted food plots until this year, it is possible his buck sighting could have been exactly the same over those years and this thread would be titled "Food Plots - The magic bullet!".

I think this was the point TreeSpud was trying to make. I'm not directing this at the OP specifically. In engineering there is a theorem called Nyquist. I won't go into the technical details, but basically it says that if you make insufficient observations you can see things that are not really there and you can miss things that are there.

We are all working with fuzzy and incomplete data. I'm not questioning the OPs judgment. He knows his land best. I am saying a better title for this thread would have been "Food plots seem worthless for hunting on my place so far." He may be right or wrong about his place, but we certainly can't draw general conclusions from his experience other than to say that food plots are not beneficial to improve huntability of small parcels in some cases.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[bueller]

We get daytime photos, on stand sightings, and shot opportunities at our best bucks on food plots. I'm not saying food plots are the BEST place for us to sit ALL the time, but they without a doubt produce. Biggest buck I've ever seen while hunting was on October 20th, 2018 during the late afternoon. And he was feeding, not just passing through. Just one example, many many others. This is in zone 4, central wisconsin, oak/pine woods with farmland a mile or less away.

 

[SwampCat]

My wife is also a professional photographer. These deer are not the caliber most of you are used to. We live in the pineywoods of southern AR where a 4/5 yr old buck will average 115/120 - and then they start down hill. They all came off my 400 acres. To keep it clean, I will show just the deer racks. The buck upper left was killed by my son’s buddy and scored just over 150 and is the largest to come off my property. The next deer to the right was killed by my wife. The deer below it with the 14.5” G-2’s was killed by my wife - upper 140’s. The deer to the rt of it was killed by my wife. The split main beam buck just to the right of cedar beam was killed by my son’s EX. The deer to the rt of it was killed by my son’s girlfriend. The smallest of the bunch on the far rt was killed by me and the one just left of it was killed by my son. The women hold the upper edge on our place.

View attachment 22826

All these deer, with the exception of one killed late firearm season in a food plot.

 

[Tree Spud]

Can you read or are you just a complete idiot? We bought this 40 as a foreclosure in 2012, the day before rifle season. We hunted a few junky stands that already existed on the property. We had never even walked the property prior to closing. Me and a couple other people took turns hunting it the first week. We passed on a few smaller bucks and after about 17 hours of hunting it I shot a decent 8 pt. I only count 8+ pts as a sighting cause were not shooting 4pts. During 3rd weekend my brother in law shot a smaller 8 pt from the same stand as me.

2013- We start doing "habitat" work to this select cut. Tons of browse/regrowth some great hiding spots, but more importantly its just north of the BEST bedding in the county. A 3-4 year old clear cut, and just to the north of it is 70 acres of prime alfalfa. We clear spots and put in food plots and stands along travel corridors. ZERO bucks spotted that fall by anyone on that land.

2014- Lets add more plots and clover trails. ZERO bucks spotted that fall by anyone

2015- Lets add onto the plots. They are just gorgeous and the does and fawns are hammering them. ZERO bucks spotted that fall by anyone

2016- Lets do the plots again. One buck spotted in our far corner and its not within 250 yards of a plot. Just a stud running around at night.

2017- Lets do the plots again. ZERO spotted that year again. Couple great ones running around at night.

2018- No more plots. 4 nice bucks seen by me moving about the property, and 2 of them strolled into bed right where we made bedding 3 years ago. Daytime buck movement on cam finally. More rubs and scrapes than ever before, hitting my mock scrapes regularly.


I have 2 years without plots= 5 sightings for myself. 4 of those sightings would be on the wall. Probably a total of 90-100 hours between those 2 year by everyone. 2 kills.
I have 5 years with plots= 1 sighting by my brother. Was a basket 8 pt. Probably a total of 300+ man hours on stand for those course of those years. 0 kills


I figure I have over 30,000 pictures since we bought the property. Never ONCE, not ONE time did I catch a shooter buck on camera with foodplots in daytime. This year I actually had a nice 10 pt stop by twice during the middle of the morning and hit my mock scrape. You can take your high and mighty bullshit and cram it if you think I havent thought long and hard about it.

You just identified your problem with the above. A 40 acre parcel is small and can only tolerate so much intrusion. I would be more worried about the number of pictures and amount of time checking cameras than a food plot.

A mature buck (4.5 years or older in our area) doesn't care about the size of their core area, and can have a very small home range. All they need is food, water, & cover. They tend to be pretty lazy and if the above is close, they will minimize their movement. The one thing they won't tolerate is intrusion. Plots, cameras, habitat work, scent left, etc. all equal intrusion. I do a lot more video than camera picks and am amazed at how many mature bucks are caught at the edge of the video or are caught moving away after they have moved through the camera range. They are very sensitive to any that causes them to be alert.

If I had to choose between cameras & food plot, I would go with food. If you have the does, eventually you will attract bucks. You can't shoot whats on camera. Not every property is suitable for destination food plots. Some small parcels are better suited as transition zones.

I don't have a lot of high and almighty BS, just quite a bit of experience. Sounds like the less time you spend on your property, the more mature deer you see ... imagine that.

 

[Rit]

You just identified your problem with the above. A 40 acre parcel is small and can only tolerate so much intrusion. I would be more worried about the number of pictures and amount of time checking cameras than a food plot.

A mature buck (4.5 years or older in our area) doesn't care about the size of their core area, and can have a very small home range. All they need is food, water, & cover. They tend to be pretty lazy and if the above is close, they will minimize their movement. The one thing they won't tolerate is intrusion. Plots, cameras, habitat work, scent left, etc. all equal intrusion. I do a lot more video than camera picks and am amazed at how many mature bucks are caught at the edge of the video or are caught moving away after they have moved through the camera range. They are very sensitive to any that causes them to be alert.

If I had to choose between cameras & food plot, I would go with food. If you have the does, eventually you will attract bucks. You can't shoot whats on camera. Not every property is suitable for destination food plots. Some small parcels are better suited as transition zones.

I don't have a lot of high and almighty BS, just quite a bit of experience. Sounds like the less time you spend on your property, the more mature deer you see ... imagine that.

Perseverance award right there. Gets called and idiot and offers up more good input without skipping a beat. Well done!!!