landlubber
A good 3 year old buck
I've been reading on this forum for a long time soaking up as much as I can but have not contributed much. I thought I would share a big project of mine this year. I'm far from an expert here. I've got plenty to learn. Hopefully you find this as interesting as I do. Tips are welcome.
In the spring of 2016 my dad had the ash trees on his property removed while they still had timber value. As many are probably aware the emerald ash borer has devastated ash trees across the midwest. While shed hunting this past winter I got the idea of putting in a food plot in a section of the woods which was naturally open following the timber harvest (the area was a cow pasture 20 years ago). While there's plenty of food for the deer around us, I try to spend more time creating bedding cover, the nearby food doesn't set up well for hunting because it's either on the neighbor's (they hunt the prop line exclusively) or not great given the prevailing winds. My thought was I could clear off the natural opening, plant clover and see how/if the deer would utilize the plot. What I like is that the spot sets up well as there's plenty of cover to the NW and NE and some on the north edge. Also, I think I can get in/out easily without putting pressure on the deer using a ground blind. Worse case scenario was that the spot doesn't workout and I just let it transition naturally, which would be great bedding. So this is quite the experiment.
Here is a picture of the spot from the north facing SE that I took on January 7th of this year.
Here is a picture from the NW facing the south. My dad and I were just getting started clearing out the tree tops from the timber harvest (this ended up being way more work/time than expected). It was somehow still enjoyable.
This picture was taken on February 20th. I live nearly 2 hours from my dad's property so I'm limited on the time I have in doing habitat work. At this point we had the tree tops pretty much cleared out and we were starting to clear off the leaves. My dad hauled out the vast majority of the tree tops for firewood.
This picture was also taken on February 20th. You can see there's still some clearing that needs done. This view is the same view in pic #1 above. Quite a difference eh?
This picture was at the end of the day on February 20th looking from the south to the NE. The point of view here is looking out of the ground blind. That was a very busy day. I was exhausted.
I took the picture on March 3rd. The day I frost seeded the clover. This is from the SE looking NW.
Here's a pic from April 30th. As you can see things had filled in pretty nice. Unfortunately thats not all clover! There were plenty of weeds in there. I mowed the tallest of the weeds off this day.
On May 28th I went back and mowed yet again, this time a little bit lower. You can't tell from the pic but there was a good amount of clover growing but the weeds were thick. A week after this picture I went back up and sprayed the plot with 2-4DB.
In the spring of 2016 my dad had the ash trees on his property removed while they still had timber value. As many are probably aware the emerald ash borer has devastated ash trees across the midwest. While shed hunting this past winter I got the idea of putting in a food plot in a section of the woods which was naturally open following the timber harvest (the area was a cow pasture 20 years ago). While there's plenty of food for the deer around us, I try to spend more time creating bedding cover, the nearby food doesn't set up well for hunting because it's either on the neighbor's (they hunt the prop line exclusively) or not great given the prevailing winds. My thought was I could clear off the natural opening, plant clover and see how/if the deer would utilize the plot. What I like is that the spot sets up well as there's plenty of cover to the NW and NE and some on the north edge. Also, I think I can get in/out easily without putting pressure on the deer using a ground blind. Worse case scenario was that the spot doesn't workout and I just let it transition naturally, which would be great bedding. So this is quite the experiment.
Here is a picture of the spot from the north facing SE that I took on January 7th of this year.
Here is a picture from the NW facing the south. My dad and I were just getting started clearing out the tree tops from the timber harvest (this ended up being way more work/time than expected). It was somehow still enjoyable.
This picture was taken on February 20th. I live nearly 2 hours from my dad's property so I'm limited on the time I have in doing habitat work. At this point we had the tree tops pretty much cleared out and we were starting to clear off the leaves. My dad hauled out the vast majority of the tree tops for firewood.
This picture was also taken on February 20th. You can see there's still some clearing that needs done. This view is the same view in pic #1 above. Quite a difference eh?
This picture was at the end of the day on February 20th looking from the south to the NE. The point of view here is looking out of the ground blind. That was a very busy day. I was exhausted.
I took the picture on March 3rd. The day I frost seeded the clover. This is from the SE looking NW.
Here's a pic from April 30th. As you can see things had filled in pretty nice. Unfortunately thats not all clover! There were plenty of weeds in there. I mowed the tallest of the weeds off this day.
On May 28th I went back and mowed yet again, this time a little bit lower. You can't tell from the pic but there was a good amount of clover growing but the weeds were thick. A week after this picture I went back up and sprayed the plot with 2-4DB.
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