July 2007 Food Plot Update

Digital Trail Cameras - Number of Batteries

The Beach

July has been a light month of activity in our food plots for us, but the deer have been visiting some of them regularly.

After a dry late spring/early summer we did get some rain in July. We didn’t get a lot of rain but we got enough to keep the food plots from turning brown on us.

Oldhouse Food Plot

The Biologic Maximum and the Power Plant that we planted in June is doing OK. It hasn’t grown by leaps and bounds into a thick lush plot but it is providing something for the deer to eat at times. I say “at times” because the deer cleaned up the beans and now the sorghum and brassicas are growing which the deer haven’t started to eat yet. Currently we’re not getting a lot of pictures of deer eating in the plot.

I would like to plant a perennial in this plot this fall but I don’t want to disk it up until the deer eat what is there now so I may end up waiting until next spring. The brassicas that we planted last fall were eaten by the deer in late October. If the deer let the current crop grow until October I’ll wait until spring to plant. If they eat them by mid-September I may try to get something else planted. I’m going to wait and see.

The cornpatch food plot is doing well and we continue to get visitors although the traffic has slowed down, especially once the hayfields were mowed. Optimistically I’d say that the plot is about 50/50 clover and grass.

The plot needs mowed and we’ll do that soon. Rain during the last two visits kept us from mowing, but after all of the dry weather we can’t feel bad about getting rained out even though we didn’t get to mow our plots.

The old garden plot is DRY. This plot sits on top of a hill and the water drains away fast so there isn’t much going on in the old clover patch. We did mow it on July 9th but we may not need to mow it again.

The small patch of Lab Lab Plus is doing better than I expected it would. The beans and lab lab are pretty much gone but the sorghum is coming on strong.

I’ve been talking for a long time about re-planting this plot and I hope to get to it this fall. I’ll probably put a perennial back in here, maybe the Monster Mix that I have left over from the spring will go in here.

Middle Clearing Food Plot

The Monster Mix in the middle plot is still doing well. There is some grass in it and we will mow it again as soon as we get a chance.

Our good friend, the purple flower weed, survived the first mowing so I expect it will stay with us until fall. The deer are keeping it eaten down along with the clover and chicory.

We’re still getting quite a few pictures of deer in this plot each week and hope they continue to visit well into hunting season.

Whippoorwill Food Plot

The Bucks and Bosses along with a little Durana are still doing well in the whippoorwill plot. The purple flower plant has shown up along with some grass so we’ll mow this plot as well when we get the next opportunity.

This plot has an interesting history with our digital trail cameras. When we put the camera facing the larger part of the food plot we get pictures of deer, mostly does. When we face the camera towards a small corner of the plot we seem to get much more interesting pictures including coyotes, larger bucks and even a possible bear picture in our last set. It’s interesting how game seems to traverse across the small end of this plot. Our digital trail camera took 88 pictures looking at this small corner of this food plot over a 13-day period.

I think there is something to be learned here.

Hayfield Food Plot

In June I said that the Durana and the Alfa Rack hade done well, especially the Durana. The Durana had grown into a low, close to the ground clover that had carpeted the food plot. The Alfa Rack was a little sparser but was still doing well. The same could be said for July and I’ve been especially pleased with the Durana.

According to our trail cameras deer are spending a lot of time in the Durana and it is holding up real well.

The whole plot needs the limited grass and some taller weeds mowed which we’ll do soon.

I started to do a little disking in June after the hay was mowed to try to extend this plot but wasn’t able to disk any in July. I need to get started again and try to get this extension planted as soon as I can.

Right Of Way Food Plot

The Bucks and Bosses is still doing well in this plot, but just like June we’re not getting many pictures of deer in the plot. I may do some experimenting in this plot with my cameras to see if I may be missing something. Since I hadn’t seen much traffic in this plot I haven’t been putting my better cameras here. If I get a chance I’ll try a good camera in this plot and see if I’m missing anything.

Similar to most of the other plots I need to mow this one as well.

Activity was slow in July but we hope to get some things done in August. With our planned extension of the hayfield food plot and re-planting the garden plot we have plenty to do. Hopefully the weather cooperates when we get a chance to visit our property. We’ve been laughing about how dry it had been because it seemed like it rained on almost every visit I made.

I’m not sure whether or not we’ll buy any new seed to plant along with the Monster Mix and Durana that we already have. I’d like to try more seed varieties but my desire to try more is usually tempered by a lack of time. A cool season annual would be interesting to try. We’ll just wait and see how it goes.

Since we enjoy testing digital trail cameras I thought that we would detail some of what we have learned by taking a look at a different subject each month.

The third column in our chart is number of batteries. The grade in this column is affected by both the number of batteries and whether or not rechargeable batteries will work adequately in the trail camera. I guess I’m really evaluating the cost of batteries to operate the camera over the long haul.

I stated in last month’s journal that battery life was a very important consideration and I guess that this second column on batteries is indicative of that fact.

Let me explain this column by giving you a couple of examples. I gave the Penn’s Woods Digital Scout a B+. This camera uses six AA batteries, which is a lot of batteries, but rechargeable AA batteries performed very well in this unit, which kept the grade higher for this unit.

The Leaf River cams use seven batteries, which is a lot of batteries. If it didn’t work well with rechargeable batteries it would get a lower grade.

I would like to add a dependability column to the review chart and may need to eliminate one category. If the number of batteries column is eliminated the battery life column would become the overall battery column.

How long the batteries operate and how many it takes are a big factor when considering what digital trail camera to purchase.

You can take a look at our digital trail camera reviews here.

I try to write something in each journal that we have experienced that may be interesting, informative our maybe just funny. I was having trouble coming up with a subject this time since we hadn’t spent a lot of time at our hunting property in July when I remembered something that may classify me as different than most folks.

Last week I was walking across the beach when a lifeguard passed riding on an ATV. The exhaust from the ATV took me all the way back to West Virginia.

What’s wrong with me? There I was on a sunny summer day at the beach and one sniff of ATV exhaust made me homesick for our spot of dirt in West Virginia.