September 2011 Food Plot Update

A Favorite Picture

Fencepost Hunting

Welcome to the September Food Plot Journal. We didn't do a lot in our plots, but the weather was kind to our clover plots. We got a lot of rain and the temperature cooled off allowing our clover to thrive this month. This is the best our clover has looked in quite some time.

The brassicas that we planted on September 2 in the hayfield-plot didn't fare as well. They popped up but didn't grow as strong as we had hoped. We've also seen deer feeding in them already.

We mowed all of our clover plots this month, which worked out well for us. Mowing followed by the rain couldn't have been timed much better for us. I'd like to say that I had this planned, but I'd surely be lying, sometimes the weather just works in your favor.

The picture below is the brassica plot that we put in on September 2. The green strip to the left is the clover in Area Three.

Looking ahead to next spring I hope to upgrade my lime and fertilizer spreading capabilities. I'm not sure exactly how I'll do this, but I have a few months to think about it. I'll also be thinking about how best to utilize the rest of our hayfield capabilities now that we are responsible for mowing all of it. This includes some very steep hillsides that we don't want to run a tractor on.

Bow season has begun and we look forward to watching the fruits of our labor. Ryan got into a stand on October 1 and saw a five point and a couple of does. We're still trying to figure which deer to try to shoot this year.

We get thousands of pictures each month with our digital trail cameras but we narrow down each set of pictures to our favorite six or seven and these are usually buck pictures. As you can imagine there are always several more that are very good but don't make the cut.

Below is one of our favorite pictures from September. I almost put this picture on our picture page that week. I wonder what the big buck had to say to the youngster. You can take a look at our favorite deer pictures from September 4 here.

One of my fondest memories is a day I spent squirrel hunting with my son, dauther and nephew. I can't remember how old they were. I carried the gun and they enjoyed the woods. Ryan also shot his first squirrel that day and we have a picture of him holding that squirrel like it was a treasure.

On October 1 I got the opportunity to take a seven year old squirrel hunting for his first time. The weather was lousy. Upper forties and rain, you couldn't have asked for a more miserable beginning to October, but to my seven year old buddy Ben you would have thought that it was sixty and sunny. He didn't know that the weather was bad, it was the best day hunting he had ever had. I didn't know until the end of the day that his boots weren't waterproof and he walked around with wet feet. He never complained. I would have been whining like a baby!

We didn't have much success squirrel hunting, but Ben had a lot of fun anyway. We only saw three squirrels and they were all running so we didn't get a shot. We didn't even see them long enough that I got to hand the gun to him. Fortunately he had a great time pushing over stumps, old trees and yes, an old fence post.

We also had a young doe come along to see what the commotion was all about. You'd have to hear Ben tell the story about her watching us.

This is another hunt I'll remember for a long time.

Take a look at the picture below to see Ben's trophy fence post.