August Food Plot Update

Deer Feeder Follies - Update

Bow Season - Just Around The Corner

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The food plot at the old house still looks real nice. It is getting some grass and weeds but is still a nice plot of clover. This food plot had only been mowed twice this year. Obviously the deer and other critters are keeping it trimmed. We chased a young rabbit out of the plot on Thursday evening.

There is still a lot of clover in this plot.

The old garden food plot is disappointing since it was just planted this spring. When I first looked at it, I thought that it was real bad and mostly grass and weeds and not much clover. On the 21st I brush hogged the plot and after mowing I realized that there was some clover beneath the grass and weeds. I am real curious how this plot will react next spring.

The clover is getting hard to see amongst the grass and weeds.

The plot at the old corn patch is nice and green but has a lot of grass. This winter I plan on doing some work and enlarging the plot to close to half an acre. It will be interesting to see how this plot does once it is enlarged.

There is still some clover among the green grass.

The whippoorwill plot is nice and green and there is some clover, just not a lot. This has always been real fertile ground but the plot is just too small. Since I already have plans to work in two of the other plots this fall and next spring I may not get back to this one for a while.

You can still see some clover in the grass.

The middle clearing food plot has won the re-planting lottery. I found some Whitetail Institutes Extreme food plot seed in the Bargain Cave at Cabelas. Since this is a plot near one of the places that I hunt, and I can watch it this fall, I thought that it would be a good place to try the new seed blend. It also helped that the plot was not doing well.

I also plan on ordering some Plot-Saver to try after I plant the Extreme. I would like to know what a plot would perform like if I can keep the deer out of it early. I’ll only protect half of the plot so we can compare the protected area from the unprotected.

The plot was mowed with a garden tractor on the 20th and I started disking the plot on the 21st. It was muddy but it started to disk up real nice. We also put some 10-20-20 fertilizer on it while I was disking. We will add some lime when I disk in a couple of weeks, before we plant the Extreme.

Putting our equipment to work.

There are three things that I have not tried with our food plots. Killing all vegetation before working the ground, killing the grass in the plots and protecting the plots when they are young. Each of these cost some money. I thought that I would try to protect this new plot that I will be planting this fall and see what happens. I may even use some of the plot saver in one or more of our other plots.

We’ve taken back control - for now.

In the last issue of The Food Plot Journal I told you about our battle with the raccoons at our deer feeders. We think that we may have finally won.

We now have galvanized metal completely around the trees at the feeder height and the ladders are not left on the trees. We have also removed the varmint cages. It appears that the raccoons were hanging on them like trapeze flyers. For now the raccoons are standing in line with the rest of the wildlife.

I hate to get high and mighty on this one; this has been a battle that has lasted many years. Ultimately I would like to try a tripod to hang the feeders from. I think that this would be difficult for the raccoons to crack and it would be nice to be able to lower the feeder to fill it up.

I will be sure to let you know if we get a tripod and how it goes.

We only have 8 weeks left until bow season starts. I plan on getting the scouting camera out soon to start my remote scouting. I will have more information on scouting cameras in the next couple of issues. I am going to jump into the digital scouting camera world this year.

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

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