From forest to food plot, suggestions?

[TC29-dude]

TC29-Dude,
Nice pictures. I have to get my trailcamera back out. Last fall I had a couple nice bucks, I think I posted those earlier, and a bunch of does and year and a half olds. I am hoping to draw in some turkeys next year. The neighbor said he saw some this spring. Where are you located and did you use any seed, or just feeders?

I am in Southeast MO in the St. Francis mountain area. We started out with buckoats and red clover, it was beautiful for a while (see pix)...both came on great but then it didn't rain for most of the summer so it all burned up. My topsoil is very poor. I have a great crop of softball up to volley ball sized rocks that seems to be never ending. We threw down some turnips two weekends ago right before a good rain, they are growing like crazy.

 

[andrewj]

hi - this project's looking pretty good. one thing I wanted to suggest, can you talk with local farmers to see what the PH normally is? I started a small farm operation a few years back, without a whole lot of experience in growing anything, and I learned the hard way that any acre in my area is going to need 2.5 tons of lime off the bat. If you don't lime here, the PH is so acidic that what plants germinate aren't able to take up the nitrogen. What made me think of this is all the wood chips you are making - decomposing wood uses nitrogen and makes the soil acidic! So you are likely to experience both problems.

As much time/money you are spending, it would pay to put out a 70 pound bag for every 1000 square feet. ( I hesitate to say since your ph may be very different....some folks have a naturally base type soil that requires sulfur, not lime.)

One last thing - for 30 bucks i bought a 50 pound bag of crimson clover for my beekeeping operation....the deer went nuts and since I spread this over a 3 acre area in a valley, it actually changed the deer's natural travel patterns now I am stuck with basically a herd of 6 to 12 deer at all times - and that happens to be righ tby my apple orchard. they do horrible damage to apple trees. I am not a deer hunter so I got nuisance game tags and give them to friends, this lets them hunt legally at night, or with lights.

 

[john_bud]

Can I be your friend?

jb

 

[Tororider]

Yeah, if only all hunters had friends that had deer on demand that needed to be put in the freezer.

Here are some pictures from this weekend. I was out of town, but my dad brushhogged to whole thing down to dirt. Looked good enough that we decided not to get the boxblade. Then we disced it.

We are hoping to get it seeded tonight, unfortunately we won't have time to add lime, so we will have to hope, and then when we overseed in the spring we can add anything that is necessary. It is supposed to rain over the next couple days so this should be a great time to plant.

The last pic is of how many woodchips we have made so far. There is all of 20 yards there, probably a bunch more.

 

[Tororider]

My dad was able to sneak over last night and get it planted and then disced the seeds in. Just in time it seems, rained some last night and there is a front coming through right now, so that should get it watered in nicely. Hope to have some pictures of first growth soon!

 

[EddieWalker]

Looks real nice. I would have taken out all those trees myself to create a totally open area. It would be easier to work, give your plants more sunlight and easier to get a clear shot off at a buck.

Do you have a game camera? Once those seeds start to sprout, you are going to want to see what's coming in there, and what time of day they are there. The digital ones are the only way to go, especially when you can put a 1 or 2 gig card in them. I have two right now and batteries are my biggest issue. I've heard about solar set ups, and that's what I want to do next.

What did you plant? Did you do the entire area in one type of seed? I'm clearing an area for a food plot too, but wont be ready until spring at the earliest to start planting. My thinking is to devide up my plot and plant a variety of seeds, then monitor what's being used and what they ignore.

Keep us updated, it's fun to see your progress.

Eddie

 

[Tororider]

We wanted to keep some of the nicer trees there, give the deer feeling of security, and if at any point we dig out the swamp, which we would like to do, it will look nicer I guess. There is plenty of room to get between them for what we have to do right now anyways, and I think there is one tree we may put a stand on. Hopefully a custom made one, but that will probably be a project for next year.

We put down the TECOMATE MONSTER MIX WHITETAIL WILDLIFE FOOD PLOT. I had gotten it off of ebay late this summer. It is a perreniel(sp) mix so we will see how it does.

I do have two digital trail cameras. I have to get one over there now. Eddie I have the same problem as you, keeping the batteries up to snuff. I have two rechargeables, but it is a pain trying to keep them charged. I have seen the solar setup once or twice on ebay, but if you find something that seems to work, let me know because I would definitely be interested. Hopefully I will have some pictures of the deer coming in to eat soon, and shortly after that a picture of a deer harvested.

 

[EddieWalker]

We checked out game cameras yesterday evening and found the batteries were dead in both of them. We usually check them every weekend, but didn't this past weekend. It looks like they were dead for awhile.

I really need to get a solar setup on my main camera at our feeder. That corn draws the animals in year round!!!!

Is it legal to feed and/or bait animals in your state? Here, it is and you can buy deer corn at Walmart, Home Depot, the grocery store and all the feed stores.

We noticed that really large hog in the picture a few weeks ago. He's MASSIVE!!!! I was out mowing two weeks ago, and this group of hogs came out into the open right in front of me. We were about 100 feet away from each other, and they froze. I kept mowing closer to them and at 50 ft, the massive one, and half of them took off. The others ran over to the corn and started eating!!!!!! I drove off and let them be. That night, we got pics of the massive one eating at the corn, so he wasn't too spooked.

He's easily 300 pounds and probably a bit more. We've never seen one as thick as he is. He just really stands out in all our pictures, and especially when I saw him face to face. Steph wants him real bad, so we're waiting for him to make a mistake. From this picture, you can tell that he was out in the open, in daylight and had made that mistake. We just weren't up at the same time they were.

The bucks are two that we've seen from time to time. Neither of us want to shoot them, they are just too small. Steph has never shot a deer yet, but she wants to keep these two coming around. I'm sure there are some big deer around our area, it's just a matter of luck and timing if we see any of them. One neighbor shot a 150 class buck a few years ago,and a road kill down the road from us last year, just before the season, was in the 160 range. Nobody has killed a deer here in four years, so they have had a chance to do some growing!!!!

I've seen those TV shows about the Tecomonte food plots. I'm not sure if it's ally hype and marketing, or if they have a good product. I'm glad your using it and will give us a report of how it works for you. I know it takes a few years to really get a plot established and for the deer to use it too.

Eddie

 

[Tororider]

Eddie,
If I can get over there this weekend I will set up the trailcam so that I can start scouting to see what is coming out.

Those are some nice pictures, that first buck is what... a nine point? Looks a bit smallish on the body, but a nice rack. How big is that hog in that avatar with Steph? We don't have too many hogs up here, although apparently there are more and more feral hogs that the state is trying to get rid of, pretty much if you see one, you can shoot it.

I am hoping that the decent sized 8 point that I saw last fall will make an appearance this fall. I don't think we have quite the deer population here in Michigan that you have in TX, but we will see what we can come up with this fall. I really need to get out and shoot my bow as season starts Oct 1st. Where does the time go?

 

[john_bud]

That's on the menu for deer season....