Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Food Plotting

Food Plotting

Is that really what you call it?  I can't call it farming or even  planting because up to this point nothing has grown for us.  We have great intentions but limited results.  This year we went out of our comfort zone and found some help.  

Our help came in the form of a Fleet Farm ad for Antler King Mega Food Plot Starter Kit.  Senior found them on sale and bought a couple.  In the box there was an instant soil test kit, an array of seeds, dvd, some instructional stuff and assorted other information.  Past years of planting our own food plots have resulted in very little growth and a lot of work.  So following someone else's program couldnt hurt right?  The kits cost $15.99 so if it flops we arent out much.


This year we rented a disc from Hejny Rental to pull behind the good old trusty Polaris instead of hand tilling the ground or raking as we did in years past.  Cost a bit more money but saved us hours of time.  We gave the ground a good plow, put down some fertilizer and lime to raise the pH levels.  That sat for 9 days and we went back to plant.  
Before


I separated the area into thirds for planting.   In the middle third, I planted Honey Hole from Antler King Kit.  On the top third I spread a bit of Trophy Clover again from the kit, and the bottom third I tossed some Whitetail Institute Bow Stand blend.  The middle third took the tilling the best and yielded some of the best looking dirt.  Not that I know what good dirt really would look like, but the consensus was that it looked good.  

After

We will be looking for some good rain to come through and get our field going.  We will keep you updated!  

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Round Two!

Last Sunday Jr, Sr and Mike and I took a couple hours in Sandstone to prepare our food plot for planting.  Jr will have some pictures and information up here shortly on the plot itself.  We also took the opportunity to once again pull pictures from our trails cameras.  All I can say is WOW. 

Girls Food Plot - 400 plus pictures
Main Food Plot - 300 plus pictures
Grandpa's stand camera - 50 pictures

This is a ton of pictures for a two week period and more then we have ever seen this early in the season.  Here is a recap of some of the results.

These first pictures all come from our main food plot area:

Three visitors
Sometimes you just need to relax
He is a big boy!
Ninja Death Kick bro!
Antlers!

These next ones are from the Girls Food Plot:

Look who came to visit
Gobble gobble
Antlers over here as well
This is what Matt's dreams are made of!
That is a big body deer in the back
 
The pictures from my grandpa's stand were a lot of passing does, which is normal for that area.  As the season progress's we normally start to see bucks traveling through that area and hope to see that again.  In the next couple of week we will be looking to get our stands up our areas cleared.  We are making some adjustments off of things we have found, seen and the experiences we had last year.  We will discuss some of those decisions and why we made them as we get the stands in the air.
 
Keep checking back for updates coming soon!
 
E

Monday, June 3, 2013

Trail Cam Season

TRAIL CAM SEASON

Part of the joy we get during spring and summer are the trail cameras we have been running.  Every couple of weeks we get to take stock of the deer on the property, and renew our excitement for the hunts to come. This May is no different.  

After turkey hunting, in which we had fun but did not shoot any turkeys, we put out the trail cams.  Four total put out with no bait in front of them to draw the deer in.  This first crop or pictures is just a plain inventory of the deer walking through on a regular day.  To say we are excited is an understatement. 

We pulled almost 200 pictures in two weeks.  That is a pretty good number for this property and no bait.  Even more importantly we had plenty of bucks mixed in with all the does.  Years past the bucks havent started really making an appearance until later in the year.  It will be interesting to see which ones stay around and how they grow.  We have seen some good 8 pointers on camera but never in person.  Maybe this will be the year the big ones walk by.  

-Dennis