Destination vs. Hunting Food Plots
Filed under: Ask Grant, Food Plots, Hunting Tactics
Dr. Woods, I hunted over my food plots for the first time yesterday on my 100 acres and definitely reaped the rewards. I ended up planting 25 acres in plots (20 acres of corn and 5 acres of green fields) and am slowly transitioning my open land to more cover. I didn’t do so all at once in case my deer needed more food than cover, especially since I’m surrounded by cover and no food. Between my dad and I we saw 30 deer! Only two were bucks, so we definitely have some doe management to take care of. When hunting over food plots in the afternoon I spooked the deer when getting out of the stand — which I knew I would. My dad didn’t. I was located more on our destination (3 acre) food plot and he was hunting over a smaller 1/4 acre food plot where the deer seemed to move through more quickly. Do you use destination plots on your farm to encourage deer movement to bigger fields and do you feel deer target these fields in the evening (I have read deer feel safer in these larger fields as opposed to smaller ones)? Since I started with a lot of open land and I’m transitioning my food plots to more cover, namely transition areas where I can hunt and not get busted, what do you recommend planting? I’ve considered NWSGs but wasn’t sure if that would allow me to shoot through it to harvest deer. The other thoughts I had were thick NWSG or early successional cover and putting shooting lanes through it. Do you ever hunt over these larger plots? They’re hard not to hunt over as I saw about 20 deer yesterday, including a couple decent bucks. I guess the unknown is if they would be there later this week after I spooked them getting out of the stand. Thanks! Eric
Eric,
I do plant larger destination food plots on my property. My goal for these food plots is to provide undisturbed foraging opportunities for the deer herd throughout the year. I rarely, if ever, hunt them because I always want the herd moving toward them and consuming their nutrients. As you witnessed during your first hunt on the destination food plot it is difficult to enter/leave the stand without disturbing deer. The more times a deer is disturbed the less likely it is to move in daylight hours in that location.
I like to spend the majority of my hunting time in transition zones between bedding and feeding areas and over small attractant food plots, like the one your father was hunting. This way if I happen to disturb a deer it can take a different path to get to the destination food plot during daylight hours. I then just have to study the most recent information (M.R.I.) to determine its new path.
Native warm season grass provides great cover. If a variety of native grasses are included in the planting and switchgrass makes up 20% or less of the seed, shooting into it from an elevated stand should not be difficult.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
