Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Shooting and Hunting => Topic started by: Eric Krewson on January 03, 2022, 09:34:25 am
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I haven't been seeing any deer in my little patch of woods next to the house since the rut, just before the snow storm yesterday the deer were OUT, if I didn't count wrong I saw 14 during daylight hours. Some were feeding on honeysuckle but almost all gravitated to my little food plot to munch for a while. There were three more headed to the plot when I got up at daylight this morning. All of the deer I saw were does, the bucks were abundant in night time pictures of the plot earlier but have since gone elsewhere.
I made a discovery about my food plot this year; the deer hit it hard for the first month or so after I took down the electric fence and let them into it, then they backed off as the acorns started falling. During the down time (verified by my trail cam) I broadcast just a few pounds of ammonium nitrate on the plot which is only 25 yards X 20 yards in size, the leaves fell off the trees, the plot got more sun and the wheat and oats took off again, the deer came back.
The deer ate the plot almost to the ground and backed off again, time for more ammonium nitrate which was two weeks ago. We had some really warm weather in the 70s, the ammonium nitrate got the plot going again, 11 out of the 14 deer I saw yesterday were feeding on the plot. Both times I spread the ammonium nitrate on the plot just before a rain.
In past years when the deer abandon the plot they haven't come back, I brought them back two times this year by sweetening the plot.
My little plot as seen from my ladder stand which I haven't been in this year because of a knee injury and surgery.
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Boy that thing is green
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The ground is very poor woods soil, I am building it up little by little, a couple of years ago I went by the cattle sale barn and had them load a couple of tons of right out of the stall cow manure which I put on the plot. They give it away for free just to get rid of it.
It took me longer to clean that gooey crap off my tractor and trailer (hours) than to spread it so I will be looking for drier stuff next time. I can get free cotton gin waste as well which is supposed to be very good as a soil builder.
It did green up the plot.
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The deer just about have the plot eaten down to nothing but are still showing up. Most of the green you see isn't the wheat and oats I planted but some kind of tiny leaf weed that grows close to the ground.
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Just like flicking off a switch, the deer have gone nocturnal, they do it every deer season when the pressure mounts.
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Ya it don't take them long to figure out an open food plot ant a good place to be in the day light during hunting season. :)
Pappy