By Bill Winke
I’ve been making poor-man’s food plots since 1995. They are made from small natural openings or semi-openings in cover or on the edge of the woods. The goal is to turn these hidden spots into productive staging-area food plots using only hand tools and no large equipment. I’ve tried several methods for making these plots and have reached several conclusions about what works best.
Adam Hays III has a knack for finding and killing the biggest whitetail bucks in the neighborhood — any neighborhood. In fact, he has dozens of Pope and Young bucks to his credit, including 10 that surpassed the 170-inch mark and four monsters that broke the 200-inch barrier.
If you considered the University of Alabama, Duke University and the Chinese Olympic ping pong team, what characteristic ties them together? All have been dominant in their respective athletic programs, consistently at or near the top year after year. The word commonly used for such success is dynasty. To be considered a dynasty, a team or organization must consistently be at the pinnacle of its endeavor and continually rise above its contemporaries.
Day after day, Wade Atchley sat at his food plot, watching hens and jakes come to feed. The gobbler, however, hung up in the timber off the plot. For eight consecutive mornings, the vicious cycle continued. Atchley flirted with insanity. He did the same thing daily expecting a different result.
By Michael Veine
It would be great if all new food plot sites were on level ground, already cleared and easily accessible, with rich, heavy, neutral pH soils and no rocks or other debris in the way. In the real world, though, especially in woodlands, most food plot sites are far from ideal. There’s no reason to be discouraged, though, just because your land poses some food plotting challenges. In fact, the satisfaction level is even higher when productive plots are produced on marginal sites. Read on for some tips and know-how on how to cost effectively produce world-class food plots on rough and tough ground.
By David Hart
Planting season can be a confusing time of year for food plotters. Not only do we have to decide when, where and how much to plant, but we have to figure out what types of plants to put in our plots. Imperial Whitetail Clover or Whitetail Oats Plus? Summer plots or cool-season plots? Annuals or perennials?
Ohio is a well-known producer of whopper whitetails. In fact, the Buckeye State leads the Boone & Crockett books as the top spot for killing a giant non-typical. But northeastern Ohio has not contributed much to the state’s big buck reputation. And Ashtabula County, in the Buckeye State’s northeastern corner, seems to have everything going against it for producing mature whitetails. Bordered by Lake Erie, the county is in the middle of the snow belt, where severe winters, small blocks of timber and intense hunting pressure make it tough for bucks to live long enough to grow monstrous antlers.
I’ve planted plenty of clover plots, but this one was special. I always start my favorite phase of the year — trailcam season — about July 4, and perennial plots are among my favorite sites to hang the season’s first cameras. When I walked into the one-acre plot of Imperial Whitetail Clover to get the festivities started, my jaw dropped at the lush and seemingly perfect clover I had to wade through to reach my camera tree. The plot was covered with emerald green clover and apparently devoid of weeds.
By William Cousins
·
Genesis of the
Food-Plot and Deer-nutrition Industries
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Quality and
Performance Benchmark for All Food-Plot Products
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Gold Standard
· The Number One Food Plot Planting in The World
I’ve never been good at family menu planning. Other than suggesting grilling burgers or steaks, I leave that to my better half. So, when Becky whips up something fancy that doesn’t appeal to my meat-and-potatoes palate, I don’t believe I have the right to complain. I simply swallow hard and say, “It’s delicious.”
When we got the 120 acres of land almost 18 years ago, it had not produced a trophy class whitetail (130 plus) in over 15 years. I knew this was my chance to do my own program. After a lot of research, I decided to go with the Whitetail Institute’s products. We planted our two largest fields in Imperial Whitetail Clover the first year. We put out cameras and realized we not only had a horrible age structure, but our few older bucks weren’t what you would hope they’d be. We had a bulldozer come in and help us widen existing plots and strategically create some new ones.
