Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Ep.21 Mastering Food Plots for Deer Hunting Success with Sean Moffitt
Want to boost your deer hunting success with the perfect food plot? This episode is your ultimate guide! Join us as we chat with Sean Moffitt, an expert hunter from Sussex, who shares his journey from basic cabbage planting to advanced strategies using a variety of crops like kale, turnip, rape, corn, soybeans, clovers, and chicories. Sean's hands-on experience and insights will help you transform your hunting grounds into a deer haven.
We kick things off by exploring the intricacies of planting soybeans and the benefits of Roundup Ready crops. Sean reveals the importance of selecting the right equipment based on soil conditions and offers practical tips on soil preparation, including the use of discs, harrows, and vegetation management. We also cover essential timing and location-specific strategies for planting crops like soybeans and corn to ensure optimal growth and successful germination.
For those looking to perfect their late-season food plots, we've got you covered. Sean outlines the advantages of incorporating brassicas, winter wheat, oats, and annual ryegrass in your planting mix and provides expert advice on managing seed sizes and distribution. From using a fertilizer spreader to ensuring good soil compaction, Sean's techniques will help you achieve the best results. Don't miss out on this packed episode filled with valuable advice to enhance your deer hunting experience.
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this is hunts on outfitting podcast. I'm your host and rookie guide, ken meyer. I love everything hunting the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories to how to. You'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast. All right, welcome to Hunt on the Outfitting podcast, the only podcast brought to you by Sal's Fast and Furious Seeds For when you have the need, the need to seed. For those of you joining us for the first time, welcome, if not welcome back. All we ask with this show is that you share us out with who you know.
Speaker 1:This week on the podcast, we are talking about food plots Now, for right now, the time that we're at right now here in Canada and probably most other places listening to this. We are almost mid-summer not quite and it's definitely not too late to start your food plot for deer. Our guest today is not an expert, but has a lot of knowledge about this, just from time and true, good old fashioned trial and error. We hope that you enjoy it. Now let's see who's talking. Hey, sean, welcome to the podcast. Before we get going, why don't you just kind of tell us a bit about yourself and where you reside?
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm Sean Moffitt. I live just outside Sussex towards Blisle. I grew up on a dairy farm. My father hunted. Drug me out the woods since I can remember, always loved hunting and I guess once I bought my own place I always thought like I still continued hunting First or second year. I le least some ground to a blile farms and build a tree, stand down in the woods lugged apples, thinking that's the only way. You hunt deer and walk through a field of cabbage every night, sit on trees, see nothing, walk back, scare a bunch of deer out of the field, and that started my food plotting from there, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how you get going. So you realize there's another way, just besides lugging apples in, that you could actually have something that you're not lugging in and it's a lot less maintenance. So where, I guess where, did you get started with your food plot? You saw that cabbage worked and that you could hold deer in an area.
Speaker 2:Well, after the season there was a lot of deer hung around ate the cabbage and.
Speaker 2:I figured that they really liked it. So the next year I talked to the popes and they said they always threw away a bunch of transplants. So they gave me a bunch and had a little field. I went out and planted the cabbage all evening and fed mosquitoes and three days later the cabbage were gone because the deer ate them, all they, I guess. Just wasn't enough. So the next year I bought a package of Biologic Okay, cabela's, I believe I I got it. That's quite 20 some years ago now, yeah, and remember I planted it too thick and it come up really thick, look good, and then choked itself out. So then I started reading and doing a little more research and the next year I planted the bigger area, done a bit better job and just, uh, continued on from there. But I started out like with a biologic and after that I got looking around, got into more, buying the specific species. I bought kale, turnip rape and then over the years, like this has been a 20-some year process- for me now.
Speaker 2:I've moved on from that to corn. When I leased my ground to a dairy farm, they plant corn and they'll plant an acre for me. So throughout their rotation, every three to four years I'll have corn and when we go out of that rotation I'll go back to soybeans, kale, clovers, chicories, and it's turned into quite an obsession with me over the years. It went from food plotting to trees, apple trees, oaks, and diversified more and more all the time.
Speaker 1:Ways to keep the deer at your property. So do you find it well? I guess, when you're planting the biologic you said it grew so thick that it choked itself out Were you just broadcasting it on? I?
Speaker 2:broadcast it way too thick. Okay, that's why, if it should have been planted on an acre. I probably had it planted on a 20th of an acre and when it first came up it looked good. But a seed, if you plant it too thick, it just choked itself out.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It was just at the time. Inexperience.
Speaker 1:And then with people buying all these food plot stuff, do you find it's easier, instead of buying you know you go there, you get your biologic or rack stack or whatever they're mixed bag? Do you think it's easier to go to your local farm store, your co-op, and buy individual seeds and you mix and match that yourself?
Speaker 2:or every uh, every situation is different for me I like buying my seeds.
Speaker 2:I sell seeds as well, a little bit, so I bring it in bulk. I do it that way because it's a little bit cheaper. Rackstacker is a great project. Biologics probably is a great product too. They've got a lot of different seeds. It's going to do good everywhere. I like what grows. What I've found by past experience grows good at my place Right, and over the years I've had new favorites different time. I like the kales and that. But you need to rotate. If you grow too many years in a row you'll get diseases in the ground and it won't do as good if you grow too many years, I've found I've got insects, so I rotate.
Speaker 1:That breaks the pattern.
Speaker 2:Breaks the pattern and it's better for the soil as well, too, if you grow the same crop year after year after year you'll get diseases, and so anyone that is growing their own deer plots you highly recommend.
Speaker 1:You've got to break it up after every few years.
Speaker 2:Switch out the species, it doesn't hurt well, if it's worked works, don't fix it. Yeah, but I've found like I grew kale and after so many years I I had two years that the bugs cleaned it really yeah, or yeah pretty much and then you rotated it out out.
Speaker 1:You didn't have a problem with the next year's crop. Well, when you go, I've gone to soybeans. Okay.
Speaker 2:And they're good for breaking up the weed cycle as well. Because I buy Roundup Ready, I can spray. Not everybody might like that, but I like being able to spray. You can buy little sprayers that fit on your four-wheeler. Yes.
Speaker 1:Prince's Auto Farm Store down farm store down in maine. You find that that works. It's worked well for me. Yeah, yeah with um. Do you plant now? How are you with planting? You know some guys plant for the winter and stuff the turnips radishes, things like that. Have you found that in our area of new brunswick, canada? Does that work?
Speaker 2:yes, it does work. I really like that well. The turnips are part of my brassica mix. They're an annual so they're putting on lots of mass that year and when I read over that, they're fairly starchy in the summer, not preferred by deer. The deer will usually go to the clovers, the alfalfas your soybeans, but when they get frosted when they get the heavy frost, those starches turn into sugars and the deer hammer it. And.
Speaker 2:I've had great luck. I've found a lot of sheds over the years. I found a matching set one time where a buck was digging up a turnip and when it went up in the plot I could see a horn. And I run up and there's a horn on each side of a buck that I've been picturing for three years.
Speaker 1:Working with. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, that's pretty neat. So you find that works. But they won't. If the leaves are growing and all that in the fall and everything, they're not going to touch them normally until we get a frost.
Speaker 2:They will still browse in the summer in different locations. My place where popes used to grow cabbage when I start growing they knew what it was. It's the same families of the cabbage. I've talked to people that planted it and the deer don't touch it. Don't touch it. They get concerned and then come fall they'll hit it. Some guys have said that if they don't plant a big enough plot it's gone before deer season. It's all deer density. A lot of time like yeah, if you got a lower population you can get away with less. And because I've first time I grew soybeans, I grew an acre and the deer were into it and it was a a great plot. And then seven or eight years later I grew an acre and I didn't have a bean left for deer season. But the population's done well the last few years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I was going to say do you find that's a problem that some people have when they are making their food plots is not big enough? They don't realize how big it needs to be.
Speaker 2:I found that you learn that through experience. Yeah, what works for one person doesn't always work for another. I talked to a fellow one time I sold chicory to. He said he planted two different locations. They hammered at one spot, didn't touch at another and sometimes it's learned. I think the deer learn to eat, to learn that corn. Once they learn what corn is, you can't chase them out of a field, it seems, but I've talked to people that bait with corn and they won't touch it, same as carrots.
Speaker 2:People have brought in carrots and say, oh, the deer won't eat it, yeah, and other guys said they'll go to it before the apple.
Speaker 1:So it's, I think it's learned sometimes but yeah, I've had good tried carrots before and nothing wouldn't touch them.
Speaker 2:I have a spot that if I put apples out, bears take over. I bait with carrots and it works well. Right, yeah, no, that makes sense so different plots, like somewhere back to whether they prefer the brassicas or not. I've had great luck with brassicas. They tend to prefer it after. They'll eat it all year round at my place, but they do eat it harder after the frost and they will dig them up they will dig up turnips through the winter.
Speaker 2:Now eventually, after been froze a few times, by february, march they may be rotten, yeah, but through the depends on the fall. A couple years ago we never had a killing frost till almost the end of deer season and they didn't hit the food plot quite as hard, because of that.
Speaker 1:So you're, you're. If you're planting it and thinking that they're going to hit it, then you, you're kind of taking the risk on, if we don't get that killing frost, they might not find it.
Speaker 2:You know the start, the sugary enough well, they might not prefer it quite as much. They may still be hitting the clovers and alfalfa. So if there's a lot of that in the area as well, right, because they're perennials. So when they get frosted, everything goes back to the root and they die down, and that's when they tend to switch. But this year that stayed warmer.
Speaker 1:I think they were still sticking to the alfalfa clover fields yeah, yeah, no, it's now that you mentioned that thinking about, it's true. Um, so do you find that it's better to plant a variety in one field? Does it complement each other, or whether they can with the?
Speaker 2:I think so you know, I read time. I've read a lot of stuff and I always kind of try to read through my opinion of what the articles is, and one fellow compared it to a buffet. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, if you go to a buffet you just don't eat steak, steak, steak, or you might prefer eating a little more, but you still put a little salad and something else on the side and I think some deer may have slightly different preferences. I the side and I think some deer may have slightly different preferences. I had a food plot one time. I'd thrown in a few handful of oats and I had my kale and breast and I watched one doe and she specifically went around ate the heads off the oats. Yeah, another one. But I think if you have a smorgasbord they're going to stick around longer. When I used to sit on apples only I could almost time the deer. They'd come in at a certain time, eat apples for 15-20 minutes and gone. I find on the plots they'll stay in front of me for over an hour by times they're picking through stay out longer.
Speaker 2:The does tends to be what attracts bucks. Yeah, and so if you have more bucks or does in front of you longer, I hope it increases the odds of a buck chasing do the species compete with each other in any ways?
Speaker 1:Is there something that you just should not plant together?
Speaker 2:you find I think you can plant a lot of stuff together, but soybeans I plant standalone.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Not that they, you can't well, actually, I do grow another crop with them, but throughout the summer, just beans alone where they're round up ready. So I'm spraying them. I plant anything else it would kill them. But in the fall of the year, when the leaves start to brown up, before they drop and the beans ripen, I'll broadcast either uh oats or an annual rye grass and as the leaves fall off, the oats will start coming up through. So you'll have green oats coming up through with your beans. Yeah, and that's worked well for me too.
Speaker 1:So for those that don't know, could you explain the Roundup Ready.
Speaker 2:So Roundup Ready is. Corn can be Roundup Ready. So they are tolerant to glyphosate for the Roundup. So you can till your ground, plant them and when your weeds start to come up you can spray it and it'll kill all your weeds. So you have a clean crop or you'll have a lot of competition.
Speaker 1:And that spray I mean after it hits the ground, I mean it dissipates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gone, it's not lingering.
Speaker 1:The deer aren't going to be sucking all that in and stuff, no, no.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 3:I'm not a scientist, but it depends which train of thought?
Speaker 2:Some say yes, some say no, I'm not concerned.
Speaker 1:Some people are, you're still eating the meat.
Speaker 2:That's my opinion, yeah, and I guess all you have to do is go on Facebook and you'll see all the opinions.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I'm not a scientist, but you're not scared to eat the meat, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:No, not myself no.
Speaker 1:What's some of the equipment that you find handiest for making food plot?
Speaker 2:have you always used tractors or fortunately I grew up on the farm so I've got access to tractors. Tractors make it a lot easier. I've tried a lot of different things over the years. I bought a tiller one time because I have a piece of ground that wasn't close to home and I'd have to go down with the plows, plow it, come home, switch, go down with the disc, disc it and it became was becoming a job. So I thought if I bought a nice tiller I could do it one pass or two passes. Bought the tiller and the ground was way too rocky. For the tractor.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a tiller for the tractor. I bought a six foot tiller. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the ground was too rocky and the tiller couldn't do the job. So I ended up selling the tiller. So my main equipment is the tractor, a set of discs and I got a Brilliant seeder.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:So the Brilliant's kind of a Cadillac for seeding. I got an old one years ago. It's only a four-foot and it's too small for a lot of farms now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But when I first started I was doing it with just dragging the ground up and I had a little hand seeder that you could buy at co-op for $20, broadcast it. I've done pieces when, after I broadcast, hook a pallet onto a four-wheeler, drag it around just through the ground and roll it and had great success. But I've planted plots as big as four or five acres now, so I've gotten bigger. But you don't always need a plot that big. My place, I have a high deer density and a small plot won't make it.
Speaker 2:I have another place to hunt. An acre is all you need, okay, or less than the deer. I could plant an acre of soybeans there and there'd be a ton of food left in the fall, where at my place, the deer would stay ahead of it okay so it's. I say every locations can be different soil types. I say my camp it's too rocky to go in with a tiller. My place, loamy, sandy, no rocks.
Speaker 1:You could till it with just about anything so what's like an easy way just to break the soil up to start planting, because you don't need to completely turn it over. You just need to get some good contact for the germination.
Speaker 2:But it's uh good to stir it up to kill the if uh going into a new piece. Going back to round up, I tend to spray it to kill it down. Break up the sod Makes it easier, but before I hit the sprayer and if you don't want to use Roundup, you can win plow, but you need a set of plows. But if you had a set of discs or just harrows and drag it and then hot weather, give it a few, it in dry out all the roots existing roots.
Speaker 2:That'll kill everything down. Yeah, because if you go and turn it my experience and see that the same day all the grasses that are still going to come up and out compete your existing crop. So say, you went on your lawn, you got nice lush grass and you tilt it all up and then you went in the seeded, it rolled it, that grass is going to come up and out, compete your, your kale and that and you won't have much crop. You pretty well have to kill them with the existing crop there. So if you don't want to do roundup you, I would till the ground for a week or so, like till it. Give it a few days, dry it out, till it again. That'll dry out the roots, kill the excess plants and then come in with what you want to seed.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that makes sense and different crops.
Speaker 2:you plant different time of year. The soybeans you want in the May, early June, if you want to mature and have ripe beans for hunting season Corn, you pretty well need a farm to do it. I've tried to do it on my own. It's too high maintenance, a crop, too much work yeah and back to the corn the farm.
Speaker 2:They grew 30 acres of corn at my place and they'd leave an acre for me and they've done that. It worked so well that when they didn't plant the corn, I said I'm going to plant that an acre of corn by myself, which I did when I didn't have the other 30 acres around me. That one acre was decimated by raccoons, bears and birds before deer season. Yeah, so when there was another 30, 40 acres around me, it kind of spread the damage.
Speaker 1:So that was just another learning curve.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, plant corn by corn and your brassicas, kale and all that.
Speaker 2:I like to plant them mid-July, late July. They tend to mature anywhere from 50 to 80 days.
Speaker 1:That's the brassicas.
Speaker 2:That's the brassicas. I was just on the internet the other night. Rape, turnip and kale all have slightly different maturity dates. You want them kind of mature and ripe for hunting season? Yeah, yeah, uh. You want them kind of mature and rate for hunting season? Yeah, yeah, uh. One time I planted the plot and in the may of the kales, brassicas, keen like you're all excited all winter, you can't wait next year. So I went out may, had a real nice field till it all up, planted it and august I had the most phenomenal crop it's over my knees. By hunting season. The turnip had gone woody and everything was too mature and tough.
Speaker 2:So it was a time like it looked beautiful in August, yeah, but it should have been peaking in October.
Speaker 1:So you were just a bit too early. I was too early.
Speaker 2:So yeah, look at the maturity dates of your crops that you're planting and plant accordingly, so do you plant much.
Speaker 1:Is there anything that you plant over summer that you know is not going to be ready for the fall, but you just have in the summer just to keep the deer there? Or are you not too concerned about that?
Speaker 2:Well, where I at least bunch my ground, they're either growing corn, my meadows and fields that I don't hunt, but they're still. They're well maintained, they're clovers, alfalfas and grasses, which deer love.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I have the advantage of having that around and then I plant. If you read the magazines they talk about your killing plot or whatever. Yeah, where I hunt, that's where I plant the brassicas and stuff, hoping that'll draw them there and hunt the season. That's your killing plot. Well, that's people call it plot, but that's where I hunt, so I guess that cut. I've been planting oak trees, apple trees, and some people will say, well, you got all this ground and you get the deer spread out. Yeah, you'd be hunting here and they might be over at that apple tree. And the way I look at it is, if I have my whole place drawn deer, there's going to draw more bucks from the neighboring areas yeah, yeah, do you find a lot?
Speaker 1:I've seen some pictures and videos and stuff where alongside some people's food plots, they're they're hunting plots, sort of thing. They tend to get a lot of buck scrapes along the edge of it.
Speaker 2:Well, the buck scrapes are. My theory is we're talking scrapes under the branches. Yes, well, that's kind of their calling card. Yeah, and the does will use them as well. Yes, so where you got a lot of does, you're going to draw in more bucks and they're going to leave more calling cards. So I find I do get a lot of scrapes around my food plots because you get more of those and the bucks are checking it out and I find that certain areas, once you find the scrape, they tend to scrape that pretty well, that same spot every year unless something changes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially. I mean you'll see some of those, like you know, tabletop scrapes and I find, yeah, those ones like they tend to be the same area, if I find one when I'm scouting around.
Speaker 2:In the fall, I find one new one. I always mark it and check it out, because I tend to be using it again the next year. But yeah, I find that wherever you get your density like the highest density of those you're going to find more of them, because that's where the bucks are flocking to and they tend to load the best food, and I find that's why they're there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, with, uh, with your food plots as well. Do you check the soil a lot? Do you do any of your tests or anything before you plant?
Speaker 2:Do you just kind of Not as often as I? Probably should, but every three or four years, I will get a sample done.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Your pH is very important.
Speaker 1:That's going to decide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're assessing the ground, because if your soil is too acidic, the plants can't use the fertilizer as efficiently, so you're further ahead to put your money in the lime.
Speaker 1:everybody thinks fertilizer but it might not your, your lime your ph is more important.
Speaker 2:They have that correct at first, and then the plants will get more use out of your fertilizer okay, because the lime helps.
Speaker 1:If you're, if your soil is acidic, it helps more. Neutralize it more.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, yeah, and if your soil is too acidic, the fertilizer isn't going to be as effective and your plants won't perform quite as well so I mean, guys that aren't doing soil tests and doing, you're possibly throwing money away really it's not going to be as efficient yeah, okay anything. Hunting is not throwing your money away is it?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, well, but uh, there are like.
Speaker 2:Over the years I've I uh, ducks and lemons put a little head pond at my place and it was quite gravel and I got looking into it and there are species and stuff that will tolerate more acidic soils too soil. So if you have poor ground there's still crops. You can probably grow like a uh, this, uh. I just drew a blank on the name of the, the white clover, but anyways, it grew well on a gravel bank and deer still liked it might not like as much as soybeans, so there's still options out there there's when?
Speaker 1:when would be you coming back to soybeans again too? When would be a good time to grow soybeans, to plant them?
Speaker 2:Plant them in the May, early June.
Speaker 1:In the May okay.
Speaker 2:Because the leaves. They love the leaves all summer. They're high in protein I believe 18%, 20% protein. And then when they mature like they produce beans all summer and when they start to mature, the leaves will start turning yellowish brown and they're not preferred. The deer will stop pretty much eating them. Yeah, and there'll be a couple weeks while the and then when the beans ripen, they'll love the beans, they'll just come in and just eat the pods right off the plants okay but if you plant it them late in the summer, they'll still eat the beans.
Speaker 2:They'll love the leaves all summer. But if you plant them too late, when, as soon as the frost hits, the plant's dead and there's no beans for them to eat. So if you get them too late, as soon as the frost hits, the plant's dead and there's no beans for them to eat. So if you get them in early, you've got the advantage that they eat beans all summer and then they get the leaves all summer and the beans all winter until they run out. So it's one of the longest windows. Alfalfas and clovers are good all summer and then when the frost hits they're not preferred. Brassicas are preferred after the frost, frost where the beans will eat them all summer and then after the frost, or they'll eat the leaves all summer and after frost they'll eat the beans all winter and I've even had uh partridge out in the beans eating them, sitting, waiting for deer and watching four or five partridges eating around and I'm hoping someday to see turkeys out eating them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that'd be cool.
Speaker 2:Turkeys will eat them as well. I just haven't had turkeys at my place yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd never think to see partridge out kind of grazing away in a food plot, but I mean, I suppose, yeah, that makes sense. So, like you were saying, if you're looking for something that's a bit later in the season, it'd be. You know, your brassicas mix with your kale.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, you can even late fall stuff I haven't even mentioned yet. You can late like September, you can plant winter wheat, oats, annual ryegrass.
Speaker 1:I don't know a lot about all that, but I know oats are really quick growing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're quick establishing. I always throw a little bit of oats into my plots Just to firm up the ground sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Well, it's just another something that deer will eat. You get some oats. They're actually good too. They're quicker to establish and the roots, they're kind of a good nurse crop that their roots grow real quick and there's grubs and stuff in the ground that like to eat tender roots, so they may go to the oat roots and they'll give your other plants a chance to establish it a little bit as well. Okay, and the deer eat it. So I like a smorgasbord, yeah, but and sometimes you got to be careful with seeds. So like oats is a fair size seed, but still it doesn't take a lot of oats to get a lot of plants, yeah. And then when you go to something like turnip, the seed is so, so small. Then when you go to something like turnip, the seed is so, so small, and that's where I get in trouble.
Speaker 2:The first time you're thinking, geez, that doesn't look like I put it on, but take a look at the size of a turnip yeah, they need you only need two turnips on an area the size of a pie plate, yeah, so that's two seed, yeah, and if you put 20 seed in that you know, try to fit 20 turnips on a pie plate. That's why you gotta a little bit goes a long way. Sometimes you think you need more and you just you get it too thick and it doesn't perform quite as well.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so do you mix everything up and plant it at the same time, even where the seeds are such different sizes?
Speaker 2:All the small seed goes through will go through my brilliant seeder, but like the oats wouldn't. So I'll broadcast. You broadcast that I got a little fertilizer spreader. I'll broadcast that I got a little fertilizer spreader. I'll just spread them through it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And just turn it down. So and my soybeans most people plant them with like a planter I put mine in the fertilizer spreader, spread them and tell them in or disc them in and then roll the field.
Speaker 1:You do Okay yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you find that the rolling really helps to get the good soil contact? You need the? Yeah, you need good, uh, you need to get your soil firmed up. If it's too loose there'll be air pockets and that, and roots don't like being dry and so, yeah, that's another experience.
Speaker 2:I had one time I it was a really dry summer and I got a real dry loamy field and I disted this and it was just a powder and even when I was planting the seed, the, the beryllium was almost pushing the soil and I seeded it and I got out and I walked across the field and I drove across it once with a four-wheeler and after we got some rain and stuff, the spots that done the best is where I'd walked and where the four-wheeler had compacted the ground a little bit better. So the soil was a little too loose, the, so the soil is a little too loose. The seed needs good contact with the ground. So if you've got real light, fluffy soil, especially if it's really dry, you might get a light rain. They'll try to germinate and it'll dry out real quick and your plants will dry. It's got that pocket again yeah, you have those pockets.
Speaker 2:But if you compact it you know you don't want to compact it too much but if you roll it and get good compaction your seeds will take off and do much better and hold the ground and hold the moisture better.
Speaker 1:So that okay, so that is recommended then, instead of just kind of yeah, if you just fluff it up and roll the seeds on you.
Speaker 2:Now, a lot of times you're at the mercy of Mother Nature too. Last year I got busy. I didn't get my plot into mid-August and I'm thinking this is most years, would be too late. Be dry wouldn't, wouldn't do well. Well, we got so much rain last year it was one of my better crops. Okay, now, a couple weeks ago, before that hot snap, it's a little bit early playing. If you plant it and it was a little bit light and fluffy and you got dust and rain, your plants germinate and come out that stinking hot 28, 30 degrees they're not going to do they might dry up and you might lose a bunch of it.
Speaker 1:So so do you when you're looking to plant?
Speaker 2:are you looking at the weather and seeing rain coming and be like this is it's usually a race, usually you're putting it off and all of a sudden you see rain and then you're racing dark and racing rain.
Speaker 1:But you want to have it planted just before rain. It's nice to get it before rain.
Speaker 2:It really helps germinate. Well, if you can see that, like, have your bed already seeded and if it doesn't rain for a week, nothing's going to happen it, and if it doesn't rain for a week, nothing's going to happen, yeah, but if you see it's going to rain, and you get it in you get nice rain, that'll get it. If you get rain that, it'll jump right up. So it needs moisture.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah. So do you primarily just hunt over your plots or do you have any that you leave alone and let the deer eat there and not?
Speaker 2:uh, I tend to jump around, I plant them for hunting, yeah, that I don't like pressuring them too much, and I think, like the bucks aren't stupid, they didn't get big, you know, the dumb ones didn't make it, yeah, and I think they're aware of pressure. This is my opinion, but I've found, years ago, when I first started doing this, I'd plant the plot and I'd check it every day just to see how it's doing.
Speaker 2:Couldn't keep out of there and go back and you're back there and always see lots of does and kids and hardly ever. Well, they're hard enough to see to begin with, but I've found that I've gotten better over the years that when I get them planted I try to stay away and I've had more mature bucks and new cameras. The tacticams the ones that send the phone I think have been a bit of a game changer, because when I had cameras I checked them every day. So you're in there, you're putting your scent in there and if a buck can follow a doe by her scent a couple of miles, he can smell you. So now if I get my bait out, I get my camera up. I might not go in for four or five days. There's apples I don't need to go in and I've found I've been the less I go in, the more successful I've been.
Speaker 1:With the plots, with the plots, and that's another thing, I think, why plots work well.
Speaker 2:You've got a big area no scent where, when you're dumping apples every day, you're putting your scent there every day when you drop your apples off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a tighter area. I mean, you're right in there.
Speaker 2:When I used to hunt over apples. I got deer but I didn't see many mature bucks. I sat for years and now our deer population has been better the last few years. But I'm getting more and more sightings and daylight pictures I find the less I go in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with the food plots as well. You see, sometimes they sell that stuff like field edge or whatever and it's that tall, almost like canary grass along the edge. Do you find that that does help the deer? Do you want that? Or if you're planting along thick woods and there's bushes, it doesn't really matter. Matter, but they want that bit of cover as they're coming in I think bucks like to think they're hid okay when I grow the corn.
Speaker 2:I go in with the track because I can't see into it. I go in with the. I don't flatten the whole field, I'll drive. Based on where my stand is, I'll drive, drive, make roads with the tractor, knock the corn down so the deer can come in, feed and they get. And they seem to like being in the cover.
Speaker 2:A lot of the reading I've done is that doe groups do not like, don't mix. So I got one of my food plots. It's three rectangular fields that you can't see. They all quote different angles and it's not a square field, there's a lot of juts and angles. And I've read a lot and I believe in it, that bucks will stay inside the woods and check a field out and if they don't see any does or nothing interesting, they'll stay in the woods and just keep on going. But if you've got different parts of the field that they can't see all at once, that they might cut across to check out a part, another part of the field okay, and I've noticed over the years some of the bucks do will just step across the corner in and out and gone. But but then there was a doe and heat, they might be right on their tail too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not, no, it's not just what you think, though I don't think there's an exact science to it. No, no but you're talking about your experience and it's interesting seeing. So you find that that does help. Do you find the does care as much in your experience hunting about the cover or they're going out there to eat?
Speaker 2:They're going to feed. I think they just come out and feed. Yeah, there are still a lot. If they're nursing, they have to make more milk. They have to expend more energy, they more energy. They have to eat more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the bucks until the rut you find there's they. They like that bit of cover going out into those food plots.
Speaker 2:And yeah, but then there's some bucks you can see like driving around. There's certain bucks that seem to be out in the same fields every night too.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's true, Once the pressure hits but the pressure hits they seem to disappear pretty quick my food plots.
Speaker 2:I've got them. I used to hunt the fields by my house and there's a road Traffic. Go by, stop. They run in the woods. So I went back in the woods. It's not disturbed as much and I find there's a lot more daylight activity where there's nobody bothering them.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So planting along your food plots some of that taller, or having that canary-like grass growing real tall stuff could help. Could help in theory, because they can't look out and see what's in the field.
Speaker 2:So they can step through it to see it.
Speaker 1:And that's when you get to.
Speaker 2:Because if you've got big open hardwoods and they can look from in there and see there's nothing out there, they might just wander on through.
Speaker 1:Oh right, so yeah, so you're thinking it helped bring them in Well, especially in the rut. So in the rut, if they're walking going, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Um, so what's the food? Plot stuff as well, is there anything?
Speaker 2:else that you know we should. You think we missed. I think the better the habitat, the more. Yeah, like I say, I started food plots but then I started the apple trees uh, oak trees, you know the first of all woods like if you got one species spruce, there's nothing for them to eat. That's why I don't mind some select cuts there, because then you get new browse, new regen. So the better the habitat, the more apt they are to go there.
Speaker 1:It's my theory yeah, and then also, too, when planting is just to pay attention to when is it supposed to be planted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes it's just a little bit of luck as much as anything like yeah, you can do everything right and Mother Nature can turn against you, and you can do everything wrong and Mother Nature might give you a little extra rain and save you.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, no, that's true, but the more you do right the better you're at A lot of trial and error.
Speaker 2:Trial and error and I'm still learning, so I'm still making lots of mistakes.
Speaker 1:But definitely you know the soil tests. They're worth it.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, they're worth it. Don't have to. Well, you can do them every year. I do them every three or four years.
Speaker 1:Do you find the soil changes that much between those few years?
Speaker 2:Well, it just doesn't hurt to know. I find my crops.
Speaker 1:I don't always get them done when I should but if my crops are doing well, I don't worry about it as much much. But if all of a sudden things aren't good, that's when I try to see what's going on. But yeah, because I'm sure a lot of guys assume that you know, this is great fertilizer, that they read in the package. Put it out, it's going to work and make it grow and sometimes and some of the stuff doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker 2:like I, I cleared a piece of ground one time, so you know it wasn't great top, so it wasn't. It takes two or three years to get the fertility buildup sometimes, yeah, and then, like new ground, there's crops like we never discussed. Buckwheat, I've never really grown it. Yeah, I don't know much about. It's an older grain crop. They used to make flour out of it. Do deer like it, deer like it, but as soon as the frost hits, it's done.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But it's a good soil builder. If you've got a new piece of ground, you can plow it in. It's like a green manure or rye grass. You can plow it in the ground. It helps build soil structure organic matter in your ground as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it helps with that. Would you spray that and kill it?
Speaker 2:You can just plow it in.
Speaker 1:Plow it in that's it.
Speaker 2:You can spray it, but you can just plow it in as well. I'm not saying spray is the answer, answer there's, that's it's uh, it's a whole other, it's a. Well, it's a quicker fix. Sometimes, just when you you only got so much time to get it done, yeah, but you can just plow it in and disc. It will have the similar results. Just takes a little bit longer.
Speaker 1:That'll add a lot to your soil, a lot of fertility to it and help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, and you said the deer will eat it up until well, uh, yeah, once uh it gets hit with a heavy frost, it it's pretty much done.
Speaker 1:And then with the annual ryegrass, when I don't know much about that either, if you want to talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a really lush grass. You can plant it in the spring and mow it once in a while. You can plant it in the fall. It'll establish pretty quick where it's an annual, and the deer like it right through late fall, winter too.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's one that you can plant, but now, though, it likes a lot of moisture, so on a wet summer it's going to do really well. On a dry summer Not so well, but it's something you can plant in September and have a crop by October for deer. Okay. And oats. Try that.
Speaker 2:Like the later. You are like the brassicas you'd want to get in July, august, early August, early August, the rye grasses, the winter wheats you can get away with in the September, your soybeans, if you want the beans you need in the May, early June, yep. So yeah, a lot of stuff. Even the other day I was just double checking seeding rates. You can Google a lot of this. Uh, even the other day I was just double checking seeding rates. You can google a lot of this stuff. Now, yeah, yeah. But when you're googling make sure you're looking at like northern and your budget.
Speaker 2:Northern areas don't look at the southern states because they have different planting seasons right, just look at what pertains to your area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, okay, yeah, no, that's all, and there's a lot of trial and error.
Speaker 2:Like different ground will grow different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's different soil types and then, like you said, the weather each year will dictate how your crop is.
Speaker 2:The weather will dictate how they do, sometimes too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, it's been good and interesting and. I hope to apply some of what we were talking about today this summer to my food plots itself. So