Hunting Food Plots - Strategy and common sense

[Stressless]

This is primarily a bowhunting thread to toss around ideas on plans and observations, as well as discuss the best ways (mature buck focus) to utilize an area of forage created and maintained with the primary focus on attracting deer. Figureed this is something we can chew on, instead of family or others while we wait for this crisis to pass.

I'll drop this here as a primer for the conversation. Please watch and add thoughts etc. I like Jeff's approach to his Video Blogs, no sales, no asinine music or hype. Just wholesale straight forward views on deer behaviors, primarily mature bucks, and his opinion on how to connect the various dots.

I've hunted the farm for close to 25 years. Here's the progression and environment.

Progression:

1993-1996 No (zero) food plots, mature timber, large pasture bordering the South (125 acres). Surrounded on three sides by 1500 acres mature timber and areas of thick greenbrier under-story.
1996-2003 75-80% clearcut - stump suckers, mutli-flora, xx Olives, grapevinetoo thick to walk through without a heavy artillery barrage immedialty before walking
2003-2013 mixed canopy started reaching over the mutli-flora, xx Olives, grapevine etc and create enough shade to kill off the thick understory.
2013-2016 Standing poles and high canopy, mutli-flora, xx Olives, grapevine etc diyng out wholesale noticed a lack of availble food
2016-2018 created 8 Food Plots 5.5 acres of 100 acres, to supplement late summer/fall/winter green succulent browse

The cover and forest forage went from this ... more then could be eaten brush browse...

To this - just off the same hill... sunlight blocked understory, concentrated forage in the 5.5 acres.

So I love seeing deer while hunting, but am now trying to target mature bucks, I fell into the trap of setting up stands within bowshot of food plots, 2016-current - and have seen over the last few years most of the bigger buck movement isn't on the food plot itself but adjacent, within 150-300 yards where the bigger bucks move in daylight.

I have also noticed that 100% of my stands that are on by Food Plots, within 25 yards - there is no way to enter the stand without bumping deer off in the AM.

I had colocated my three feeders to food plots, which increased the usage but also increased the number of deer I bumped. I am working on resetting 50% of my stands to the travel corridors and edges of bedding areas to increase the opportunity of bagging a mature buck while minimizing the distrubance i.e., use of stands on food plots. This is in accordance with what I have found true in the woods on my place and 100% agreement with Jeff in his video blog points.

 

[Creamer]

I love Sturgis and his content. Like you say, no BS, straight forward. His public land videos helped me a lot this past year.

As for food plots, I know a guy who has become largely sucked into hunting the plots. And there's good reason, he sees a lot of deer...but like you said, you also tend to bump deer and being surrounded by deer you're more likely (IMO) to get busted/winded. He kills a lot of deer on plots, he sees a lot of deer on plots, but he's not killing many of the mature bucks on his place on plots. Obviously it can happen, but I think he'd have a lot better results if he could pinpoint where the bucks are bedding and try to intercept them on travel routes in/out outside of the rut. I'm in a different position, personally, because I'm not hunting around plots when I'm hunting public ground (or even the two pieces of private I can access). I'm focusing more on pinches and funnels in travel corridors between bed and food, or between bedding areas in the rut, that are created by topography and terrain. Focusing on those pinpoint little funnel areas helps me get deer in stick bow range a lot. I don't care if I see fewer deer, I want the higher probability of killing the deer I see. On public, I'm also paying a lot more attention to entry/exit, trying to focus more on areas I can access and leave and disturb as little as possible. That usually means more effort, but I think the payoff is worth the effort.

 

[Stressless]

Well, Jeff does a great segment on "why and how", food plot and hunting plots as opposed to the "don't hunt the plot".

- not the destination a pass thru on the way to main feed
- not in the bedding area

Love the content with -zero- hype.