hd6gtom

Well-known Member
Seems like that is all we have here. Came by the neighbors picked corn field about dark tonight. About 70 acres. I stopped along the highway and counted 130+ deer in the field cleaning up after the combine. That was only on the side of the hill i could see. Wonder how many were on the other side out of site. No wonder we can't even raise a garden. You guys planting food plots are going to have the same results in a few years.
 
A few years ago I counted over ninety Deer eating in my alfalfa field right when the snow had thawed on the tops of the hills. Anywhere there was any green there was a deer or two.

I do not get the food plot thing, at least in the grain areas of the mid-west. They are on full feed in the crop fields all year long. Why do they need a "plot" to eat????
 
Chisel plowing Tuesday night, the night before deer season, I had about 30 that kept trying to come into the corn stubble. I'd pick up, and head em back into the woods with the tractor, hoping they'd stay long enough for a hunter to find them still in the woods in the morning. After 3 or 4 times, they quit trying to come out into the field. Haven't talked to any of the neighbors to see if it did any good.
 
Deer travel to food your post and others prove that,the point of food plots is to get them where the hunters want them when they can be legally killed.Once the deer clean out a field they'll be gone and seeing deer and actually being able to shoot them is two different things.Also do you allow hunting?Hunters need to get deer to come to places they can hunt.I live in an area with lots of several acre and a house subdivisions lots of deer but no hunting allowed got to get them over to my farm during hunting season to shoot them with food plots.
Here in the East deer will stay in the mountain areas and heavy cover too unless they have a good reason to leave totally different from your area where there is very little wooded type areas,large hills,mountains etc compared to open areas.
 
I hunt where I grew up.
Used to be a lot of small dairy farms there. I can think of about 10 of them that were in our towship then. There is not ONE of them left. The land is fallow. The pastures and fields first went to brush and now trees.
In our area it's usually bucks only with antlerless by lottery only though this year we have hunter's choice - shoot either secks (had to misspell that intentionally to get by the filter here). 3rd time in 25 years. Still only one deer per person.
According to the MN DNR, in the central/NE third of the state where we are only about 35% of licences are filled in any given year.
We put in a couple of deer plots every year. They have increased our kill ratio to just about double that %.
Our deer plots work. And it's a fun thing to do with a couple of old Fords.
 
there's lots of help for you out there, places to hunt are getting scarce. I realize you have to do some screening to find someone that will be safe and look after your property while there. I have access to more then 700 acres of private land, but some times like to travel to different parts of the country just for a change of pace. you might even make some extra money by charging a small trespass fee.......just saying
 
I agree, there are too many deer now. Witness the rise of CWD. Food plots only make the situation worse.

Don't get me wrong, it is great that people want to use a small plot of land, but I do question some of the motives, especially in neighborhoods were the "food plot" goes on for miles and miles...
 
Actually the grain farmers are the ones feeding the deer herds and giving them plenty to live and produce on.Seems you'd be glad some hunters around you would grow a deer plot to draw them in and kill the deer since you want less of them.Deer plots make up only a small fraction of what a deer eats over the course of a year.Deer plots as a whole actually contribute to help lower the number of deer not raise them.And if your farmer neighbor has enough shattered corn to feed a 130 head deer herd for long think he might want to do some adjustments or get a different combine.
 
Coyotes seen to do a better job of keeping the deer population in check than a hunting season. Too many hunters still only want to take a big buck.
 
Some people just need something to belly ach about and deer often fit the need. In the process of griping about deer,it's handy to hold hunters up as a stupid bunch. How stupid are hunters that can't manage to kill a deer when handsome and smart "me" can find herds that can't be ran off? A man and his son asked me to bring my UTV to haul a wild hog out of my neighbor's muddy pasture. The land owner stopped us on the way out and ranted on and on because that was the 3rd hog they had killed. There were times the landowner's index finger was less than 6 inches from the hunter's nose as he preached about allowing hunters "ONE HOG","ONE *#@&%!HOG","and I do mean ONE HOG",as he stoomped cussed some more. Does that sound like a land owner greatful another nuisance hog had been killed or does that sound like an old sorehead proving who's boss? They don't want to be rid of the animals because that would be one less thing to moan and groan about. Some landowners don't know how to make money from hunting because they want tax payer subsidies paid on everything they do with their land.
 
EXACTLY,hd6, that is what I have been preaching for years. And as a retired Wildlife Biologist I think I can speak with some authority. What food plots do is concentrate wildlife in certain areas during hunting season. Depending on what seed is planted, little is left in the plots later in winter when food is scarce. Deer, in particular are omnivores, often subsisting on browse (tree twigs and buds) during hard months. In my area of Virginia, deer can subsist quite well on Japanese honeysuckle. We have illuminated natural controls of deer populations (large carnivores) and man is a very poor replacement.
 
I still think that no one should be able to shoot a buck with out taking a doe first. Here we are in a "Mule Deer Management"area. I am seeing every bit as many Mule Deer as I am Whitetails. Even seeing Mule Deer bucks in with a group of Whitetail does, which really surprises me. I love to watch deer, but if we don't control the population EHD or Blue Tongue will come in and wipe them out.
Around here there are so many road hunters, I refuse to allow anyone to hunt, which is sad, because the deer population is exploding. If you want to hunt, come talk to me, respectfully, politely and don't look like a slob!!
 
I have hunted (archery season) since October 1 and have not seen a deer while hunting. To top it off, the place I hunt is clearing off all the woods. That puts the deer in the neighbor's woods and they don't allow any hunters. But they also complain the loudest about deer destroying crops. I would like to find another place to hunt but nothing found yet. (Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky area)

I like to put a doe or possibly 2 in the freezer each year. If a buck is shot, another buck will take care of his harem and population continues to grow. Take out a doe and over the next 10 years that will impact the population more.
 
Deer are not omnivores as they are herbivores. Omnivores eat just about anything that does not kill them. Dogs, pigs, coons and humans are omnivores and cows, deer and sheep are herbivores.
 
Steamboat, you say you are a retired wildlife biologist from Va. Did you work for VDGIF? If so, did you work with Jerry Sims? He's my neighbor!
 
That land "owner" sounds like a true class A one a hole of a person. What a jerk. Maybe the hogs can dig up his field enough so he breaks a hip after falling in. Needs a broken jaw but sad you can't do that anymore. Stupid laws make it easy for idiots to breed. Just my little rant.
 
If you need another hunter over your way I'd be interested. I've been hunting most nights since October first and have only got one little doe.
 
Not the same thing. Bait piles usually consist of candy(corn,apples,ect),most food plots are actually nutritious. Many jurisdictions alow both.
 

You're baiting animals in with something unusual that doesn't exist in nature and isn't part of an agricultural enterprise. That's bait, same as a salt lick.
 

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