Take a look at the whitetail institute's products, imperial whitetail clover is a good one to grow. They also have some newer products, with some palatable greens that deer like, Imperial Chicory and other products should help during archery season and early rifle season, depending on your location, that time of year they'll stay close to food sources when bedding down, nothing wrong with having a few patches or a small field, I prefer to plant larger areas, more to graze, but they won't take it to the roots. Deer aren't like grazing animals on farms, they eat and prefer a variety of things, some of which are a nuisance like when they eat crops and the trees in orchards. I've actually seen them more often in an area near my stand that just gets mowed and left with young green grasses and other native plants/weeds etc. than with the clover, but that does not mean much, cause they're mostly nocturnal and the patch does get well grazed.
The imperial clover is a good one, follow exactly what they call for planting, though I think with the rains we've had I could plant from spring to mid august with good results around here, they show preferred times to plant, skipping hot dry summer months late summer is best to get established, weeds are done by then etc. If your soil holds moisture, and you are getting rain often, should be fine to plant, but if it is dry, might not work, correct PH, lime and fertilize, turn it over, disc, prepare the seed bed, cultipack, might want to spray or let what you turned die off, once you establish this clover and take care of it, it will last 5 years or more. To see the actual growth, make a cage out of something and stake it down in the patch, you'll see the grazing effect, the stuff is hearty, no way they could graze off my 70 x 200 swath once established, and even when coming up, it seems to work. I prefer to overseed this, using more than what is called for to really start off with a dense population, clover creates it's own nitrogen, so you don't need to add that, keep it mowed to a certain height, don't cut short, keep the PH right, my first patch of this lasted 4 years before the geese found it, and it provided my first archery kill, there was regular traffic, the darned geese are what will gnaw this stuff to the roots though. If this is a well drained sidehill or shaded area, check what is recommended to plant, they're expensive, but seems to be a good product, I have a bag of seed 3/4 full, about 4 years old and still germinates like when I bought it, it's kind of an enjoyable thing to grow and take care off, will draw some stready traffic, which you seem to have already !
If you look closely, you can see the grazed off tops, just the stem left.
Whitetail Institute
