Recent content by Foragefarmer

Chainsaw Junky

I feel very fortunate. I had an 11 pt. on my property; that was the deer I was chasing, that was this class of deer. It was killed on a neighboring property a couple of weeks ago and I thought my chance at a really nice buck was gone for this year.

Life has been hindering my hunting time, my everything time for that matter. Well yesterday I was invited to hunt a very large managed property. The owner rabbit hunts my property after deer season. I got dropped off on an old logging road overlooking a valley with a secondary draw feeding up...

Brassicas have been getting lots of attention.

One

Hunting the brassicas.

My brassica plot is on a modest incline down to a creek and the brassicas are lush and tall at the top but are stunted at the bottom where they have basically grown in standing water. Usually it is the other way around due to lack of rain. We hit our average yearly rainfall mark back in Aug.. It...

Gonna put these picks up here as well for the record. 145 lbs. dressed, jaw bone says 4.5. Hopefully no confirmation bias in that assessment.

I am guessing this deer was 4.5. The weight is greater than a 3.5 yo which seem to average 170-175 on my place. I'll pull he jaw bone and try my hand at that it has been awhile. Like the surprise buck. Harvest a nice one and the 13 pt. and big 8 I have been hunting are maybe still running...

I have no idea what buck this is. I never saw him in the fields during the summer and no trail cam pics. Hunting an east wind in a creek bottom on the edge of a bedding thicket and a field. 5 does came out of the thicket early with 3 feeding towards my brassica plot 400 yards to the north. It...

Got one, but not on my farm. I have hunted a farm 10 mins. away for about 10 years now. It gets pressured by the neighbors running their dogs across it. A pack was running tonight and it is bow season and a month till it is legal to run dogs. They get tickets and don't care, it's the price of...

I have made my system simple by going to notill and mostly planting things that my cattle will get to eat as well at some point. Some days I miss my alfalfa field but I don't miss managing it.

If oats are not working for you in your food plot system ditch them and plant what works. Turnips don't work for me so they are not in my brassica plantings anymore. But for others, don't count oats out either. When I have planted oats on my place I have had good utilization. YMMV always.

I think I should add that I planted RR beans partly to address a persistent wire grass issue. That seems to have worked out. Also I have interseeded with rape and radish to make up for the lack of beans. That went well also. I have had zero luck with turnips so I don't bother anymore.

The deer only let them get knee high or so.