Elkaddict
Well-Known Member
I use the natural foliage—when we cut the plots out of the woods, we tried to leave the hedge rows untouched.
Food Plot Shape
- Thread starter Prelude8626
- Start date
I use the natural foliage—when we cut the plots out of the woods, we tried to leave the hedge rows untouched.
Prelude8626
Member
That looks awesome!
Triple C
Well-Known Member
Frameworthy pics in those shot Elk! You guys have some beautiful property up there.
Elkaddict
Well-Known Member
Thanks guys. Even with the rectangularish shaped plots, there are pinch points and well defined travel corridors for bowhunting. Our challenge is not where to place a stand but how to deal with our fickle mountain winds. I’m planning on at least one more Redneck this year for bowhunting. Rifle hunting has its own challenges as it’s all but impossible to approach our best travel corridors/pinch points without blowing deer out of the plots given our predominant winds.
Chainsaw
Well-Known Member
Some food plots seem to just plain fit harmoniously into their surroundings. Plots that fit like that are rare yet rarer still are those plots that fit and also have a near perfect not intrusive access. The shape of such plots that fit into their surroundings seldom come near to being rectangular in shape. Rather they are generally longish and follow the ever winding contours of the natural edges of different soils, drainages and resultant plant communities. Those are the shapes that I prefer to use for food plots.
Depending on the purpose of each food plot there are a number of shapes that will work though. The main purposes of food plots for here are;
1. Encourage deer to spend the majority of their daytime hours on this property during hunting season.
2. Provide easily accessible food for the deer during the winter stress periods of Dec. thru Late March/early April.
3. Provide some great stand locations and great daytime rut travel.
Purpose 1 and 3 are accomplished well with the plot described above while purpose # 2 is served well by a rectangular shape provided it borders heavy cover on most sides.
Depending on the purpose of each food plot there are a number of shapes that will work though. The main purposes of food plots for here are;
1. Encourage deer to spend the majority of their daytime hours on this property during hunting season.
2. Provide easily accessible food for the deer during the winter stress periods of Dec. thru Late March/early April.
3. Provide some great stand locations and great daytime rut travel.
Purpose 1 and 3 are accomplished well with the plot described above while purpose # 2 is served well by a rectangular shape provided it borders heavy cover on most sides.
Drycreek
Well-Known Member
The shapes of my plots are dictated by several different criteria on different places. Two places are not mine so I’m limited to openings already there. I don’t find that confining except for stand placement for different winds. Some of them you can only hunt with N or NW winds, others from S or SE winds. We have plenty of variety here, usually one direction for two or three days, then the other for the same. My perfect plot looks like a boomerang or an arrowhead. (Picture the boomerang as the head with a shaft). I had one like that on the place I sold, the boomerang head in IC peas or wheat, the “shaft” in WINA clover. It was a very good plot with tricky winds but a near foolproof entrance.
DocHolladay
Well-Known Member
This is rectangular and I can manipulate the shape with different plants if I want. The plot lays ENE to WNW(or vice versa). I am going to expand it roughly an acre or so this year so i can plant beans and manage to keep some around, instead of the deer eating them to the ground. It is currently in a mix of WW, WR, Oats, AWP, PTT, and RC. I saw more deer in the set up in the pics below, than I have with it just one mix throughout the whole plot. The millet, sorghum, sunflower mix is Wally World bird feed. I think it was $5/bag for a 10lb bag. I mowed strips of the millet/sorghum every couple of weeks during hunting season and ended up with 3.5 strips left by the time turkey season came around. They really hammered on the seeds every time I mowed.
1. Green outline is current plot shape
2. Yellow is the same winter crop I list above.
3. Red is millet, sorghum, sunflower(even though the deer ate them all), ragweed, partridge pea, and some other native browse.
4. Blue is creek
5. Black is a fence
I included a pic without the lines and also a pic of the area I would like to add more plot too.
Here are a few pics from ground level(I have posted them before).
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
1. Green outline is current plot shape
2. Yellow is the same winter crop I list above.
3. Red is millet, sorghum, sunflower(even though the deer ate them all), ragweed, partridge pea, and some other native browse.
4. Blue is creek
5. Black is a fence
I included a pic without the lines and also a pic of the area I would like to add more plot too.
Here are a few pics from ground level(I have posted them before).
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Prelude8626
Member
The pictures are really helping with giving me ideas, especially arial ones that give me a sense on total layout. Keep them coming if you have them. Thanks!
Jack Terpack
Well-Known Member
A good friend used a couple bags of bird seed mix last year on one of his bigger plots. This past summer he spent the entire time trying to get rid of an unreal amount of morning glory's that took over. Deer don't eat morning glory's, or so he tells me. 
jsasker007
Active Member
I am impressed with the tops on that milo! Mine didn't look anything like those do. Please don't show anymore pictures of your crops as they are making me feel bad about what I have grown. Apparently you don't need any advice from me---proof is in the pudding.
DocHolladay
Well-Known Member
A good friend used a couple bags of bird seed mix last year on one of his bigger plots. This past summer he spent the entire time trying to get rid of an unreal amount of morning glory's that took over. Deer don't eat morning glory's, or so he tells me.
The one I used is millet/milo, sorghum, sunflower(needs more), and a little wheat.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Native Hunter
Well-Known Member
When my CREP contract is up, I'm going to build a food plot that is a mile long and 25 feet wide - winding though the NWSG fields and ending up at the point it starts - essentially a circle. By the time they get back to where they started, they will have forgotten where they started and just keep going around in a circle. That way they won't go somewhere else and get shot.
dogghr
Well-Known Member
Go sit down somewhere quite until your glaucoma meds wear off.
Native Hunter
Well-Known Member
I knew I would get you fired up when I come up with a new idea that you hadn't thought of yet................
..............and, that's only a 3.03 acre food plot, even though it is a mile long.
((25 X 5280) / 43560) = 3.03
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Drycreek
Well-Known Member
I knew I would get you fired up when I come up with a new idea that you hadn't thought of yet................
..............and, that's only a 3.03 acre food plot, even though it is a mile long.
((25 X 5280) / 43560) = 3.03
Are there gonna be any random clusters........or just one BIG cluster ?
