I worked very hard on my food plots this year with a total of 4 acres of Brassicas, 1/2 acre of clover, 2 3/4 acres of soybeans and 3/4 acre of a mix of oats , winter wheat, rye and Austrian Winter peas. Every thing turned out well except the brassicas, had rain when I planted the brassicas then it dried up and topped off with 2 early frosts in early September and the deer started hitting them as soon as we had frosts cleaning up what growth I had. Was a little concerned with limited deer usage all fall. I didn't over hunt as I was only able to hunt a few Saturdays until the middle of November. Hunted 4 days in the middle of November with a few good bucks spotted but none of them presented a shot with the Bow. My son and brother gun hunted and only saw a couple of deer. The trail cams were showing all night time movement. I was getting discouraged as usually once the surrounding crops are gone I get an influx of deer in to my property which didn't happen this year. I have a few theories on why, one of them is with the warm weather there was lots of natural browse and the alfalfa fields were all green yet the other one I won't get in to. Last Wednesday we got our 1st snow storm. The storm ended Wednesday evening and I went up to check my trailcams on Saturday morning and was greeted with some thing I never expected. There was deer tracks every where. I counted 50 fresh deer beds just walking around the food plots. I didn't even go in the woods. I guess Winter came late. After seeing this all the hard work was worth it. I will be doing some Late Season Bow hunting in the next couple of weeks.
Tom that has to be a great feeling to see all of the deer tracks and know your hard work has paid off. Great Job keep up the good work.
Yep but they got covered up with snow during the storm, readjusted them so I should get some pics the next time I check them.
I agree with your thoughts on plenty of eats for the deer prior to the big storm last week. Plenty of corn unpicked by me yet I still saw quite a few deer in an alfalfa field just showing above the snow next to 40 acres of corn last Sunday. Went pheasant hunting in another corn field I had access to and didn't see as many deer tracks as I would have expected, but again that's only another 60 acres out of 300 acres+ still standing. I was a wiffer, but at least my buddy got one of the birds I pushed his way....
