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FoodPlots v/s Bedding Areas

9K views 47 replies 17 participants last post by  slug gun sniper 
#1 ·
I did a 10 year experiment on food plots. I section off 10 acres and planted everything from clover to winter peas, with 17 trail-cameras over looking each plot. The results were. Most deer inter the field at dark and produced no more deer than what I started off with 10 years ago and the racks remained average size.
Nine miles alway, I took a small 70 acre farm and put in 5 different bedding areas, 2 for bucks and 3 for does and the results were outstanding. I went from seeing very few deer to 30+ to 70+ deer any given day.
Last winter i helped a friend put a bedding area in on his 250 acre farm, which was mostly field with a long tree line and it has already produced more deer this year than he has ever seen before.
Six Years ago, i helped my brother-in-law put in a couple of bedding areas on his 50 wooded acres and it has produced trophy size bucks ever since.
I find it's less costly to put in bedding areas with better results, than to put in food plots. But that is only my opinion and what i observed over many years.
 
#5 ·
What did you plant/do to improve bedding?
It is very simple and fun to do with a little hard work in volved.
Bucks perfer to bed in area with down trees where they can see out but you can't see in with escape routes from all sides.
I took one area next to the field and put the bucks bedding area in. I dropped a couple of large trees to the ground and hinge cut the smaller ones.
The other bucks bedding area i put in was on the bottom side of a hill using the same process. I do this during winter months.
Does perfer to bed in thickets, shrubbery and tall weeds or grasses about 3 to 4 feet tall.
I put two of my does bedding areas next to my bucks bedding area and the only thing seperating them is a small 60" grasses path that i put in, only cutting it once a year.
A does bedding area is simple, you can make it as wide or long as you want. I put down lime and fertilizer and till it in during early spring and than drag it. No need for planting, nature will take it's course.
 
#6 ·
Hunterdan - I have to agree. I jumped into habitat management and I realized O made a mistake. There is alot of push for foodplots - that's because there is money in it. I implemented some CRP and jumped into foodplot full bore. The problem with my crp is that it doesn't get tall (only 3 feet or so). We saw more deer but they where still bedding off of the property. I since set up sanctuary areas where we promote thicker cover and I am now going back and adding the taller NWSG to the crp areas. I am also hinging and dropping "junk" trees as well. I am starting in one area and if all goes well then expand the idea. I am lacking cover - and bedding cover at that. My land is mostly corn and bean field so food wasn't lacking, and the clover has helped. The other thing is that if the cover is thick the deer can't see you either and as such I think we are not revealing all of our activity.
 
#7 ·
I see a trend here!;) You need to go back to wildlife needs..........

Food

Water

Cover

Space

Arrangement

Now someone has decided Cover and Arrangement is important.

Read cover as "Bedding area"

Arrangement.......... make bedding area in center of your property, "arrange" other 4 elements around the core area....

NEVER hunt the bedding area............
 
#10 ·
I have read some articles saying to get as close to bedding areas as you can without disturbing them.

http://www.americanhunter.org/m-articlepage.aspx?id=3906&cid=47

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My one stand is set up 20 yards from the bucks bedding and 15 yards from the does bedding area. I stay a way from that area until hunting season is in. There are times when going to my stand that i'll push deer out of the bedding area and some will stay put, but they'll return with in a hour or so.
I'll see does and bucks in and out of their bedding area all day long and never a boring moment well deer hunting and one of the best times to observe deers behavior.
 
#11 ·
Me and the wife took a drive out to the farm and counted 23 deer in are small field. 7 of them were bucks. This was during mid-afternoon, yesterday.
It goes to show, if you have plenty of bedding areas on your property, there is know reason for deer to leave it.
Deer are natural browser, they will browse mostly within and near their bedding areas.
 
#12 ·
Wierd I am seeing different results! I actually have more deer than previous year! I think that the reason is the fields about me are covered in field corn. Deer don't eat corn unless it has an ear on it! I think it has to do with sharp leaves that iratate the lining of their stomach! Any ways! I planted austrian winter peas, oats and several kinds of clover. The oats are brown now! Songbirds are usually th plot alot this year to consume oat seeds. The clover and peas look like certain spots were ate. It is hard to tell because we have so much food available in the area and very little deer. I think the maximum number of deer after this previous hunting season was 5 or 6 deer! All does! I don't know if any got bred! My apples are nice size and are doing an early drop from too much wind and rain! That is good food for wildlife! They deer concentrated on eating half of my american hazelnut shrubs! I will never get any hazelnuts off these! Those deer love them! The only reason why they haven't touch my chestnut trees this year is liquid deer repellant sprayed on them.
 
#13 ·
Habitat improvements should always take into consideration food, cover, water and the arrangement of those things. A habitat is limited in it's ability to hold wildlife based on the least available of those three things I mentioned. In IN we are fairly blessed with various water sources (until last years drought), but the amount fo food and cover available depend on your location. Also consider the year round needs as well as they change based on the seasons. Deer need areas to stay cool in the summer and places to stay warm in the winter. The need areas for fawning and areas where they can browse. Consider what is is available once the corn and soybeans are harvested or in the early spring before things start to green up. Providing a well balanced habitat will ensure that you will have deer. Leave areas of safety for the deer and hunt smart and your property will actually attract deer from your neighbors.
 
#14 ·
I bought about 10 Arrowwood Viburnums and 10 American Cranberrybush Viburnums after seeing the success of planting just one of each in my yard. The birds ate all the berries up before June last year. There was no insects because of early spring and the drought. The deer ate the leaves come time September arrived.

I also experimented this year with American Plum and American Elderberry. My goal is to attract wild turkey! I really don't have a problem with deer not showing up! They just show up during the evening when I am in bed.

I have increased the number and frequency of wild turkey coming into my yard during spring and summer. I have very few soft or hard mast trees. The red oak only produces several acorns every 5 years. I am glad to plant 10 chinese chestnuts! They are already blooming at age 3 although one plant had one female flower.
 
#15 ·
Cover is definitely important and so is food. A good food plot in the right location can't be beat in the fall for its ability to draw bucks to the are who are looking for does. The woods surrounding our food plot are mature and get pretty wide open when the leaves are off. However, there are some natural bedding areas that deer use regardless based on the geography of the property. Last year we saw more total deer on the property than ever before because we provided the food when there was no Ag fields remaining. We all know how much bucks will travel during the rut regardless of how tight they hold to their core areas during the rest of the year.

The property's inability to hold deer is made up for its attractiveness during the fall and especially during the rut when the bucks are wondering far and wide looking for does. We saw bucks that we never saw before and the key is that we were seeing them when it was time to hunt not during the summer. It really is a give and a take when managing the land because the ability to hold deer can be trumped by a bucks' willingness to leave the property to search for does in estrous.

One more thing that I find interesting and that I firmly believe in is that during the course of the year the thicker and more dense a property is the greater density of mature bucks it can hold especially during the rut. I believe this holds true because mature bucks cant stand being around each other during the rut and will run other bucks off. If you have the ability to make your property thick enough to allow more mature bucks to be there without being able to tell that they are in close proximity to one another I believe that that property will hold more mature bucks.
 
#16 ·
I am starting to see the fruits of my labor! My vegetable garden that my parents are in charge of is not being touched by deer. I planted Evolved Harvest 7 card stud mixed with soybeans and they are actually eating some of it! Plus they are using my forage soybean, ebony cowpea, and lablab small plot even though I didn't spray for weeds. The weeds are growing fast and keep the beans from being tae too soon! I hear deer also eat what we call weed plants like what I have in my garden:

I have Lamb's quarter, Velvet Leaf, Jimsonweed, Morning Glory, Johnson Grass, Daisy Feabane, violet, english plantain, ground ivy, indian strawberry, chickweed, and sticktights has weeds! I have seen those nibbled some! I have huge numbers of many kinds of bees pollinated my clover and vegetable garden compared to last year. Unfortunately I am seeing these fruits of my labor because my parents free roaming cats are bring up dead specimans has prove! Huge numbers of dead shrew, moles, gray and fox squirrels, chipmunk, and one female long-tailed weasel!! They haven't caught the rabbits yet! I have drawn in a pair of rabbits every year! They end up breeding and have babies put the cats find them and eat them! I have been trying to talk my parents into trapping the cats and taking them to the local animal shelter but they told me the animals shelter won't take animals for free! You have to pay them money (Sorta of forced donation) to take them off your hands!
 
#17 ·
I will gaurantee your mature buck sightings will go up if you get off the field edges and food plots and hunt bedding. It all depends on what your goals are. I only hunt properties that I know have buck bedding on them or adjacent to them, no matter how small. They have to be there to kill them. You can always wait til rut and hope one wanders by.
 
#18 ·
I will gaurantee your mature buck sightings will go up if you get off the field edges and food plots and hunt bedding.

I agree 100%. Your chances are greater for a mature buck, hunting bedding areas than hunting a food plot.
The truth is, most hunter don't understand what to look for when it comes to bucks and does bedding areas. But once they see what a true hardcore buck or bucks and does bedding area looks like, they'll never forget.
 
#19 ·
I will add that if your hunting buck bedding instead of food sources your overall deer sightings will likely go down. And if you only have 1 or 2 properties to hunt, hunting close to bedding may do more harm than good if you plan on hunting that property all season long. I personally only typically hunt properties 1 or 2 times a year (sometimes not at all) and go in with the intention of killing the buck I'm after on each sit. So I therefore know I'm burning a bridge if I don't kill on that specific hunt, but that's fine, I just move on to the next place/bed. I don't own prime deer hunting ground and I don't get to go as much as I would like, so I'm more aggressive than alot of people are willing to be. And yes I do see a few nice bucks almost every year that I have gotten too close to and spooked. While that stinks, it also lets me know that the bed is still being used.
 
#20 ·
I look at it this way - if you want to see more deer then you need to be able to see more ground (open areas like field edges, food pltos and open woods). If you want to see mature deer then you need to hunt where your visibility is much more reduced (thicker cover). These mature deer have become so by staying away from the more exposed area. Yes the rut will find a huge buck standing in the wide open with a doe but for the vast majority of the season that isn't the case.
 
#21 ·
Yeah I just got into a heated debate this morning during lunch with a co-worker who hunts. I told him I planted a bunch of wheat, oats, turnips, radishes, and soybeans for wildlife food particularly deer, turkey and rabbit. He said I had to remove the food plots a month before you hunt on them or the conservation officer can fine and arrest you or baiting deer. I am not sure why he said that. I think he was referring to mineral blocks, feeders with feed etc. I had one DNR biologist tell me it was legal to hunt over a field of foodplots has long has they are live plants and are food for the animals.
 
#23 ·
A CO also told me you can't mow the food plot down to scatter the seeds. An example would be sunflowers, corn, or grains. You can harvest the crop and hint over the left overs or leave to crops standing. They put out bulletins about this last year with all the farmers mowing down their crops because of the drought. Another way to look at it is, you can hunt in an apple orchard but you can bring apples with you.

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#24 ·
That is true. You are not allowed to manipulate a crop in an effort to provide food for wildlife onsumption beyond that of a traditional agricultural practice. If you plant it that's fine. If you harvest it that is fine. If you leave it stand - that is fine. You can not mow corn or soybeans. You can not take anything to the field for the intent of the wildlfie to consume. Yes - that apple core could be considered baiting!Now the tricky part comes in. This also varies depending on the game you are after - I think (not certain ) doves are different. The Officer is to make the determination if what you are doing is illeagally assisting in the harvest of the animal. I say this because you can not legally hunt a trail that leads to a salt block as the salt block is bait and you are using it to assist in the taking of the game. I have NEVER seen it published ANYWHERE where the state has defined ANY sort of regulation about this other than it is up to the officers judgement. They have not listed a particular distance or anything of the sort. What kills me is that baiting is illeagal, yet the shelves at wal-mart are stocked to the gills with it in september and then bare come gun season. I amazes me how lazy people can get and then turn around and pound on their chest and proclaim how great a deer hunter they are.
 
#25 ·
I was wondering why they had all that powdered deer attractant available from July through the ned of the hunting season. If it is illegal to put out that stuff while hunting why sell it during the hunting season. I just have a trophy rock on my property! The rest are planted fields of clover, oats, wheat, turnips, daikon radish, lab lab, forage soybeans, ebony cowpeas, and they are surrounded by two small apple orchards and a perismmon orchard! I guess the only thing that needs removed is the trophy rock if I hunt this year!

What do you do if the salt is already dissolved off the trophy rock into the ground. The deer will lick the soil with the salt in the ground.

Is the area off limits to hunting then?
 
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