crs740

I agree with Doc, they are great if you give the deer time to get used to them, but typically not the best when thrown up over night unless you are hunting turkeys. They don't care about ground blinds. It can work if you can set it up in picked corn so that it belnds in really well.

No doubt there were a lot of deer still taken and there were a few days during the week I wish I could have hunted that were better than the weekends and thanksgiving holiday. Still, it has been much warmer than last year and my processor told me that he has seen a lot fewer big bucks (130"+) than usual. I guess there will just be more big deer next year, right??

What really has made me a little upset about this year has been the wind. We have hardly had any north wind days at all. That si typcially the predominant wind as you move into november. I have not been able to hunt some of my best locations because I set up stands for west or north winds. I am going to evenly distrubute my stands this summer so that will not happen again. Additionally, it has been quite warm, much more so than last year. That has really shut down the movement

I hunt 7F and 7H and it has been the same for me. The deer move super late if they move at all during the day. The land I hunt in 7H has a ton of deer, but they guys that hunt it have seen one good buck and it ran over to the neighbors property on the weds before thanksgiving. I hunted Thansgiving morning and heard a shot on the niehgbors land at 6:30 ( talk about too EARLy!) we are pretty certain it was the big boy. The rest of the weekend produced quite a few does sightings, but I only saw 3 bucks over 4 days and they were all dinks. Hopefully the cooler weather gets them moving, it has been pretty damn depressing to say the least.

How much sunlight do you get by the swamp? The first thing you need to do is get your soil tested to figure out what the pH is and how much lime you are going to need to get it into the 6s. The powerline area sounds like a great place for a plot. I would suggest that you eventually have that area split into 3 sections. One would be clover (this will last 3-5 years if you fertilize and spray for weeds/grasses), second an annual planting of winter rye/red clover/forage radish/oats, finally a thrid section of brassicas (rape/turnips/radish). The rye mix and brassicas can be swapped for three years where you would then till under the clover and plant white clover instead of red clvoer. This ares would provide year round food for your deer and turkey and would not be that expensive to plant. I planted Whitetail Institute no plow with some winter rye in an area by my apple orchard and it worked out great. There were 7-8 scrapes within an area of about a 1/2 acre. Check out this website and read dbltree's corner for some great info to get you started. http://iowawhitetail.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=45

I am using the federal 3" 5/8 oz loads. I would have used accutips but they are harder to find than a hen's tooth right now

Sounds like you have a great layout hb270. I expect that over the next few years the population should increase significantly since we have so much more food for them. I am also planning on doing quite a bit of hinge cutting this winter to allow more sunlight to the ground in some areas that are too open. I hope that this will eventually create some real thick areas that deer will use for bedding. Additionally, i plan on doing some cutting around field edges to create funnels for entrys into the fields. This way deer will be forced to go where I want them rather than entering the field where ever they want to. it is a work in progress, but it is just about as fun as hunting.

Yeah, it is my understanding now that brassicas need around 100 lbs of nitrogen. My plan from hear on out is to have my plot split into three section, once section of clover, one of a winter rye/radish/clover mix and one section in brassicas. The winter rye mix will be rotated for 3 years with the brassica mix and less nitrogen will needed because the clover will be fixing N. After 3 years plow under the clvoer plot and replant tham all.

Ford, how much and what mix of fertilizer did you put down?

Both spots where the brassicas are located are surrounded by cover. One field is ~2 acres that is split half with clover/chicory (which has been hit good) and brassicas/oats. The other is in a corner right by an apple orchard, where there was an insane apple crop this year. Unfortunately, south winds have kept me out of there and my trail cameras has shown some decent bucks in there. We will see what happens late season, but at least the deer have plenty to eat and hoepfully some of their freinds find the new buffet for next year

I hunt in Madison County and we have some spots where you can reach out to 250-300 yards. So i use my 300 Ultra Mag, the deer never go more than 10 yards and typically 1 yard straight down with this beast.

Good, I'm glad someone commented.

I am going to give brassicas a try again next year. I should have put them in at the end of July rather than mid august. Since this is the first year, the deer have not really hit them that hard. I believe if you have a perennial plot and annual plots and continue to have them year after year deer will get accustomed to coming to them more often. My problem now is all the corn left in the field after it was picked a couple weeks ago. the farmer has some really old equipment that leaves about half the corn in the field. The deer are hitting that hard right now rather than my foodplots

Has anybody used one of these hunting yet? My dad and I bought these this year and have been impressed at the range with 3 shot groups around 1" to 1.5" at 100 yards. I had an 11-87 but the accuracy was questionable at best. I am looking forward to using this and certainly feel comfortable shooting out to 150 to 175 with it.

I wish it was going to be cooler and North winds. these south winds are really pissing me off because the manority of my best stands are setup for a north/west wind. We do deer drives at the place I am going for opener, so the wind does not really matter until you sit for the evening hunt. Maybe a biggun will be pushed to me like 3 years ago