Berniez

It all depends on the local food supply. This year there is so much food in the woods the deer really won't need to hit the corn hard until real cold and snow blankets the area. I've had corn left alone until November to January. One year they cleaned a 2 acre field before the gun season. General rule is once the weather gets cold the deer start to move and standing corn offers both security and a food source.

Plots are rarely 100% anything but yours looks good. Its a little late in the year as most herbicides need actively growing weeds. You can wait and spray in the early spring. Go to your ag store and ask about Poast Herbicide. Poast (sethoxydim is the generic name.) will not harm clover but I have no idea about the chicory (I doubt if any approval for chicory was ever tested or asked for. It's approved for a bunch of leafy vegetables so it may be ok) Follow directions and ask for help. This kills grasses/small grains/foxtail etc Alternative- If you keep clover mowed (under 6 inches) you can mechanically prevent the grasses from taking over quickly.....poast will make for a really pure stand......but do you need a pure stand? As for trees??? If you have high deer concentration you need to protect the saplings from deer, rabbit and mice damage, Over the years I have planted over 600 trees of various types and lost over 500 to critters some as long 8 years after planting. Good luck

If there is some sun many types of clover can stand being drowned for a week or 2 If there is no sun....I have no idea.

My wife had a problem hunting for something in the fridge must less hunting in the woods. I know 4 couples whose wives have hunted with them. My neighbor and his wife are hunters (deer). She is not afraid to get her hands dirty. Last year we won a NRA auction for an African Safari-2 shooters 2 non-shooters. My son and I went as the non-shooters and those two killed their way through the vedlt, We had a great time and she made her kills with 1 shot out to 200 yards. As we grow older and I like to think wiser...she has transformed from sitting next to a tree to inside a shooting shack.( yeah its heated too) Since the stand is about 800 yards and within sight of my barn.....For her birthday I put in a directional antenna and her stand now has wi-fi. She loves it and told her husband to find another stand. She can hunt and keep in touch with the grandkids and the net. Sometimes we have to make adjustments for the modern world. IF you can get your wife to hunt do it, unless you can;t take the ribbing when she gets the bigger buck .

Everybody likes ice cream but it comes in different flavors because of taste...the same with hunting. Hunting as a sport is slowly dying and you are complaining just because somebody does not do it like you? Come on!!!! The sport is big enough to take all comers no matter how silly we think their "thing is". Just get them out into the woods hunting. We are just one generation away from losing this great sport to the anti-everythings that want to control all of us. He is in the woods and wants to hunt the way he wants. He is not telling you how to hunt or implements to use and thats a good thing. We evolve and so will his hunting ideas........ Welcome the guy!

landtracdeerhunter We always considered buckwheat honey, the lowest of grades, being tough to get rid of. Use to sell over a ton of honey every year. ​Its all a matter of perspective: Eastern Europeans and Greeks consider buckwheat honey superior to the mild flavored clover honey and pay a premium for it.. (I used to raise bees and still have a few hives), Buckwheat honey is an acquired taste but makes for some great desert crusts (Greek Baklava) in pies and cakes (the famed Polish Honey cake.) Buckwheat is gluten free and when ground is called kasha Deer eat buckwheat especially when it first grows. It is very easy to grow, crowds out weeds, makes for a great green manure when plowed under. The first frost kills it and after a heavy frost it breaks the plant down completely offering zero cover.. If your just going to throw it in a mixed plot......try it and tell us how it goes.

First start planting food plots. Start with perennials (clover/alfalfa/vetches and then plant your annuals. Do NOT plant any type of fescue or real grass that is just a waste of money (Deer do not eat grass no matter what you think). Once you establish the BROAD LEAFS watch how your animals approach the fields and then start your trails, Base them on their movements not where you think they want to go. Many small 2-4 acre plots seem to attract more deer than a few large ones. (Easier to hunt and gives you more hunting options too) Careful once you start this planting it becomes addictive and then its the equipment you start collecting instead of the rifles (I am looking for a no till planter instead of the 6.5 x 284 ) LOL its fun and good luck

My screen name is BernieZ and I would like to introduce myself to the forum. Growing up in New Jersey I started to hunt in high school have been ever since. Two years after I graduated college I purchased 90 acres in Otsego county. Kids and life put my habitat improvement plan on hold until they grew up and got married. In 2004 I left NJ and moved up to the farm. I still work full time from the house and still managed to farm the place...trying every latest and greatest wacky food plot craze, Most of the latest and greatest food plot miracles do not work everyplace. It seems that local conditions (other food sources available) dictate what works.(This fall I am trying radishes and oats...results yet to be determined). . I even got my neighbors into letting me open fields on their properties. With a total of close to 900 acres to play with in 5 years we went from Spikes to lots of 8 pts with 20 inch spreads. It also increases small game (my particular favorite). ......I spend a lot of time just enjoying the place as hunting has taken 2nd place to improving the habitat. I am going to retire in 18 months or get fired (whichever comes first) and spend time playing with various habitat improvements. I use to teach at the college level and still love to learn myself so if you have questions on habitat that works (at least) in central NY,,,,,,,just ask. I am not afraid to put in my 2 cents worth in either. Everybody have a great fall hunting season. berniez

You got to hit what you aim at, Both calibers kill swiftly if you hit the right spot. So shot placement is the biggest factor. Shoot both calibers and decide what you like best. With any luck you will not be limited to one rifle in your life so start with a rifle you can hit what you aim at.

At noon while resting from a unsuccessful morning----9 toms decided to run past me. Dropped one in its tracks. The other gave the Boykin Spaniel a spirited romp through the soybeans winding up in a dense thicket. (Woods are still green and thick. The few small frosts have done little open up the underbrush.) Better to be lucky than good and Saturday duck opens......October in NY can it get any better?????

Corgis's make nice snacks for a coyote. Neighbors have had cats and dogs snatched from their porches during all hours of the day or night. I've had them (and bobcats) take chickens within 15 feet of the barn at noon. While I really don't fear they would normally attack me......be absolutely certain, if given the chance,they will take your dog while you were standing there. Coyotes just like to eat and find your pets are delightfully easy and simple to place on their menu. Around my farm they take immense pleasure in somehow knowing if I have a firearm or not. The not is when they really enjoy making themselves visible and seemingly enjoy my verbal diatribes about their lineage. .. ALWAYS Carry! (BTW Rabies in NY usually comes in 2 forms commonly called Furious and Dumb. Furious is a snarling snapping animal. The second is a slow moving or just sitting creature that seemingly ignores what you do until you get close and then any peripheral (to them) movement triggers an attack. Fortunately in NY most cases are of the dumb kind and its easy to avoid confrontation. The furious ones always make the paper with the "Crazed fox attacks Grandmother while hanging Laundry" headlines. If the animal doesn't run away when confronted its best you SLOWLY back away avoiding the confrontation.......Or pull the Mossberg from behind the tractor seat thus ending the need for diagnosing furious versus dumb. Coyotes still know their place and you are safe.

Wildcat- I am almost retired and now work out of my farm for a software developer on Electronic Health Records. I wanted to be a porno film star or a wildlife biologist but decided not to go into the film business and was told by Rutgers that I wasn’t smart enough to transfer to Rutgers to become a biologist. By sheer serendipity my dorm friend told me to talk to the Dean of the Pharmacy School. I did and managed to get accepted to pharmacy school. Surprisingly, I found out I have a talent for it. I went into hospital pharmacy and was a Pharmacy director for 15 years. After getting bored with that I went back to school and got my Doctorate. I then became a clinical pharmacist, worked for a Medical school, consulted for major pharmaceutical firms and even a guest lecturer traveling all over the country (including Columbia Univ.). Most of the past 40 years was a great time (I sometimes wondered how I got paid (good money) to do something that seems so simple to me.) I met great people, saved lives, taught students, helped develop protocols for new drug testing and was always surrounded by a lot of willing beautiful women. (Health Care has a lot of them) Things were not always rosy (Political Intrigue and plain jealousy on that level is intense, as many of these intellectuals are anal retentive jerks. I could mess with their minds for my amusement and still do a great job for the patients) That’s what helped to make the job always amusing, messing with the unfunny and not having them know it or having them know it and me not caring. I had more fun than any 10 people on this planet combined. I loved what I did… and I made enough to buy my farm and do my wildlife biology shtick on my own property. (Now I spend more time in habitat improvement than hunting.) Would I do it again???? If all the parameters remain the same I’d do it again in a heartbeat. However, in todays’ politikally korrect world and with Obama care looming……. I would probably try the film industry. Find something you are good at and make your own good times. Or As my mother said, “Find one thing nice about what you do and enjoy that.” I was lucky. I found something new to enjoy every day for 40 years BernieZ