Ben Brettingen
I believe I picked one of the worst days of summer to get in some last minute food plot prep work! It was already one of the those days after the Great Minnesota Get Together got the best of me the night prior. I’ll forewarn you, the Minnesota Craft Beer tent or Giggles’ 24 tap beers is very enticing in 90 degree weather, throw in the Stihl chainsaw show and that’s Minnesota to a T, eh?
Nevertheless, as Matt backed the John Deere off the trailer, the mercury read 95. Our goal, as stated before, was to cut a path through a mat of vines, willows, thick grass, and tons of logs the river graciously left us during the spring’s flood. Up for the challenge, we were, as the diesel knock signaled the beginning. I walked ahead with the chainsaw and cleared the way, while Matt tore up the grass and willows like they were tooth picks.
We made short work of the project in the hot weather, and in a couple hours we had a freshly manicured path and two food plot areas. The next step is going to be more interesting. We are going to take a disk and attempt to shred the remains of the grass and finally plow it under. Then the seeding and then the buck shooting-or so we hope!
*iPhone Photos
I wouldn’t mind *owning* land to hunt on, but managing it like this would be a tad outside my and my significant other’s capabilities right now. Neither the time nor the equipment. Though, his brother wants to do work like this on his grandfather’s land in northern Wisconsin. I told him to pull for fruit trees and other perennials :P. Less work year to year.
It can be a lot of work. My family has been talking about beginning the process for planting food plots as well, but they don’t quite have the equipment either. Hopefully we’ll get something done there, otherwise I’ll have to call our friends at Wilderness Land Clearing to do it for us! http://www.wildernesslandimprovement.com
Why didn’t we plant any?
Yeah, it can be as time intensive as you want it to be! For years, we would go down to this same property. Take out the weed wacker, cut a few trails to our ladder stands and that was all we did for “management”! Most years we saw a lot of deer! I just wanted to step up my game for this year, and take it to the next level. There are a few good solutions if you don’t own any equipment and want to plant food plots. First find an area on your land which gets at least 4 hours of broken sunlight, full is preferred. 1. Weed whip off a small area, it can be as small as 10×10 yards (deer with destroy it) a little bigger is better. 2. Hit it with some round up to kill the grass. Wait a few days, rake the dead weeds or leaves away to expose bare ground. Then wait until the weather man says it’s going to rain, and grab a bag of BioLogic Hotspot or something of the sorts, which doesn’t require any soil preparation. vuala, you have an easy food plot ready to attract deer!