I hunt on state land near Duluth, MN. A typical year for deer hunting usually produces about 5-6 deer sightings and if you’re lucky – a shot at a 1 ½ year old buck. Not to say larger bucks aren’t seen and shot, but I would guess that on average you might see an older buck about every 4 years or so.
 
I’ve always wanted to build a food plot up at the deer camp and see what kind of results it would produce. 2010 turned out to be the year to give it a try. The work on building my hunting cabin had slowed with only some minor touch ups to finish it off and a quick discussion with my neighbor who gave me permission to build the food plot on his land was all I needed.

My neighbor owns an 80 acre parcel that is located within a few hundred yards of state land. It is about 2/3rd’s wooded with the rest used as a hay field. He had cleared a small parcel surrounded by low land that was almost perfect to run this experiment. The parcel is roughly 2 ½ acres that was secluded and surrounded by the dense forest that makes up the majority of the area.

My first step was to figure out how I wanted to do this. I ended up deciding that an area about 50 yards by 50 yards would suffice, so it was on to actually building the site.

Here are the steps that I followed in order to turn a hay field into a food plot.
First – cut the hay down to about 5 inches.
Second – spray the entire area with a kill all Roundup.
Third – Attach the disc to my Polaris Ranger and turn the ground. (Note – this was by far the most time consuming step. Remember, I had laid out an area 50 yards by 50 yards – I ended up putting over 14 miles on the Ranger dragging that disc at about 2 miles an hour.)
Fourth – Let the area re-grow for about 2 weeks, and then spray it again with the Roundup. Fifth – Repeat number 4. I was told that the more times you spray the area the better luck you will have in planting. I ended up doing this twice as I was running out of time. I wanted to have the seeds in the ground by August 15th.
Sixth – This was the final step. I spread out about 200 lbs of lime, disked the ground 1 more time, hand seeded the area and rolled it with a barrel to seat the seeds.

I ended up using Antler King Honey Hole with a mixture of chicory and clover added to it – all can be purchased at Fleet Farm.

Now it was up to Mother Nature and she came through big time. Over 8 inches of rain fell in that area during the next week. I thought there may have been a wash out of the seed and it did a little but the majority survived and had sprouted. I continued to check the site every week as we were into bear hunting season and I was up there every weekend. Things were looking real good as the plot started to fill in real nice. I don’t think the crop had quite reached 5 inches when the deer took notice and started to use it. After that it looked like a golf green with the crop barely being able to grow more than 1 inch before being eaten.

During this whole time I had installed a camera to take pictures to see what was happening, it was always a little disappointing as I would only get 5 to 10 pictures a week of does and fawns. I couldn’t understand how the deer could keep it so short without a lot of pictures being taken.

My neighbor, who is in his 70’s, had quit hunting deer because he had always had bad luck trying to shoot a buck. He was really interested in my experiment though and always wanted to take a ride back there to see how things were going. On one of these site checks, we startled a nice 6 point buck that was feeding in the middle of the plot. The next week when I saw my neighbor, he proudly informed me that he had purchased his deer tag – it was still over 5 weeks to the gun season.

When there was about 4 weeks left before the season, I went out and checked the camera card. Still, only about 9 pictures, but I was startled to see that on one of the pictures was the largest buck I had ever seen in the area in 20 plus years of hunting.

That put into place a frantic plan to build an elevated enclosed blind, another experiment that I had always wanted to do. Long story short – I got the blind built and in place exactly 1 week before the gun season. I located the blind roughly 100 yards from the food plot. My neighbor laughed at me and said I wouldn’t see anything because the blind would spook the deer and it would take awhile for them to get used to it.

Hunting season:
Day 1. It was a short 10 minute walk from my cabin to the blind. The blind was 6’ by 6’ and 8’ off the ground, totally enclosed and I had a propane heater to keep me comfortable. The first morning I settled in and started to read a book, looking up every few minutes to check the plot. At about 10:00AM I saw the first deer. 2 does and 2 fawns walked into the plot and started feeding.

The total number of deer I saw that day was 20 – remember, in the previous 20+ years I had been lucky to see 5-6 over the entire season! All were does and fawns, but I did see 2 buck fawns. The blind worked perfectly, deer would walk by at 20 yards and never gave it a look. I had 12 deer in sight at one time in the mid afternoon. Needless to say, I was very excited about how this was working out.

Day 2. A short 10 minute walk to the blind. I got myself settled in about 30 minutes before shooting light and studied the area with my binoculars as it got lighter and lighter. It was about 15 minutes after legal shooting and I could see really well so I set the binoculars down. When I looked back up – there he stood, right in the middle of the food plot. All I could see was how tall his tines were. I got the window open and gun out as the buck made his way directly towards me – I even saw the camera go off as he walked by it. He was moving fairly quick and I was about to yell when he suddenly turned broadside and stopped. Hard to miss at 30 yards with a 7MM magnum. He ran only 40 yards before going down.

This buck ended up weighing exactly 200 lbs field dressed. He has an inside spread of almost 18” and his longest tines were over 12”. He hasn’t been officially scored, but will be somewhere in the 140’s – very good for an 8 point buck.

My neighbor was very excited and spent the next 2 weeks hunting in the blind. He shot a coyote the day after I shot my buck and he ended up taking a nice forkhorn about 8 days later.

I also discovered the camera issue, even though I saw multiple deer in front of the camera – it only took 2 pictures. The deer were moving so slow as they fed that the camera didn’t pick up the movement and take a picture. They would literally take 45 minutes to move 20 yards.

Thanks to my buddies Mike and Larry for helping me with the food plot. I think they were just humoring me at the time and Larry refused to award me the annual trophy for the biggest deer – he said I cheated. Also thanks to my daughter Sam, she put in a few miles dragging that disc around. Next year I will disc up another plot and try a different blend of seed. The plan is at some time have the entire 2 ½ acres planted with crop.