cant stop laughing

Just as in the gun debate, people harvest animals, im sure there are anomalies in different parts of the state, but I am like mr guerin, we have plenty more deer than 10 years ago. I would look more towards regional land use for a reason numbers are going down. Intensely managed pine plantations have more of an effect on numbers in my opionion. The meat hunters I know are going to fill their freezer not matter what method they use.

I think it sounds great, in my opinion its not taking away anyone's rights, rather protecting others. No one should be told not to dog hunt, but just like there are still hunters who trespass, there are dog hunters who setup intentionally to run dogs across other's property. I have experienced an equal share of both, but while people can get ticketed for tresspassing, nothing will stop a dog crew from running someone else's land. I don't think this will solve the problem entirely, but its a step. I support it

Richard Jewell does great work for $225

For some background you may not care about, I have planted iron clay peas and soybeans for summer plots the past 3 years. Just about every year, the deer would mow down the entire plots after only 3 weeks. I had read about Eagle Beans in a QDM article producing enough forage to keep up with browse pressure, so I decided to burn the extra cash to try em. It was only after I bought them that I read further into it and discovered the beans still needed 1.5 - 2 months to get kick started without browse pressure in order to produce max value. So then I looked into means of keeping the deer away. Of course the guaranteed method is fencing, electric or high, which I don't have the capital to fence all my plots, nor the time to put up and take down. So then I looked into Plotsaver, but it appears to be one of those products that gets half 5/5 reviews and half 0/5 reviews. I was about to try it as it is not that expensive, but I read on QDM Forum that some people have had success with scarecrows. So you see the pics I posted. I don't like making the blanket statement the scarecrow kept them away, but I will say my iron clay pea plot is already decimated (picture attached), and the trail cam had only taken two pics, none of deer. What I will say is next year, all my summer plots will have scarecrows. See the attached photos of my pea patch which shows the browse pressure.

This is the first time using the Eagle Beans and innoculating them. I have planted beans in the past w/o the scarecrows and inoculant only to have no crops after 3 weeks with the deer wipin them out. I am planning on giving these plots another 3 weeks or so, as long as i get another rain or two, and pulling the scarecrows. i am pretty shocked they have worked this good, the trail camera has taken two pics in three weeks - both armadillos..

Beans doin well after 3 weeks, so is corn field

Got the beans in the ground this weekend, built some scarecrows to try to keep em out for a few weeks to get established, who knows if it will work, but got the camera to see.

Clover Planting and Management

•Have a soil test done and follow the recommendations. Lime will probably be mandatory.

•Round-up or a generic Glyphosate can be used to get control of the grasses and broadleaf weeds, at first. The Glyphosate will get rid of most everything, but it may take a couple of treatments, especially with Bermuda grass. At this point, you don’t have to worry about protecting anything.

•Make sure that most or all of the plants in the opening are dead or severely burned. Spray again if needed.

•Begin disking after a couple of weeks. Make sure that the plant material and the soil are pulverized. May need to disk 2-4 times and spray with Glyphosate again to make sure that the grasses and weeds are under control. After disking, which kills surface plants, the seed bank in the soil is exposed, and this is what germinates after disking. The seed bank in the soil is the reason for spraying again.

•White clovers need to be planted between September and November. The seed bed needs to be well tilled. Complete any touch up disking that may be necessary. Try to plant a couple of days ahead of a rain, if possible.

•When planting white clovers small seeders need to be used, because the seeds are extremely fine.

•Follow the seeding rate on the bag, in most cases it will be around 5 lbs. per acre. Any more than the recommended rate is a waste.

•Once the seed has been broadcast, it needs to be covered lightly. Be sure not to harrow in too deep. Clovers only need to be covered by ¼ inch of soil. Dragging in with a section of chain link fence is perfect.

•During the first hunting season, the white clover is not as strong as it will be in future years. If you want to plant it with wheat or oats the first year that will add a component to the first year’s food plot. Do not mix with Rye Grass!

•Fertilized at planting with 8-24-24. Fertilize 2 weeks to a month after germination with 0-20-20.

•Every subsequent growing season you should begin spraying and mowing the clover in April or early May.

•For broadleaf weed control, spray clovers with 2-4D (B). To control grasses, spray Poast or Select. These should be sprayed separately about a day apart. Mixing rates and sprayer calibrations should be available with the products. Spray the clovers first, then, after giving the targeted plants about a week to die back, the plots can be mowed.

•Plots should be mowed every month to six weeks, or when the clover appears to be overtaken by weeds and grasses. You also may want to fertilize with 0-20-20 in spring and fall.

•Spraying may be required two or three times a growing season.

I have a word document given to me by WLF that gives a step by step on clover plot establishment, Ill try to post it tomorrow, it has some pretty good info. My clover plots are only two years old, so I have not had that much experience, but I can say one mistake I made last spring/summer was waiting to long to do the first trim. When I did cut, the volume of grass was so much that the hay actually caught much of the herbicide I sprayed two weeks after the cut. The herbicide still worked fairly decent, but you can see today the clear rows where the hay was thickest and the herbicide didn't reach the freshly cut shoots.

And I think that gun will be the Browning X-Bolt Hunter, .270 WSM? But I have a 3.5 year old girl that keeps tellin me she wants to get her a deer, so that next gun might have to be the X-Bolt Micro Hunter, which is fine with me!

There is also the summer plot preparation, which starts this month with the liming, so that also helps too.

Jim,

The story up to the kill is fairly boring, he was moving along the edge of my food plot shortly after shooting light taking a few bites, but at a steady pace, heading back to where I presume they bed. The .444 rolled him in place at about 70 yards. The funny part was gettin him in the buggy. We have another cart at the camp with the deer lift in the front which basically makes loading effortless, but in my excitement as I have never harvested one like this before, I was determined to load him on the R&T buggy in the pic. I had to stand in the back rack, grab his back legs, lift and lean back using my big azz body weight. Each time I leaned back, I had to hold and step back to get him up a little at a time, which eventually had me standing on the edge of the rack on the opposite side, as I began that final pull, I reached an unexpected breaking point, at which time I had to release the legs lest I wanted to pull the deer back off. After the release, I landed right where the deer originally expired, in a small pool of blood.

The taxidermist aged him at 7.5 years old! His back teeth were almost flattened to the jaw line. And unfortunately, we ended up tossing the meat as he had infection spots all over his body, I assume from years of fighting, possibly some buckshot from dog hunters. The meat had a rotten odor and a yellow tint in several places. I hope to have him scored soon.

Another great part of the story is it was my Dad's B-day, he was as excited as I was which made the event all the more memorable. Thanks again Dad, you made this possible.

Enjoyed the column Josh, its funny your timing cause last weekend I had a few walk up on me moments after a hoot. I too was told this by some old timers and have seen it in the past.

The DMAP biologist told my old club we were baiting too much, that the amount of food we had been providing above and beyond what deer are used to browsing could shift their movement patterns to mostly nightime. Now this wasn't a pile here and there, I'm talking about going from 20 spin feeders on 4000 acres circa 1996 to 60 spin feeders and at least 30 to 40--200 - 300 pound trough feeders by 1999.

Im in SW Mississippi, not far from you, its been a dead zone, except at night, sometimes a bright moon will do it. I've heard the same dead zone stories from all my buddies that hunt in St. Francisville.

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Cross your fingers, we may get some this afternoon/evening!!! If not, looks like next week

a bunch on the west end

Been using it for fall plots for 4 years with great success, we're using again this year

Nope, we never saw him last year from stand, in fact we quit getting pics of him last year around middle of Oct (if its the same deer) I am leaning towards it being the same deer mostly because the shape is too identical..like you said, could be brothers, i just noticed the ear..i had another buck on camera last year whose left eye would never reflect, I flung an arrow over his back opening day, he would be much easier to pick out and would hopefully be a 130ish..maybe ill have pics of him next week at the new camera location