Grow the Hunt

Memorial Day & Food Plots

By Rich Miller

Well, turkey season is over for most of us in the country and now we are all transitioning to fishing or getting ready for deer season. I am gearing up for both and with Memorial Day weekend coming up this weekend we are planning on doing a little fishing if all the thunderstorms don’t mess us up. 

This is the time of year we have already got our spring food plots in but this year with the lack of rain we haven’t yet. Last weekend we met at our hunting club and got a little work done in preparation for planting our fall plots but we didn’t put in any spring plots this year. Luckily we had a good controlled burn and the whole place is pretty much a food plot right now with all of the fresh browse. We did have a good bit of bush hogging to do and got all of that take care of. It is amazing how weeds and grass will grow without having any rain; but you plant something you want to grow and not get any rain, it won’t do anything. 

We also put lime on all the areas we are planning on planting this fall. The area we hunt has really poor soil conditions and it takes as much lime as we can afford to get our food plots looking good. Everyone always wants to put fertilizer on all of the plots that we plant but without lime and getting the pH of the soil right you are just throwing money away by putting out fertilizer. 

We wanted to plow, but a lot of the plots had a lot of grass and weeds in them. The first thing we did was spray herbicide to get rid of all of the junk. Plus, the ground was so dry it would have been just about impossible to plow anyway. The thick grass and weeds won’t let the plows get in and cut like they are designed to do, but getting rid of the grass will make it a lot easier when we go back in several weeks. As soon as I know that everything is dead I want to get them plowed up as soon as possible; that way when we do get some rain it will go straight into the ground instead of running off. 

I know everyone is strapped for time and with fuel pushing $4.00 a gallon we want to make the most out of every trip. It is hard to just show up and do everything in just one day and make a quality food plot much less if you have several to do. A little preparation goes a long way and makes the job a lot easier with a lot better results, also. I have done it both ways and a little preparation is the way to go. 

As I said earlier, this weekend is Memorial Day and I want to wish everyone a safe and fun weekend whether you are on the lake or traveling the roads. 

The Art of Food Plotting

By Brandon Wikman

The art of planting food plots for wildlife has become an integral part of today’s outdoor enthusiast. Hunters from across the country find passion in providing a buffet of protein and carbohydrate rich nutrients for deer, turkey, and other animal species. There are hundreds of books, websites, and manuals to learn from, but below you will find a small step-by-step resource that will hopefully help you grow your very own hot-spot food-plot.
    
Taking it step-by-step:

1. Selecting a location is extremely pivotal to your plot’s success. Considering the hot summer months ahead may wither your power-packed plot, be sure to use shade to your advantage. A plot only needs on average of 4 hours of sunlight to flourish. Too much sunlight absorbs moisture within the soil, which steals the necessary water requirements for your plants. Use trees or hedgerows to your advantage in maximizing the most shade and sun combination for your plot’s growth.

2. Your soil’s pH level will either make or break you. Many companies have pH level soil testing kits, which you can use to determine the amount of lime and fertilizer to lay. Or else, you can always send a sample of soil to a lab to have it tested. I always use ammoniated lime, which breaks down and activates much quicker. Bumping your pH level to 6.5 – 7 will result in maximum development.

3. Search for weeds! Planting your plot in an area that’s bare of vegetation is absurd. Although it may seem simple to plant, consider you don't need to mow or spray herbicide, there’s a reason no plant life existed – extremely poor soil! Find a piece of ground that has an abundance of thick undergrowth and displays potential of actually growing something!

4. Give your greens a buzz-cut. Snipping your future plot will be essential in preparation for spraying herbicide. Mow the area, rake the debris off the plot and wait a week or two for the grass to regenerate. Then attack! Hacking the weeds and grasses down to a few inches assures that the chemicals will reach the root systems quicker and deadlier. It’s important to spray Round-Up on the weak up-and-coming grasses. This will guarantee a successful kill. Using a 15 or 25 gallon Moultrie sprayer mounted to the back of your ATV will make quick work of those pesky weeds!

Note: Always wear long sleeves, pants, and gloves for your own safety when dealing with chemicals.

5. Be certain you attain seed-to soil contact. Once the ground is ready for planting, there are many options, depending on what machinery you have access to. If you are planting a small plot and don’t have a disk, plow or roto-tiller, you can use a garden rake to scuff the topsoil and make enough room for your seeds to drop and grow. As long as the seeds have contact with the soil and enough gaps to germinate, it will grow! It may take a lot of elbow grease, but will still work. Otherwise, using heavier equipment is faster, and easier.

To get your seed out with as little sweating as possible, one of the easiest ways to plant a plot quickly is with a Moultrie Food Plot Spreader. The ATV Food Plot Spreader is specially designed for planting and fertilizing food plots around your hunting property. Get on location and get to work right away, with minimal assembly. This food plot spreader will get you up and running in just 5 easy steps with a quick disconnect when not in use. Universal mounting brackets make it compatible with almost all ATV models on the market and attach directly to your ATV battery.

After you lay down seed, be sure to use some sort of a cultipacker to compress the seed into the dirt and eliminate any air pockets within the soil. When a seed germinates and the taproot begins tunneling into the ground it has to redirect itself if it hits an air pocket. It only takes a couple air pocket detours to stress a young seed into withering.
    
It’s exciting to watch your hours of tending ground evolve into that dream plot you’ve always wanted. Remember, you can only control the planning, preparation, and planting stages of creating your food plot. After that, it’s left to nature to care for. Rain will be critical to spurt your new seedlings and supply enough food for growing.
    
With enough devotion, land and labor, you can supply sufficient groceries for your deer herd to thrive. This will keep deer on your property and supplement them with an antler-boosting, quality diet and healthy food plot for seasons to come.

Kansas Hunt III

By Rich Miller

I was tagged out very early on my last morning and didn’t have any tags left but I did have a fishing license and permission to fish a lake that we had been wanting to fish for a long time. My uncle called shortly after I got back to the barn and said he had connected on a bird also and was tagged out. Once he got back to the barn and we got the birds taken care of we were headed to the lake. As far as the weather we couldn’t have asked for a better day to go fishing. 

Mick had to go and work for a while and said he would meet us at the lake when he got finished up. Once we got there it was a little slow at first and I assume it was because it was so cool the night before. It might have been cool then but the sun was out and it didn’t take long for the bass to start biting. I was using a YUM Dinger and for a while it seemed like I was catching a bass on every cast. Jimmy was using some kind of floating worm but I told him he needed to put one of the Dingers on because I was searing him out.

After catching a bunch of fish on the point where we started I moved to the back where a creek came in and caught a few small fish. That’s when I switched to a Mighty Bug and about the third cast I tied into a good one. After a short fight I got him to the bank and he was a toad. He weighted in a little over 7 ½ pounds and was fat as could be. The guy that owned the lake told us to release all bass we caught but if we caught any crappie we needed to keep every one of them. 

We moved around the lake to another point that went out into the open part of the lake. I stood there and caught several bass and then I started missing some fish. They would hit it and when I would swing it was nothing on the other end. After this happened several times I noticed a crappie come to the top and miss my YUM Dinger. I immediately grabbed my crappie pole and threw it out there. I think the first 13 casts I put 13 crappie in my bucket.

I yelled at Jimmy and told him to come over that I had found the crappie. He came over there with me and we commenced to wear them out. Occasionally, we would catch a bass on our crappie jig. Jimmy had one come up and hit his jig and, after chasing him up and down the bank for about ten minutes, he finally landed a 8 ¼ pound bass on a crappie jig on light tackle. Mickey finally got off of work and joined us and when we left we took 73 crappie out with us and I am scared to say how many bass we caught. 

The last day in Kansas was as good of a day as I have had in God’s great outdoors in a long time. To kill a turkey at the break of day – and have a chance to catch all the fish we did – was as good as it gets. The bad thing was when we left the big lake on that last day, the crappie were still biting when we left… but we had a bunch of fish to clean already.

Moultrie's "Total Game Management" Podcast Now Available!

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 We're proud to announce that the all-new "Total Game Management" podcast from Moultrie is live today! You can access the podcast either through iTunes (just search for "Moultrie"), on our podcast website or you can use the player above.

My guest this week is our very own Rich Miller, and we discuss his turkey hunting adventures in the Southeast and Midwest.

This is definitely a work in progress, and we will be playing with the format until we get it right. So take a listen and send us your comments – we may even read your comment on the show!

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Mid-Morning Mayhem

By Brandon Wikman

Turkey hunters have been bred to wake with the stars, taught to savor a cup of robust coffee, and then venture afield with the moon still high in the sky. The age-old tactics of sneaking into the woods in pitch black has slowly disintegrated and evolved into a new revelation of strategies– turkey hunting during the mid-morning mayhem.

If I had a dollar for every time I came home after watching my gobbler disappear into a flock of hens during my early morning hunt, I’d be able to retire at the age of 23 – quite the feat if you were to ask me. I’ve missed out on so many opportunities trying to bag a bird at first light due to being attacked by a massacre of smooth talking hens. They seem to always gravitate towards my adversary and strip away my target and walk him away feather-in-feather. This will often leave me sick to my stomach and eager for more as the hurdles of hunting the wily species of turkey penetrate my perception.

As rain clouds of doubt clear, mid-morning seems to turn a new leaf and offer a buffet of salivating dishes often served on a silver platter. Typically, turkeys will do their thing after they fly down and parade around the field and back into the woods within a few hours. By 9-10 o’clock, birds will begin splitting and dispersing into their own grounds. This offers a prime time chance when mister long beard will fire back up and light the woods with gobbles.

As many turkey hunters can attest, your odds of success begin lifting like a hot-air balloon come mid-morning. The window of opportunity cracks the widest when you can find your bird hanging solo searching for a playmate. A simple stroke of a yelp call on your box call could very well treat you to a fascinating charm of gobbles.

I would have to say that I wouldn’t suggest that you completely trash early morning hunts. I mean, at the end of the day, every moment in the woods hunting increases your odds in some way, shape or form. All I am saying is don’t throw away the idea of not hunting at all if you don’t wake with the roosters – because sometimes hunting during mid-morning can be the spike you’ve been waiting for.

I will be venturing out later this week in pursuit of an eastern in Wisconsin. You can count on me sleeping in a few more hours and hunting hard the rest of the day. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest you do!

Kansas Hunt Part II

By Rich Miller

We had a great Saturday and the forecast for Sunday was going to be a good day to hunt.  We were jacked up for our first morning and couldn’t wait till daylight to arrive. We had spotted some turkeys Saturday afternoon and that was where we were going to be when the sun came up. 

It was a little cool that morning, but when we got about 50-yards from the truck we heard the first gobble on the hunt. By the time we made it to the field where we were going to set up, there were about five more birds gobbling with some jakes mixed in, also. Mick and I were hunting together and we quickly brushed up a place on the ground to sit and got set up before daylight. It was a good thing, too, because just when it was light enough to see there was a big gobbler that showed up in the middle of the field. He hung around for a little while until a hen joined him then he went on his way.

All the other birds were still gobbling but they came to the middle of the field and got together with some hens, also, and then went on their way. One bird was still gobbling to our left and we kept calling to him. After a few minutes of calling to him, a big gobbler came in quiet from our right and went straight to our Carry-Lite HD decoys. The first morning in Kansas it was a little after 8:00 am and I had one bird down! My uncle wasn’t so lucky on the first morning, and as the morning went along the rain moved in and we didn’t get much hunting done after that. 

Monday morning was a different story, though. Mick and I went to another spot when we have always gotten on birds. When we arrived, there were a couple of birds gobbling long before daylight. We got set up in a hedgerow between two fields and the birds weren’t 75-yards from where we set up. I put the Bobb’n Tail Tom decoy where it could be seen from both fields. The sky was just starting to lighten up and I sat up to adjust my vest and slide up just a little bit. Out in the field stood a turkey and he was looking right our way. I told Mickey not to move, there was a turkey in the field. 

Now, I have turkey hunted for a lot of years – and had the opportunity to see a lot of turkeys die – but this is the earliest I have never seen a turkey on the ground that hadn’t been spooked. He finally went into half strut and slowly started our way. At that point, I felt better that he hadn’t seen us and then he was in a jog coming to the decoy. The last thing that went through his mind was a load of #5’s and wondering what that other tom was doing in his field. After the shot, I looked at my watch and it was just after legal shooting light. I still can’t believe that turkey was on the ground that early! 

Two days into the trip and I was tagged out. Jimmy had a good hunt Monday morning and ended up with a big long beard, also. I hated not having any other tags to fill but there was one thing for sure; the weather was beautiful and I had a fishing license in my pocket so the fish better look out.

To be continued…..

A Poor Spring

By Brandon Wikman

This year’s weather has been anything but kosher, considering the destructive tornadoes, countrywide flooding and strange cold weather patterns that linger over the states. Spring has not officially sprung into action for the better part of the United States, which puts a lot of strain on everyone in some way, shape, or form – both economically and emotionally.

Many hardcore whitetail enthusiasts around the Midwest have had their food plot production shut down like a day’s end of work. The chilly temperatures and sporadic snowfalls have iced any thoughts of growing season. I’d like to break out the ATV and begin lathering the fields with fertilizer, but I am afraid I wouldn’t be able to make it out without a chain and a strong winch!

My dear friend Joe, who lives in the fertile grounds of Illinois, has over twenty acres of foot plots to put in this spring. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to drop a seed or disk. Weather isn’t his only issue – mud has been his largest obstacle.

Much of the Midwest has random pools of standing water in the fields, driveways and low spots in the forest. Water is considered to be gold to many farmers and foot plot aficionados, however when it comes in never-ending buckets – that is another story. The water not only affects the annual planting season, but halts all of the planting industries across the country from shipping to distribution. There aren’t very many food plot manufacturers that have had a smile on their face the last couple months.

The abundance of water and cold weather has not only affected planters, but also turkey hunters. My woods have been flooded like a swamp in the middle of Florida’s ‘Gator Alley’. Turkeys have ventured into neighboring properties where they established new roost trees and different travel patterns.

It seems that the frigid temperatures have kept them somewhat closed-beaked and out of the field. I am hoping to sneak out in a couple weeks to see if any of my family’s properties are finally worth hunting. Standing water and soggy feathers doesn’t seem to be the best turkey hunting combination.

All we can do is hope that the weather turns ripe and we can begin our ritual outdoor behaviors that we so adore. For those of you with higher ground, good luck planting and enjoy the rest of your spring turkey hunting.

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Kansas Hunt Part I

By Rich Miller

First off, I want to send out my thoughts and prayers to all the fine folks that were affected by the tornados that swept across the South. Not only was it the tornadoes but the floods, also that I found out about way too late. I was in Alabama the day after the tornadoes came through and saw first-hand the damage that they caused. I was in Katrina and several other bad hurricanes in Florida, but I have never seen anything like what those tornadoes did in Alabama.

After leaving Alabama, I was headed to Kansas to turkey hunt a couple of days and do as much fishing as I possibly could. I had to be in Birmingham on Friday and didn’t get to leave there until Friday afternoon. The route we were taking was different from what we usually go and that’s when I got to see all of the tornado damage. 

When I left Birmingham, my GPS said that I would arrive at Mick’s in Kansas at 2:10 a.m. But when we hit Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, all of that changed. The road that was going to take us to Springfield, Missouri, was closed due to flooding. I got on the GPS and the map and found another route that would take me around the flooded road. After a twenty-minute detour, we thought we had made it and hit another roadblock due to the floods. 

At this time, we were in north Arkansas close to the Missouri line. In talking with the crew that was at the roadblock, we found out the route we were going to have to take to get around the roadblock and that broke out hearts. We had to go back south and around the flooded area and it ended up about five hours out of the way.

After all the detours and a nap along the way we ended up in Mick’s driveway at 9:25 a.m. on Saturday morning. We had planned on being in the woods that morning but when we got there the wind was blowing about 30 mph. And at that point we decided to go fishing. The only good news after our trip in was we made it safely and we caught a limit of crappie that made for a super meal that afternoon.