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.
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