Whitetail News Vol 24.2

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Page 26

–Ted Nugent

“I AM A DEER HUNTER” Say It Loud, Say It Proud…

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In This Issue…

Features 6

Imperial Clover is the Gold Standard

By Charles J. Alsheimer The author has seen his share of companies make impressive claims in his 35 years as a full-time outdoor writer and nature photographer. He feels that Imperial Whitetail Clover deserves the title as Gold Standard.

11

How to Avoid an Epic Food Plot Failure

By David Hart If you are going to go through the effort of planting a food plot, why not do it correctly? Follow the proper steps and you’ll reap the rewards when hunting season comes around.

6

14

The Art of Growing Food Plots… and Families

By Matt Harper One of the great things about planting food plots is that all members of the family can help. The author explains how his Iowa family finds fun and a sense of accomplishments in the hard work of planting food plots.

22

26

Imperial Whitetail Pure Attraction: Two-Stage Fall Annual Delivers a One-Two Punch

44

Four Chainsaw Projects…

To Create Long-Lasting Habitat

50

Buck of a Lifetime in Oklahoma

By Whitetail Institute Staff

By Scott Bestul

By Brad Gaddis

52

By Matt Harper

58

Coyote Predation in the Southeast

63

Imperial Whitetail Double Cross — The Perennial Forage with a Cold-Season Kick

By John Ozoga

By Whitetail Institute Staff

Benefits of Food Plots Go Well Beyond the Practical

Don’t Guess — Calculate Acreage Using your GPS or Smart Phone

66

For the Love of the Hunt

By Bill Marchel The author discovered more than five years ago while playing with his GPS that it had a function to calculate the acreage of a food plot. And now smart phones are also loaded with an appropriate application.

70

Say it Loud, Say it Proud — “I am a Deer Hunter” Food is the Key to Whitetail Success

By Mark Kenyon

By R.G. Bernier

50

Rotation Realities for Food Plotters

By Scott Bestul Crop rotation is necessary for food plotters, just like it is for farmers. The author gives his tips for this practice.

40

Strategies to Compete with Crops

By Bob Humphrey

®

School Archery Program Reaches Millions of Students

By Whitetail Institute Staff

Departments 4 20

A Message from Ray Scott The Weed Doctor

By W. Carroll Johnson II, Ph.D, Weed Scientist and Agronomist

By Charles J. Alsheimer Food is the key to great deer hunting.

34

The Day the Tractor Died

64

By Ted Nugent

28

42

24

Field Testers Report Stories and Photos

38

Record Book Bucks Stories and Photos

47 76

Food Plot Planting Dates First Deer — The Future of our Sport

Whitetail Institute OFFICERS AND STAFF

Ray Scott Founder and President Wilson Scott Vice President of Operations Steve Scott Vice President, Executive Editor William Cousins Operations Manager Wayne Hanna, Ph.D. Agronomist & Director of Forage Research Mark Trudeau Director of Certified Research Frank Deese Wildlife Biologist Jon Cooner Director of Special Projects Brandon Self, Kendrick Thomas, John White Product Consultants Daryl Cherry Director of Sales Javin Thomas Upper Midwest Sales Manager Clare Hudson Northeast Sales Manager Dawn McGough Office Manager Mary Jones EDI & Invetory Specialist Teri Hudson Office Administrator Accounts Receivable Kim Collins Internet Customer Service Marlin Swain Shipping Manager Desmond Byrd Shipping Assistant Bart Landsverk Whitetail News Senior Editor Charles Alsheimer, Tracy Breen, Matt Harper, Mark Kenyon, R.G. Bernier, Bill Marchel, Michael Veine, Dr. Carroll Johnson, III, Dean Weimer, David Hart Contributing Writers Susan Scott Copy Editor George Pudzis Art Director Wade Atchley, Atchley Media Advertising Director

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WHITETAIL NEWS 3

A Message from RAY SCOTT Founder and President of the Whitetail Institute of North America

Pride of Ownership An angler has every right to harvest the fish he catches under the laws and regulations just as a deer hunter does with every legal deer he encounters. But there’s something inside many outdoorsmen today that sometimes makes them willing to release that fish back into the dark waters or let that small buck retreat into the woods.

Y

ears ago when I was starting B.A.S.S. (Bass Anglers Sportsman Society), I was amazed to hear there was an anti-fishing movement being promoted in schools with literature that told kids “fish have feelings.”

Yes, just as there are people who don’t like hunting, there are people who don’t like fishing. What was ironic to me at that time and always has been is that it was the bass anglers — especially B.A.S.S. members — who were working to protect and preserve the fishing resource. Not only that, they were among the first foot soldiers who fought for clean waters, a huge issue when I started B.A.S.S. in 1968. And it was B.A.S.S. members who practiced and popularized one of the greatest voluntary conservation efforts ever — catch and release.

All that reminds me of the state of deer hunting as the antihunting crowd rants and raves while the hunters quietly work to improve their sport, their resource and their hunting environment. It gives me immense pride that the Whitetail Institute has greatly contributed to that effort.

Ted Nugent has a particularly uplifting take on our wildlife management successes in America in his article on page 26. He believes our success is also due to “we the people” owning the natural resources of our country and that this unique American pride of ownership is at the core of our wise use and respect for our precious resources.

Pride of ownership. What a great concept.

A wise man told me many years ago to never engage the “antis” on emotion because you can’t win. But you can beat them on facts and results. The results in bass fishing is that bass have not only been protected and preserved but improved thanks to fishermen. The results in whitetail are confirmed by the fact that since the founding of the Whitetail Institute and the use of deer-specific forage along with responsible management by hunters and land managers, record- book bucks have increased dramatically and that is no coincidence.

I have always believed it is the grassroots outdoorsmen who lead the way in stewardship of the resources they cherish. In many ways it’s purely practical. After all, good stewardship translates into better hunting and fishing. But there’s something even deeper that perhaps we can’t really explain to ourselves.

Think about it. As a hunter and an angler you exercise immense power. Life or death power. In private on the water or in the woods An angler has the every right to harvest the fish he catches under the laws and regulations just as a deer hunter does with every legal deer he encounters. But there’s something inside many outdoorsmen today that makes them willing to release that fish back into the dark waters or let that small buck retreat into the woods.

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IMPERIAL WHITETAIL CLOVER DESERVES TITLE AS

THE GOLD STANDARD

By Charles J. Alsheimer Photos by the Author

henever someone makes a claim that a product is the gold standard, people take note. Some are immediate skeptics, some buy the claim hook, line and sinker, and others probe for the truth. Many times, such claims are nothing more than cheap, ill-founded talk, because in most cases, few have any idea what goes into being the best on the market. Rather, gold-standard claims are often based on the word of a favorite outdoor personality, a close friend or a slick ad campaign.

Background For more than 35 years, I’ve been a full-time outdoor writer and nature photographer. During this time, I’ve seen more than my share of companies make impressive claims about their products’ quality. As an avid hunter, farmer and member of the press, I’ve spent a good deal of time trying to sort out fact from fiction when it comes to which forage is the best for whitetail deer.

I began photographing whitetails in 1970, for the challenge and as a way to learn more about their behavior. Nine years later, I left a corporate sales and marketing position to pursue a writing and photography career, with special emphasis on deer behavior. Because of my

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business background, I’ve always been fascinated by what it takes to make a great product and how various companies bring their products to market. So, whether my interest drew me to a particular archery or firearms product or a seed that would offer the best forage for deer, I’ve always tried to probe a little deeper into a product’s features.

There are a number of ways to do this. You can scour the Internet, seek advice from trusted users or buy the product and test it for yourself. I tend to do all three, particularly when it comes to finding the best product for feeding whitetails.

By virtue of our farm’s setup, I’ve been able to use and study a variety of food plot products during the past 25 years. In 1995, we built a 35-acre whitetail enclosure on our farm’s 200-acres to study deer behavior. Initially, the studies centered around how whitetails lived 365 days a year, with specific emphasis on rutting behaviors and doe/fawn relationships. It didn’t take long for us to expand our thoughts and begin looking at the whitetail’s food requirements.

The enclosure is divided into 25- and 10-acre sections that are connected with gates. This division allows for isolated studies to be conducted. The facility has a variety of habitats, including mast-producing hardwoods, small brush lots, a running stream, a pond, an apple orchard and 10 food plots containing various forages. The enclosure’s deer population is kept to 12 to 15 whitetails. No hunting is allowed in the facility, and the herd’s population is kept low through non-hunting methods.

One of the more interesting studies has been continuing since 1998 and deals with what whitetails prefer to eat; natural and planted forages. To conduct any study on whitetail food preferences, you need to have habituated or semi-habituated deer. Wild whitetails will not

work because it is critical that deer can be observed from close quarters in near natural settings, without fear that they’ll run off. Some might argue that such studies can be done in the wild, with the aid of utilization cages. However, after attempting this method for several years, I concluded that utilization cages might be able to tell you how hard the forage is being hit, but they cannot tell you where the food ranks on the deer’s preference list.

To determine a whitetail’s true preference for specific forages, deer must have a variety of foods available to them, planted and natural. If a variety of foods are not available, any semblance of preference is difficult to determine because deer will eat whatever is available to them.

So, when it comes to the study of preference, having a wide variety of food is vital.

Determining Preference In the 10-acre section of the enclosure, we plant a variety of warmand cold-season forages laid out in strips. When the deer are released into the enclosure, they can select which forage they want, much the same way a person selects food at a salad bar. With clipboard in hand, I keep track of what each deer is eating, how long they feed in a particular plot and how they react to the other offerings. (That is, do they walk through one plot to get to one they prefer more?)

What we’ve discovered has been very revealing, because deer will quickly show you what they prefer. Through the years, their greatest forage preference we’ve offered from mid-May (our green-up time) to mid-October (when our warm-season offerings begin to shut down) has been clover. Nothing else even comes close. But not just any clover.

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WHITETAIL NEWS 7

Red clover is a mainstay for dairy farmers here in western New York because it has a reasonable level of protein and has large stems and leaves, which allow for the high tonnage required to feed livestock.

Though deer will feed heavily on red clover if it’s the only clover available, there are other varieties of clover that rank higher on our deer’s preference list.

What we discovered in the first year of study was that whitetails always seek out clovers that are more tender and palatable. And of all the clovers we’ve experimented with, Imperial Whitetail Clover has been the most preferred. It has trumped everything we have planted by a wide margin.

In addition to the enclosure’s setup, we have also planted a variety of warm- and cold-season food plots on the remainder of our farm.

Because wild free-ranging deer will not tolerate human presence, we monitor these plots from a distance and with utilization cages. The utilization cages have shown us that Imperial Whitetail Clover is the heaviest-grazed clover tested.

Why It Is The Gold Standard There are many reasons Imperial Whitetail Clover can make the claim of being the clover gold standard. For starters, it was the first clover specifically developed for whitetail deer. Other cutting-edge features are that it grows well wherever whitetails live, does well in moist and moderately dry climates, is cold tolerant, is palatable and contains a very high protein level.

When Ray Scott set out to develop a clover for whitetail deer over 25 years ago, he jumped into uncharted territory, similar to his experience founding the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society. So, he sought

out one of the best plant geneticists in America, Dr. Wiley Johnson, to help him accomplish his goal. Dr. Johnson worked tirelessly to develop the Imperial Whitetail Clover blend, and Scott used his marketing genius to promote the first-ever food plot product. It didn’t take long for hunters and land managers to discover just how good Imperial Whitetail Clover is.

In 1989, Tennessee farmer Mark Trudeau saw a magazine ad for Imperial Whitetail Clover and ordered two bags of the seed. Trudeau is a passionate deer hunter, and with his farming background, decided to give it a try. When I asked Trudeau about his experience with Imperial Whitetail Clover, he said, “Long before Imperial Whitetail Clover came into existence, I was doing food plots and experimenting with all kinds of seed. So, when I saw the ad I thought it was a gimmick, but decided to try it anyway. Not knowing what to expect I planted the seed in a plot next to one of my corn fields. After the corn harvest, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. In spite of ample corn left on the ground, our deer would exit the woods, poke around in the corn for a brief period of time and then head for the Imperial Whitetail Clover field. That got my attention because I didn’t think deer would ever leave the corn for clover.

“When I saw how heavily the Imperial Whitetail Clover was being utilized, I decided to check the blend’s ingredients more closely. I was impressed to the point that I contacted Whitetail Institute to learn more about their clover. As they say, the rest is history.

“Over the years, I’ve tested Imperial Whitetail Clover extensively against other clovers on the market here on our 500-acre farming operation. I can honestly say that it outperforms every other clover I’ve ever used. It should be pointed out that I eventually went to work for Whitetail Institute, but I was sold on Imperial Whitetail

Alsheimer has studied the whitetail deer full-time for more than 35 years as an outdoor writer and nature photographer. He has also tested many clover varieties for 25 years. The top choice — Imperial Whitetail Clover.

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Clover long before that took place.

“What makes Imperial Whitetail Clover the best is what the plant can do for deer. Its protein content is very high, so it provides the nutrients needed for antler growth and body development. And it’s just the ticket for lactating does during the fawning season. Imperial’s plant is leafy, tender, very palatable, graze tolerant and quite resistant to dry and cold conditions. It’s simply the best clover product on the market.”

I could fill a book with testimonies such as Trudeau’s, but allow me to share one more. I’ve been involved with the Deer and Deer Hunting TV program since its inception more than nine years ago. During this time, our show has drawn upon the expertise of Matt Harper on several occasions. Harper’s college background is in animal science with a focus on ruminant nutrition. This southern Iowa resident is an incredible whitetail hunter and an even better farmer. Every time I’m around him, I’m amazed by what he knows about deer and food plots.

When I was putting together my thoughts for this article, I knew I had to ask Harper about his experience with clovers.

“I no longer work for Whitetail Institute, but 15 years ago, I went to work for them for a brief period of time,” he said. “Up until then, few in our area of Iowa planted food plots because of the extensive farming practices found here. That first year I planted a half-acre of Imperial Whitetail Clover next to one of our cattle hayfields, which contained alfalfa and some clover, just to see how our deer would react to it. What impressed me was the way our farm’s deer would walk through the alfalfa/clover hay field and feed in the Imperial Whitetail Clover.

“Today, we plant a number of different forages in our food plots, but the backbone of our program is Imperial Whitetail Clover. What I like about it is that it is easy to establish, it is very hardy when you have adverse growing conditions, it greens up faster than other clovers in spring and its attractiveness and palatability are superior to other clovers. And when you couple all of these features with the nutrients found in it, you have the makings for the best clover on the market.”

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In spite of Imperial Whitetail Clover’s success, the folks at Whitetail Institute have never wavered in their quest to make all of their products better. Since its original formulation in 1988, Imperial Whitetail Clover has gone through a number of improvements. Though its original plant geneticist, Dr. Wiley Johnson has passed on, research to make Imperial Clover better has continued under the watchful eye Dr. Wayne Hanna. Dr. Hanna’s extensive background as a plant breeder and geneticist has made it possible for the Whitetail Institute to improve on Dr. Johnson’s many accomplishments.

When I asked Dr. Hanna for his impressions on Imperial Whitetail Clover and where he’d like to improve it, he said, “What I like about it is that it’s extremely palatable because its leaves and stems are very tender and high in protein, so deer love it. From a growing standpoint, it is easy to establish, does very well in moderately dry and moist conditions and is winter hardy.

“Our goal is to produce the best product possible through genetics, with an emphasis on improving the plant’s vigor, palatability and nutrition. You don’t do this overnight. It takes time.

“As we speak, we are working to take Imperial Whitetail Clover to an even higher level.”

Someone long ago said, “You are only as good as you will be tomorrow.” Well, with Whitetail Institute’s focus on research and quality, their tomorrows look very bright. ^ www.whitetailinstitute.com

How to Avoid an Epic

Food Plot Failure

By David Hart Photos by the Author

here you stand, hands on hips, staring at a patch of weeds, bare dirt and a scattering of pale green brassica plants. What was supposed to be your late-winter deer magnet is nothing more than an epic food plot failure. So much for all those hours spent on your tractor preparing the seedbed. And don’t even think about the money you shelled out for seed, fertilizer and gas.

You killed off the existing vegetation, disked it under and spread a sack of Imperial Winter-Greens just like you were supposed to.

So what went wrong?

“It usually comes down to a couple of different things,” said Whitetail Institute Vice-President Steve Scott. “There’s more to planting and maintaining a food plot than turning some dirt and spreading some seed.”

Test, Test, Test The most important step, and possibly the most ignored, Scott said, is to conduct a soil test before you spread any seed.

“Not conducting a soil test is probably the No. one reason food plots don’t meet their full potential,” he said. “Soil tests tell you exactly how much lime and fertilizer and what type of fertilizer you need for the specific plant you want to grow.”

You could throw down a couple of bags of pre-mixed fertilizer from your local garden store. Any even fertilizer like 10-10-10 or 13-13-13 will give your plants some of the nutrients they need. It might even be the perfect amount of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. More than likely, though, it won’t. Some soil might have an adequate amount of phosphorous and a suitable pH level, but another plot site might need lime or a little more potassium. You’ll never know without a soil test. And nutrient levels often

If you are going to go through the effort of planting a food plot, why not do it right? Follow all the steps and you’ll reap the rewards when hunting season comes around.

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 11

vary from plot to plot on the same tract of land.

“Failing to conduct a soil test will also most likely cost you money," Scott said. "You might not need any phosphorous, for example, or you might not need as much lime as you think you do. Farmers who rely on a good crop to pay their bills test their soil every year to maximize their yield and to make sure they aren’t spending money they don’t need to spend. You should, too.” Soil test kits are available through Whitetail Institute for less than $15. They are also available at your local cooperative extension office or agriculture universities. Some garden and big-box hardware stores also sell do-it-yourself test kits, but they often times tend to be inaccurate and prone to user error.

They also won’t tell you exactly how much lime or fertilizer your soil needs for a particular plant.

A professional soil test kit analyzed by a laboratory will tell you exactly what you need. They provide exact fertilizer recommendations for the plants you want to grow. That allows you to buy a custom fertilizer blend from your local farm supply store to meet the specific needs of your soil and the plants you intend to grow.

Use the Right Seed Choosing the right seed product can also determine the success of your plots. Some, such as Alfa-Rack Plus and Edge, excel in more welldrained soils. They have deep roots that can reach moisture where plants like clover can’t. Scott said most food plotters are far more better educated about seed choices these days, but he still occasionally gets calls from hunters who used the wrong seed for a specific location.

“Imperial Whitetail Clover does best on good, heavy soil that holds moisture," he said. "It might grow well on a well-drained site like a hilltop, but that’s going to depend on timely rainfall. It’s a gamble. It’s because clover has shallow roots that it performs best on good heavy soil that holds moisture. Follow the recommendations on our website

or on the seed bag or call us at 800-688-3030 and you won’t have to worry about whether or not your seeds are right for your soil type.”

Site It Right Most plants need at least three to four hours of direct or filtered sunlight, too. Those that don’t receive adequate sun can struggle.

That’s why plots in deep woods might not reach their full potential.

The spot may get direct light part of the day, but as the sun moves, so will the light. One way to tell if a spot gets enough light is to examine the existing plant growth. Thick grass or a variety of healthy broadleaf plants can indicate adequate sun, but sparse plant growth is a good sign that the site isn’t getting enough sun.

“If you aren’t sure if the site you choose gets enough sun, try using Whitetail Institute’s BowStand, Secret Spot or No-Plow," Scott said.

"All three can get by on a little less direct sun."

Time it Right Food plot seeds need to be planted at the right time. Plant too early or too late and your plots could fail to reach their full potential. They might even fail completely. Fall-planted seeds, for example, need enough time to mature before cool weather sets in. Wait too long and you could end up with a plot full of immature plants. Deer will still eat them, of course, but the plants obviously won’t last as long. Plant them too early and they might sprout, but they could be subject to the lingering heat and unpredictable rain typical of late summer. Each Whitetail Institute food plot product has recommended planting dates for the region where you live spelled out on the bag or you can find them at whitetailinstitute.com. They provide a window that allows your plots to reach their maximum potential. Follow those dates, which account for your region’s typical weather patterns. All seeds

Planting season may be weeks away, but now is the time to get the groundwork done. Prep your plot sites now so you don’t have to when planting conditions are prime.

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need adequate moisture to sprout, but they need additional moisture and proper temperatures to prosper. “The more time you can give your plants to mature, the more tonnage you will get from them,"Scott said.

"That means your deer will have more food to last into fall and winter.

For example, we recommend planting Tall Tine Tubers and WinterGreens 60 days or so before the first frost.”

Spring plots also need to be planted within the recommended dates.

Planting too early in the spring carries the risk of a late frost, which can kill sprouts. Check with your local cooperative extension for last frost dates, but keep an eye on the weather. Wait too long and your seedlings might wither under the early summer heat.

Remember, though, recommended planting dates are just that: recommendations. You need to watch the weather to determine if it’s still too hot or too dry in the late summer or if your region might be hit by a late frost in spring. Only plant when conditions are favorable.

“It’s a good idea to prepare your seed beds well in advance of the recommended planting dates," Scott said. "That way you won’t have to disk the ground, spread the fertilizer and plant the seed in a single day or weekend. The more you do in advance the better your chances at getting your seed down at the optimal time."

Set Your Sights on

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Long-Term Maintenance If it’s an annual plot, your work is done. Plant them and hunt them.

Annuals rarely require weed management. Perennials, however, require attention outside of the preparation and planting period.

“It’s a good idea to conduct a soil test on perennials like Imperial Whitetail Clover and Alfa-Rack Plus once a year or at least every other year because they can deplete the soil nutrients over time,” Scott said.

“Your plots will remain healthy if you give them the nutrients they need, and they will attract more deer and last longer.”

Perennials such as clover and alfalfa also most often require weed control. Annual weeds can usually be kept in check with a mower in spring and summer. This prevents the weeds from seeding out which helps reduce the amount of weeds next year. Mowing can also kill those annual plants, which rob your plot plants of space, nutrients, moisture and sunlight.

Mowing, however, won’t effectively control grasses. They tend to grow low to the ground, and they continue to grow no matter how much they’ve been mowed. Grasses such as Johnson grass and orchard grass require a selective herbicide such as Whitetail Institute’s Arrest, which only kills grasses without harming plants such as clover, alfalfa or chicory. Grass can overtake a perennial food plot, so it’s best to treat it in early spring.

“It’s best to spray when the grasses are actively growing and hopefully when they are immature (under six inches tall),” Scott said.

Beyond Your Control Even if you conduct a soil test, chose the right seed, put down the right fertilizer and knock back problem weeds, food plots can still fail.

A lack of rain can prevent even the most drought-tolerant plants from becoming established.

“You can’t beat Mother Nature,” Scott said.

You can, however, give your plots the absolute best chance of flourishing by going the extra mile. Healthy plots can withstand the harshest conditions better than a poorly established food plot. Follow all the necessary steps and you can avoid an epic food plot failure. ^

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WHITETAIL NEWS 13

The Art

of Growing Food Plots… and Families

By Matt Harper Photos by the Author

have often wondered if the design folks at Badlands or Eberlestock toiled over the blueprint of their hunting packs trying to figure out the most efficient way a hunter could carry Dora the Explorer coloring books, a 64-count Crayola box, bags of chips and bottles of Bug Juice. If you are a hunter reading this, I know what you are thinking: “With all that junk, where did you leave room for the Nintendo DS, Kindle and iPod?” Well, let me tell you, there is a reason why those high-end hunting bags have so many pockets. If you take careful effort in your planning, you can pack hours of entertainment, food and drink in those things.

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I was blessed with two wonderful daughters and probably because I am an outdoorsman, it seems I was asked endlessly by the non-tactful, “I bet you wished you would have had boys.” I would not trade my daughters for ten sons and could not imagine loving anything more than my two girls. And just because they are girls, I did not forgo the opportunity to teach them about farming, hunting, fishing, woodsmanship and just enjoying the outdoors. The experience has been and will continue to be truly special.

The History — Loving the Land I had the good fortune of being raised on a small farm in southern Iowa. Our family farm was not the endless rows of corn and soybeans like you find in much of the state but rather a wonderful mix of oak and hickory hills, walnut-strewn creek bottoms, brush- and cedarchoked ditches and ravines intermixed with cattle pastures, hay fields and crop fields. Not to sound too melodramatic, but as a young boy, the farm was a magical place where new adventures awaited around each grove of trees and creek bend. My dad was (and still is) a guide and mentor to me for all things farming and outdoors. But I also had the blessing of growing up with both my grandfathers. Grandpa www.whitetailinstitute.com

Grabbing a snack in the deer blind can keep your youngster entertained during slow periods.

Harper was born in 1900, and Grandpa Wayne was born in 1914, and the wealth of knowledge they passed on to me is immeasurable. They, of course, taught me the basic things such as how to milk a cow, the proper way to grab a chicken to get her off her nest, how to stop a charging sow, the specific sound an angry cow makes before she “takes you” and what birds and insects to listen for to let you know when it is time to plant or harvest.

When my family elders were growing up, farming and hunting was far different than it is today. The phrase “making a living” on the farm did not mean making enough expendable income to buy a new Winnebago. Farming meant trying to raise enough food to raise a family and hopefully having enough livestock and grain left over to sell and

pay what bills they had sitting on the kitchen table. The land they farmed was a life-giving resource and was therefore nurtured as if it was part of the family. They cared for the land, and the land cared for them. It is as simple as that.

But farming was not the only aspect of the land I grew up on.

Wildlife was a resource as well and was treated as such by my grandfathers and father. Although it was a form of entertainment and relaxation, it was also an important source of food. There were not many, if any, deer or turkeys until the late 1970s, so much of the hunting was for quail, pheasant, rabbits, squirrels and other small game.

My grandmas would cook anything you shot and brought to them.

And I mean anything. I remember one time eating raccoon, and the side dish was dandelion greens that grandma had picked, cooked and soaked in vinegar.

My grandfathers trapped to sell the hides and to control varmints, and would even dig up wild roots and sell them to make a little bit of “going-to-town money.” We fished the small farm ponds and creek that ran through the farm and ate what we caught, regardless of species. Crawdads, frogs and turtles were also part of the table fare if you had a successful hunting trip to the water. I say all of this because there was a lesson in each of these activities. I was taught how to find the right type of tree for squirrels and then how to sit quietly and wait for them to pop out, and how to pick the thickets that most likely held rabbits. I was also taught not to mow waterways at certain times of the year because the pheasant and quail hatch was going on. And I honestly almost feared for my life if I ever messed up and shot a hen pheasant, not just because it was illegal but because it ruined the chance of her reproducing.

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This is just a small taste of the lessons and values that were instilled in me by two generations of family farmers and outdoorsmen. When my girls came into my life, I was determined I was going to pass at least a portion of this along to them. Although I own a farm, I do not farm for a living (at least now) but instead use most of the farm for hunting and outdoor activities. That doesn't mean that I cannot pass on to my girls some of the lessons I was taught at their age and if you own, lease or have permission to manage a piece of property, you can teach these lessons to your family as well.

Growing Things, Not Destroying Things It would seem that our society is fascinated with destruction. Explosions, crashes and the spectacular wreckage of all kinds of things are promoted in movies and on television and are the focus of many of our children’s video games.

Farming, on the other hand, is about growing, making and producing. It is about taking a seed that you have selected; planting that seed in soil that you have painstakingly worked, cultivated and managed; and then caring for and nurturing the plant that grows from that seed.

You might not have brought life into the world, but you were a part of the process. You worked hard, spending your time fertilizing, liming, disking, planting and all the other steps involved, and then you fret about not enough rain or too much rain, and plant diseases and infestations.

You check on your field to see how it is doing, and you find yourself spending long moments early in the morning or late in the day just looking at your field with a strange feeling of pride and satisfaction. I

Checking trail cameras is exciting for hunters of all ages.

When your season comes down to one opportunity, trust Tinks. America’s #1 Buck Lure for over 40 years! tinks.com k For the latest promotions, sales and news visit www.Facebook.com/WhitetailInstitute

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WHITETAIL NEWS 17

have heard many a food plotter tell me they enjoy the process of growing food plots just as much as hunting over them. This really isn’t that much of mystery when you consider that there is something innate in most of us that finds pure pleasure in working with soil and seed to create something. Have you ever noticed that young kids love to grow things? They get seeds at school, grow them in a Dixie cup of dirt placed in the windows of their classroom and they proudly show you what they have created. Through time, as children are less exposed to growing things and creating things, their interests often change direction.

But what I have found with my children is this same excitement returns just as strong when they are exposed to it again. I started having my children help me on the farm; growing and maintaining food plots when they were old enough to safely be with me. They might not be driving the tractor (although the oldest does now) but they were filling seed boxes, driving the four-wheeler and the drag and whatever else they could do to help. In the process, I told them what we are doing and why we were doing it that way. But the coolest part occurs when you take your family back out to look at the field and watch the growing process through time. When I look at them, I can see the look in their eyes revealing the same feeling of pride and satisfaction it has always given me.

Hard Work and Responsibility Before anyone gets upset with me, I admit that there are many other types of hard work aside from farming. But farming, especially the way most food plotters do it, can be very physically and mentally demanding. Most of us have other jobs and commitments, so we do our farm work in a tight window. I remember one time when I was on my back, lying under my PTO tiller cutting tangled weeds out of the cutters. I was doing it by flashlight because it was 1 a.m., and I had until 6 a.m. before I had to leave on a business trip. Did I question my sanity? I sure did, probably even cussed myself, but that was the only time I had to do it, and the field was not done yet.

As children, we picked up a lot of hay and walked a lot of beans. I remember the hopeless feeling I had when we first pulled into a big field thinking this was an endless task. But the forecast would be calling for rain in a couple of days, so we plowed into the job, even though it was hotter than Hades, because we had no other option. The hay had to be picked up and put in the barn before it rained. When the last bale was put away just as the storm clouds busted loose, there was a feeling of accomplishment that overshadowed the aching muscles.

The work ethic I learned from such experiences has come with me in my professional career. The task might seem daunting or even impossible, but you dive into it head first and keep chipping away until you look up and realize you are done.

Although my girls and I are not out picking up hay every summer, we are always working on food plots. When we first look at a threeacre plot that is covered with weeds and needs to be cleared and planted, my girls groan and moan (like I did at their age) and tell me that we will never get done. But we start working and stay on task, and eventually we head home, leaving a freshly planted field.

On one occasion, I wanted to plant a new food plot in a creek bottom that was overgrown with brush and small trees. It seemed like a never-ending job to my family and me. We worked all summer planting a fall plot in the area and ended up shooting a good buck that had just came off that plot. My girls have been out with me early in the

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morning and late into the evening, holding a flashlight so I could see until we finished our task. This work ethic they have developed can be seen in many other aspects of their lives now, from school work to athletics. I am sure it will be an attribute that will benefit them forever.

Teamwork — Working as a Family Those of you who have children understand that life is constant activity. There are countless extracurricular activities that can keep children and parents on the run nearly every day and night. I travel quite a bit for work, which means my wife is truly a parental taxi. But I can't blame it all on the children, because I have a hunting habit that keeps me busy when I am not working. So how is a family supposed to come together? I might not remember exactly, but my childhood was pretty busy, too. Mom insisted that I have the opportunity to be involved in activities as well as helping out on the farm. So to keep all things working, we worked together as a team. When we picked up hay, my mom drove the tractor while my dad, brother and I loaded the hay. When I was young, my job was to clean out the hog waterer because my hands were small enough to reach in it and unplug the blockage. We all had our part to play to get things done, and we did it together. When I have the girls help me on food plots, each has their job. My oldest might run the cultipacker while the youngest is driving the SUV keeping me supplied with Imperial Winter-Greens seed. Regardless of the task, we work together as a team to get things accomplished. This might seem like a simple thing, but it has strengthened our family because we learn

Success! This bruiser was shot by Emma Harper off a Whitetail Institute food plot that was planted by the entire family. www.whitetailinstitute.com

to rely on each other, help each other and realize goals as a family.

Hunting and Eating Of course, the other part of family and food plots is the wonderful times we spend afield hunting. I will never forget the first buck my oldest daughter killed. She had hunted with me for a few years and had become really good at judging a buck’s age. She would tell me, “Daddy, I would pass on him. I think he is a three-year-old.” Most of the time, she is right. But when it was her first time out to shoot a buck, she decided that the 1-1/2-yearold that came out first on the field was a “shooter.” And as far as I was concerned, it was a shooter, so she shot him. The excitement in her eyes was priceless. To make it even better, her little sister was there with us.

Since then, she has gone on to kill some really good bucks, and her little sister will go out as the shooter for the first time this year.

I know those of you that have hunted with children know exactly what I mean when I say there are very few things more precious than spending time together with your child in a hunting blind. But I have taught my girls that the hunt doesn't end with the shot. We butcher our own game, and they help me through the process all the way to enjoying the meat at the dinner table. My children know where their food comes from, whether it's wild game or pork or beef. Although this is important, knowing the entire reason why we harvest deer is just as important.

See Us at www.TexasHunter.com

Conclusion In no way am I saying that I have a perfect family and that we never have problems. We are a normal family with normal issues, much like all families have had for years.

However, I have found that managing property and planting food plots has more benefits than my personal gain. Involving my family has been one of the most rewarding parts of working on the farm. And although I'm not farming like my grandfathers or my dad — yet — the lessons I learned from them can be passed on to my children through managing our farm. If you have not involved your children with your property, I encourage you to do so, and not just when it is hunting season. They might complain and fight you on it, but there is a good chance they will look back on the experience and be thankful.

And so will you. ^ For the latest promotions, sales and news visit www.Facebook.com/WhitetailInstitute

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WHITETAIL NEWS 19

The WEED DOCTOR

By W. Carroll Johnson, III, Ph.D.,, Weed Scientist and Agronomist

The Nuts and Bolts of Liming From the Eyes of a Fellow Hobbyist n an earlier article I wrote for Whitetail News, an overview of soil acidity and commonly available liming materials was presented.

That article was written with a good dose of chemistry, expressed in agricultural terms. Nobody likes to read about chemistry, but that could not be avoided. This article will give a more practical discussion of liming written by a fellow hobbyist who also struggles to improve food plots.

Briefly, neutralizing soil acidity to the desired pH is a fundamental crop production practice. I have been told that soil acidity is among the most commonly encountered production problems in food plots.

For such a straight-forward production issue, the solution (liming) sometimes seems to be a monumental challenge. This challenge is because of the large volume of neutralizing agent (usually tons of limestone per acre) and logistics of applying liming materials in remote food plot sites. Additionally, an often-understated complication is the rapid turnover in hunting sites and the need to hurriedly correct soil acidity issues.

but rarely achieved using small tractors and lightweight tillage implements.

The need to mix lime with the soil presents a challenge in established forage plantings. The stated solution mentioned in every publication I have reviewed might sound a bit lame, but it rings of truth: Neutralize acidic soils by liming before planting — not after the fact.

In other words, consider liming to be a pre-plant corrective practice, not an afterthought. Soils in well-managed sites will drift towards acidity and periodically need liming. Top-dressing liming materials to established forage plantings will help maintain an optimum soil pH but will not effectively correct an extremely acid condition. A good strategy is to plan on pre-plant applications of soil-mixed liming materials whenever perennial forages are re-established.

Liming Implements There are two primary types of spreaders used to apply fertilizer and liming materials: rotary spreaders and drop-box type spreaders.

Rotary spreaders are commonly mounted on a three-point hitch of a tractor, although some can be pulled behind a small tractor or ATV. The three-point hitch rotary spreader operates off the tractor PTO,

When to Lime All liming decisions need to be based on a soil test and resulting recommendation from a credible laboratory, whether private or through state land-grant universities. Do-it-yourself soil analysis might provide “data,� but there is no correlation of the data with what the crop needs. Stick with a reputable soil testing laboratory for the complete analysis and corrective recommendations.

When correcting soil acidity, liming materials need to be thoroughly mixed with the soil to neutralize acidity. Liming materials are not overly mobile in the soil profile, which explains the need for mixing.

The depth of mixing is assumed to be the top six inches of the soil profile, which is standard for soil fertility considerations. I live in the world of the food plot hobbyist, and tillage to that depth is a lofty goal

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Stockpiling bulk coarse limestone at a central location on your hunting property is a good strategy. Bulk limestone is routinely stored in large piles at dealerships, and on-site storage does not affect product quality. www.whitetailinstitute.com

dicular serpentine pattern is commonly used with rotary seeders.

Drop-Box Applicators Drop-box applicators offer improved precision and accuracy over rotary spreaders. Drop-box applicators are gravity-flow, with the material simply falling through variable size gates in the bottom of the trough-shaped hopper. These spreaders can be mounted on a threepoint hitch or pull-behind. Agitation paddles extend the full width inside the trough and operate off drive wheels. Because this is gravity flow, precision and accuracy is better than a rotary spreader. Groundbuster makes high-quality, drop-box style lime spreaders for both ATV’s and tractors.

Calibration of the rotary spreader and drop-box spreader is conceptually the same. Add a known amount of limestone to the hopper, spread the material over an area of a known size and calculate the amount applied per acre. Adjust the gate opening to increase or decrease the amount applied. Tractor speed is another variable that affects spreader output.

Commercial Spreader Trucks Top dressing with bulk limestone is a periodic practice for established food plots and pastures. This will maintain the desired pH but will not correct an extremely acidic condition.

Liming materials are not overly mobile in the soil profile and ideally need to be mixed with the soil using tillage. Corrective measures for extreme soil acidity are best accomplished before food plot establishment when tillage is an option. with the rotating shaft turning an agitator in the bottom of a conical hopper. The shaft also turns a circular distributor underneath the opening of the hopper. Pull-behind rotary spreaders use drive wheels to turn the agitator and circular distributor. The rate of material applied is controlled by the size of opening in the hopper and ground speed of the tractor.

The rotary spreader is designed for granular fertilizer and does an acceptable job when operated properly. However, a rotary spreader can sometimes be troublesome when applying liming materials. Some liming materials are almost powder-like in consistency, and a rotary spreader will not work. However, some sources of bulk coarse limestone and pelleted limestone sold in bags can be applied with a rotary spreader. Bulk coarse limestone is often damp, and the material tends to cavitate around the agitator in the bottom of the conical hopper. A simple fix is to periodically stir the hopper contents with a shovel to collapse the cavitation. Another fix is to weld a larger piece of flat metal to the agitator inside the hopper to add a more aggressive stirring action.

Under the best of conditions, applying bulk limestone with a rotary spreader is plagued by lack of uniformity. This is painfully obvious watching a rotary spreader and the blotchy distribution pattern. Most of that is because of the physical nature of the bulk liming material and tendency to cavitate. Improved agitation certainly helps, but it does not eliminate the problem. To compensate for this inherent flaw, determine the effective swath width of the spreader. Using a serpentine pattern, spread limestone at the width of that swath to prevent excessive overlap or gaps. Then, repeat the serpentine pattern perpendicular to the original direction. That will somewhat compensate for the inherent clumpy distribution. It should be noted that this perpen-

Applying large amounts (tons per acre) of bulk limestone is difficult for a food plot hobbyist. An obvious alternative is to hire a fertilizer dealership to apply lime with their spreader truck. Hiring this service is not always an option if your hunting site is far removed from commercial agriculture or if the site is inaccessible. However, it is worth investigating if fertilizer dealerships are nearby. Trust me, hiring a dealer to apply bulk limestone and fertilizer using their equipment is money well spent.

Many years ago, I hunted in a southern Georgia swamp that had an excellent site for a ¾-acre food plot. As expected, a soil test indicated low pH, along with severe deficiencies in essential plant nutrients.

My hunting buddy and I spread, by hand, 1,000 pounds of bulk limestone that was transported to the remote site in five-gallon buckets and 500 pounds of bagged 10-10-10 fertilizer. That was our only option. A spreader truck could not reach this site, and we did not have access to a hobbyist-scale spreader at that time. We did what we had to do. Later we invested in a rotary spreader — a veritable luxury item. That wise investment improved our overall hunting experience and began the process of adequately addressing our primary limiting factor to a successful food plot — soil acidity.

There are all sorts of liming options available to the food plot hobbyist. I am a strong proponent of bulk limestone. There are other liming materials available, and some suppliers seem to oversell their product’s utility. I am not going to publicly debate all these claims.

The simple fact is that to neutralize acidic soils, a large amount of a neutralizing agent is needed, and that volume sometimes presents a serious challenge to the hobbyist. Considering cost and duration of activity, bulk limestone is by far the best choice. If you are in a situation of hunting land becoming quickly available or for a short-term use, alternate liming materials might be an option because they tend to be quicker acting than bulk limestone. Quicker acting can also mean shorter-term benefit and significantly higher cost. Regardless of the liming material, hundreds of pounds or tons are needed per acre. Invest in the right equipment. Otherwise, hire a dealer for that service.

These choices are among the wisest investments to ensure quality food plots. ^

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WHITETAIL NEWS 21

Don’t Guess — Calculate Acreage Using Your GPS or Smart Phone

By Bill Marchel Photos by the Author

t’s no secret the cost of implementing food plots and other habitat projects to attract deer and wildlife to your property has increased in recent years. Fuel, machinery, fertilizer, lime, herbicides and seed have increased in price.

So, one sunny early-spring day, I used my GPS to determine the accurate acreage of each of 13 wildlife food plots on my property. None of those food plots are a square or a rectangle. An acre is about 209 feet by 209 feet. So, calculating the area of a square or rectangle is relatively easy. Unless, like me, you wiled away math classes dreaming about being outdoors. To help you visualize how large an acre is, consider this: An acre is 43,560 square feet. A football field, not including the end zones, is 160 wide by 300 feet long. Thus an acre is about 90

About two decades ago, I began planting food plots on my acreage in central Minnesota. I was green to farming for wildlife. “I’ll just toss out some seed and fertilizer, wait for rain and reap the benefits this fall when the deer show up,” I reasoned. I would guess at the size of my odd-shaped food plots and go from there. Needless to say, my results were poor.

Then, about five years ago while playing with my GPS, I discovered a function I had not known about. My Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx can calculate the acreage of a food plot. Acreage calculation via GPS might not be news to modern farmers, but most recreational landowners and food plotters I know are not aware that handheld GPS units feature this money-saving option. And now, so do smart phones loaded with an appropriate app.

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Use your handheld GPS or a smartphone to save time and money to calculate food plot sizes. percent the size of a football field. Now, imagine a football field-sized food plot cut out of a forest. That’s a big opening. It's easy to understand why we overestimate the size of our plots. My land consists primarily of wet meadows, and willow and alder lowlands. Early in my habitat work, I had five wildlife ponds excavated. The spoil, or dirt removed from those ponds, was moved to high ground. When dry, the spoil was spread out and groomed into odd-shaped food plots. None of those food plots are a square or rectangular. Thus, it was difficult for me to calculate within reason the acreage of my plots. That is until I discovered the function in my GPS. Guessing at the plot size is not a good idea, because overestimating the size will waste money on excess fertilizer, lime, herbicide and seed, and underestimating the size will result in insufficient applications of the same, ultimately compromising the quality of the plot. I experienced these unacceptable results a number of times when guessing the size of my plots.

“Typically most people overestimate the size of a their food plots,” said Steve Scott, vice president of the Whitetail Institute.

To accomplish precise acreage calculation using my GPS, I simply picked a starting location on the perimeter of a plot. I pressed a few buttons on my GPS and then walked the outskirts of the opening.

As I strolled along I watched the screen on my GPS. Like magic, my track was plotted. When I completed the loop, I pushed another button, and presto, I had the accurate acreage of the interior of my route. In a notebook, I jotted down the name of the plot and the acreage so I could access the information at planting time.

Then I repeated the procedure for each of my wildlife plots. I was surprised at how inaccurate my guesses had been. I had estimated that one figure-eight-shaped plot was ¼ acre. My GPS told me a different story. The plot was just slightly larger than 1/8 acre. For several years, I had been wasting fertilizer, herbicide and seed on the plot. Next came soil testing each of my plots. I ordered soil test kits from the Whitetail Institute of North America. The kits cost about $14 each and came with a soil container, submission form and pre-addressed return envelope. I followed the simple instructions included with the kits and sent them off. Just a few days later, the results arrived via email, an option offered by the Whitetail Institute to receiving hard copies via the mail. So, now I not only know the size of each of my food plots but also know how much lime and fertilizer I need to apply to achieve maximum results.

Some readers might wonder whether it's a big deal to be a little off regarding food plot size. “With products like Imperial Double-Cross, a seed mix containing brassicas, or any blend of seeds containing brassicas, the proper seeding rate is important,” Scott said. “If a plot is seeded too heavily, the large-leafed brassicas can shade out the other varieties of seed.”

Scott stressed underestimating the size of a plot can also lead to poor results. “Too little seed, fertilizer or lime will produce a thin crop, which can allow weeds to take over,” he said. If you are not sure if your GPS features the area calculation function, refer to your owner’s manual. Can’t find the manual? Most GPS companies offer downloadable owner’s manuals on their websites.

There are several area calculation apps available for smart phones, too. I tried one called Distance and Area Measurement. It worked well on my Droid, and I received good reviews online. There are several area calculation apps offered for the Iphone. Land Area Calculator is one.

By the time you read this, I'm sure there will be many more area calculator apps offered for Iphones and Droids. You might download several and see which one works best for you. Now when I walk my land to analyze the health of my food plots, I know that if there is a failure of any sort, I can blame Mother Nature for her lack of rain, too much rain or temperatures that are too hot or too cold. In the future, don’t guess the size of your food plots. Save yourself money and have better, more uniform growing plots by calculating the precise size of each of your food plots. ^

The results of using technology to plant food plots are impressive.

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 23

REAL HUNTERS DO THE TALKING about Whitetail Institute products‌

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’ve used most all of the Whitetail Institute products and have had great success in both Georgia and Illinois. We have harvested mature bucks in both states on these food plots. Last year my wife Linda harvested a really great buck on Oct. 3 that scored 171 1/8 gross B&C on a plot planted in No-Plow and Tall Tine Tubers and I was lucky enough to harvest another great buck that scored 166 B&C in one of my Alfa-Rack plots on Jan. 6. Both bucks were taken in Illinois.

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Jim Foshee — Illinois

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his is a buck I shot in early October while hunting on a small field planted in Winter-Greens. (photo 1) And here is a picture of a buck I took from an Imperial Whitetail Clover field two years ago. Again an early October success. (photo 2) With the use of Whitetail Institute products I don’t have to wait until the rut to hunt trophy bucks. I hunt in North Central Wisconsin.

Ken Feit — Wisconsin

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hen we had the opportunity to lease an 80 acre farm in the Northwest part of Arkansas several years ago, we planted a small food plot that consisted of winter wheat. That year we saw the normal does, yearlings, and small bucks. The next year we had heard good things about Whitetail Institute products so we planted Imperial Whitetail Clover and had great success. Our deer numbers grew because we were drawing deer from surrounding properties and we started seeing bigger bucks due to the fact we were holding large amounts of doe’s on our property.

Since then we have also planted Chicory Plus, Winter-Greens, and Tall Tine Tubers. We harvested the five bucks shown in the picture on this 80 acre property with Bow, MuzzleLoader, and Modern Gun. The Whitetail Institute products have held the deer close to and on our property which then has allowed us to pass on the smaller bucks. Through game camera pics we have watched them grow over the years and then been able to successfully harvest these mature deer. Three of the bucks were harvested on the plot and the other two were harvested within 100 yards of it.

We will continue to plant Whitetail Institute products on our property and look forward to the new products that will come. We strongly believe that these different food plot products we have been planting, have resulted in our success that we have had and will have in the future. Thanks to Whitetail Institute and its’ products for our success with our property.

Jesse Woodham — Arkansas

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nclosed are three examples of how Imperial Whitetail Clover produces results year after year, season after season. All three of these creatures were harvested in my Imperial Whitetail Clover plots. The two plots have completely changed my hunting strategies and tactics. I simply do not hunt in the woods. It’s just that simple.

I started using Imperial Whitetail Clover four years ago and like any food plotter, experienced many successes and failures. The successes are now beginning to show their dominance. Two years ago I harvested a buck that gross scored 129 inches. (Photo 1) Last fall I harvested a buck that gross scored 159 inches which is my biggest buck to date. (Photo 2) Also, in May of this year I harvested a gobbler with an 8.5-inch beard

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y brother and I have owned a tract of land in South Alabama for over 30 years and we started planting Imperial Whitetail Clover about four years ago on some of our fields and last year I planted Imperial Whitetail Clover and Edge in two additional plots.

Last year on Dec. 26 on a very windy afternoon I shot a 15 point buck that scored over 153 inches gross in the new field of Imperial Whitetail Clover and Edge.

He stepped in the field and started grazing on the clover around 4:30 p.m. This was the largest deer we’ve taken or seen in 30 years of hunting this property. I’ve also seen a lot more deer since we started planting Imperial Whitetail Clover.

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James Moulton — Alabama

and 1-inch spurs. For the record, it was not my calling tactics that earned me this turkey (Photo 3); it was the hen that came to feed in the clover.

In conclusion, thank you Whitetail Institute for creating such a tremendous product. It has completely changed both my hunting tactics and the quantity and quality of my overall animal population. One detail that I should mention is that I live in Pennsylvania. A state not always thought of as producing record book whitetails. Obviously, things have changed.

Kevin Mihalak — Pennsylvania

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ere is a picture of my boy Justin’s deer he shot on the edge of our Imperial Whitetail Clover food plot. Ohio deer and Whitetail Institute rock.

John Ackerman — Ohio

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hunt in the Texas Hill Country; in my county, the deer average about 100 pounds and have smaller racks due to the numbers. We started using Whitetail Institute products six years ago. We started out with a single 4-acre plot of Extreme. Since then we have increased the numbers and size of the plots considerably. We continue to use Extreme for the fall plantings but also have used Edge, Chic Magnet, No-Plow, and of course PowerPlant for our spring plantings.

Many told me when I started that I was wasting my money, but in the last few years the pessimists have joined in. Over the last four years, even with the drought we have been going through we are seeing a lot less spikes, the antler size and mass have increased. Last year there were several nice deer killed and the body weight on a couple exceeded 140 pounds.

Burns Holt — Texas

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WHITETAIL NEWS 25

SAY IT LOUD, SAY IT PROUD —

“I AM A DEER HUNTER”

By Ted Nugent Photo by the Author

just wrapped up my greatest hunting season in 65 years. Yikes! The Ol’ Motor City Madman WhackMaster StrapAssassin is 65 years old! My how time flies when ones’ passions build steam each and every deer season.

I was born a deer hunter in 1948, and thank the good Lord that my father was already an ardent follower of the great Fred Bear. The mystical flight of the arrow and the overwhelming mysticism of the mighty whitetail deer put a spell on me from the very beginning and have grown monstrously nonstop 65 hunting seasons in a row.

I remember the out-of-control excitement in Camp Nuge when a deer sighting took place in those enchanted Up North forests of Michigan in the 1950s and 1960s. And of course “Up North” is where everyone went to hunt deer, for there were no deer in the southern farm counties.

Nobody much hunted deer in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Indiana or any number of states that just didn’t have huntable populations to entice the substantial effort that is deer hunting.

We ate a lot of beef, chicken, fish and pork in those days, because whitetail backstraps just didn’t find their way into our lives. We hunted hard, but we were skunked year after year, season after season.

Then something happened. Actually, many somethings happened, and by the late 1960s, deer numbers were exploding across the hinterland, and an increased human predator urge began to follow suit.

All of a sudden, millions and millions of American families were rediscovering the soul-cleansing connection with the wild that our brother, the whitetail deer, epitomizes. Habitat management became a battle cry of state wildlife agencies and private landowners, and the Whitetail Institute of North America was created by a brotherhood of gung-ho deer lovers that instinctively knew that better habitat and food plots would be the ultimate win-win for everybody and everything.

Whitetail Institute invented the food plot industry, and the quality of deer and other wildlife in America were on the classic American “be the best that you can be” fast track to upgrade.

I have always dedicated my life of nonstop media interviews and writings to celebrate and promote our love of hunting and wildlife and freedom, and I have always made it the prime point of my preachings that the whole world looks with awe at the unprecedented wildlife management success story in America due to “we the people” owning the natural resources of our country. It is this uniquely Amer-

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ican pride of ownership and hands-on value-based appreciation that is at the core of our honest-to-God “wise use” and respect for such precious resources, both physical and spiritual, that has fueled this wildlife mecca.

It is really up to all of us across America to stand up and aggressively reach out and initiate the educational dialogue everywhere we go with everyone we meet, that it is hunters — particularly private landowners, farmers, ranchers and ultimately the army of food-plotters — that have spent billions and billions of dollars for habitat enhancement while meeting the long-term nutritional needs of deer and most wildlife through this hunting/agriculture phenomenon.

Where there used to be widespread die-offs of various species during the cruel winter months when the natural food vanished, now there is a new era — fostered and paid for by hunters — that maximizes quality nutrition year ‘round.

The doped-up denial-riddled animal rights freaks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals haven’t planted a single Imperial Whitetail Clover food plot, saved a single marsh or invested a single dime of their gazillion-dollar scam budget to benefit wildlife — ever.

If the government of the United States actually lived up to their oath to the United States Constitution, the scammers at PETA would all be behind bars and their smoke-and-mirrors scams shut down.

Don’t hold your breath.

Meantime, it is up to us, the hunting families of America, to stand loud and proud, speak up at every opportunity and spread the good word that there is a real animal lovers organization, and it is the Whitetail Institute of North America and all the hunters, fishers and trappers across the land, doing God’s work to enhance wildlife habitat and conditions for healthy, thriving wildlife, both game and non-game species.

I write a weekly column for wnd.com, deeranddeerhunting.com, newsmax.com and constantly unleash torrents of self-evident truth, logic, common sense and The American Way at tednugent.com and numerous sporting and conservation publications doing just this. During this most tragic culture war that is fundamentally transforming our country, it is past time for the tens of millions of sporting families to take the initiative, raise as much hell as often as humanly possible, counterpunching the dishonest mainstream media, the numbnut academia and the hunter haters everywhere that we will beat them at their propaganda game and spread the truth about real hands-on conservation nonstop to defeat their obscene agenda.

Say it loud, say it proud — “I am a deer hunter.” And we will continue to live and promote this ultimate environmentally beneficial lifestyle forever. We are the Spirit of the Wild venison backstrap BloodBrother family. ^ www.whitetailinstitute.com

FOOD IS THE KEY TO…

WHITETAIL SUCCESS

By Charles J. Alsheimer Photos by the Author

ut your mind on pause for a moment. For those of you older than 40, try to remember what the deer hunting was like when you were 20. Now compare those days with today. Lots of changes, right?

Perhaps the biggest change in hunting from yesteryear is that today more hunters are aware of what it takes to have better deer and better deer hunting. The practice of managing doe populations, limiting the harvest of yearling bucks, increasing the quality of natural habitat and providing the best possible food plots are a few areas of deer management that were missing from the hunting equation when I was growing up.

I grew up in farm country, and back then, if a hunter attempted to plant food plots for whitetails, he would have been scoffed at. In my area, the mindset was that farm-country whitetails had more than enough food to carry them throughout the year. As I became more in tune with the whitetail’s needs, it was obvious that the nutritional needs of deer were not being met for up to six months a year. This was because after the crops were harvested in late summer and early

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fall, deer had to depend on mast and natural browse until the next spring’s green-up, and in most cases, those were unpredictable at best.

Build a Better Mouse (Deer) Trap My interest in food plots and natural browse creation began in the early 1970s, when my wife and I purchased our farm. Those were interesting times, because little was being written about food plots or managing your land for better habitat, deer and hunting. I’ll never forget some of the odd looks I got from local hunters when I told them about how we planned to enhance the property for wildlife.

One of the first things we did was hire a forester to arrange for a selective timber harvest to improve the farm’s natural habitat. Next, we planted 12,000 evergreen trees and shrubs on some of the open fields to provide additional cover. Even though there were several dairy farms in our immediate area, it didn’t take long to realize we didn’t have enough natural food to support the number of deer we had in our area. So, in fall 1974, I started planting food plots.

The timber harvest and tree and shrub planting were relatively easy to accomplish. Planting food plots was a different story. In the early going, we planted red clover and winter wheat for our deer. Though they worked reasonably well, it wasn’t long before I learned of better offerings.

If we’ve learned anything through the years, it is this: Food is the www.whitetailinstitute.com

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key to having great deer and deer hunting. That sounds simple enough, right? Well, maybe. For starters, it is important to understand that each deer needs about one to 1-1/2 tons of food per year to survive and thrive. That’s up to eight pounds of food per day. Meeting this need requires an understanding of which browse and forage fits the whitetail’s seasonal food needs, what size of food plots are needed to meet the demand, how to get the greatest yields per acre and where to place the food plots for maximum feeding and hunting opportunities. If you can master those considerations, you can have great deer and great hunting.

Offer a Great Menu If you are trying to hold deer on your property year-round you’ll need to plant more than just one offering of clover, alfalfa, brassica, oats or wheat. When I began doing food plots in the mid-'70s, no nearby landowner was planting them. Today, nearly every landowner bordering our farm plants something for deer and turkeys. So nowadays, I’ve come to realize I need to offer better food than my neighbors if I expect to have the deer on our property.

Each region of the country is somewhat different when it comes to determining the best forage offering. Weather conditions and soil quality are so varied in North America that there is no such thing as one size fits all. On our farm, spring green-up arrives around mid-May, and snow begins falling mid-to-late November, with snow cover lasting well into March. So, unlike the South, where snow is not a factor, we must think of how to feed deer when our world is green and white.

Warm season offerings: I’ve tried several warm-season forages

through the years but have found nothing that can rival Imperial Whitetail Clover. Unlike many clovers on the market, it was the first to be developed specifically for whitetail deer. It is highly palatable and with protein levels that can exceed 30 percent, it's just the ticket for antler-growing bucks and lactating does. Our part of the country has a tendency to experience very dry conditions during July and the early part of August, so I plan for this by planting Imperial Extreme and Imperial Chicory Plus. These forage offerings are extremely drought resistant and highly preferred by whitetails.

Of course, Whitetail Institute offers several other excellent warmseason forages that shine in various regions of the country. Alfa-Rack Plus, Double-Cross, Extreme, Chic Magnet and Whitetail Edge are all great for feeding and holding deer.

Autumn and winter offerings: When Oct. 15 rolls around, clover goes dormant and stops growing here in western New York. Although the deer will dig through the snow to get to the Imperial Whitetail Clover, to help ensure our deer have even more high-octane feed throughout fall and into winter, I plant Tall Tine Tubers, Whitetail Oats Plus and Winter-Greens. I’ve written about all three in past issues of Whitetail News and can’t say enough good things about each.

Whitetail Oats Plus is a prime attractant for deer when the clover goes dormant. To say this offering gets hammered constantly by our deer from early October until the snow depth reaches six inches would be an understatement.

After they receive several hard frosts, our Tall Tine Tubers and Winter-Greens plots become more and more attractive with each day.

Both offerings are packed with protein and energy, and the tuber portion of both Winter-Greens and Tall Tine Tubers is eaten throughout

Whitetails are slaves to their stomachs. If you have a palatable food source, you will have deer. Imperial Clover not only is palatable but also provides great nutrition to help your deer reach their potential.

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winter, long after the plant’s leaves have been consumed.

It’s in the Stones It is one thing to offer the right forage. It is another to produce maximum tonnage. Few places in North America are blessed with soils like those in the Midwest and Ohio River Valley. In fact, most areas lack so many minerals that intense measures must be taken to grow adequate food for deer. If you want to maximize your food plot efforts, it's critical that you get the soil part of the equation right. For example, our farm’s loam soils are quite rocky. Consequently, they need a good deal of lime and fertilizer maintenance to produce good to excellent food plots. We soil test to ensure we add exactly what’s needed.

Situations vary, but where I live, acidic soil is usually present where plants are stunted and the ground is covered with ferns and moss. But don’t let a visual check dictate whether a soil test is necessary, because failing to conduct a soil test is a big mistake. Landowners who bypass this step will likely waste a lot of time and money on fertilizer and seed. A soil analysis will indicate how many tons of lime are needed per acre, which fertilizers are necessary and how much is required.

Soil pH is measured on a scale of zero to 14, with a pH of 7 being neutral. Levels less than 7 are acidic. A pH of 7 is ideal but difficult to attain in many parts of the country where soil is sandy or rocky. In our area, the soil is very rocky and acidic. However, with proper lime

Big bucks don’t eat as much during the rut, but they often follow does to food sources.

application, it's not difficult to get our soil pH in the 6.5 range, and we can grow great food plots at this level. So, before you plow the first furrow, have a soil test completed to determine your soil’s pH. For less than $15, you can purchase a soil test kit from Whitetail Institute to determine your fertilizer and/or lime needs.

A successful deer and land management program is made up of many parts, and they must work together. Wise soil management is one piece of the puzzle, which is why it’s important to get the stones right before moving on.

Size and Shape Matter Any food plot program worth its weight should provide good hunting opportunities, be set up to prevent surrounding landowners from taking advantage of it and be capable of producing great nutrition. As mentioned, each deer needs about one to 1-1/2 tons of food a year to survive and thrive. As a result, most properties need at least five percent of the property devoted to food plots to hold deer. If you can devote more acreage to food plots, all the better.

Many years ago, we went to a two-pronged food plot approach in that we began planting feeding and hunting food plots on the farm.

Immediately, our deer sightings and hunting success improved. Our feeding plots provide the necessary tonnage to feed and hold deer, and the hunting plots are set up to feed and hunt over in fall. On most properties, feeding plots will be one to five acres in a square or rectangular shape, and oriented for ideal sunlight. Hunting food plots work best if they are 1/4 to one acre, set up to take advantage of prevailing wind patterns, sculpted in an irregular fashion and close to prime bedding areas. If you can do the agricultural component correctly, these smaller food plots can produce tons of food per acre.

Plant for the Hunt Initially, some food plot practitioners put little thought into whether their food plots can be successfully hunted come hunting season. They just assume the food plot they’ve created will be an automatic ‘go to’ spot come hunting season. In most cases, other than for rifle hunting, big square plots will not provide desired hunting results. To ensure great hunting opportunities, four factors must be addressed: forage offerings, being able to beat the wind, getting the deer close and stealth tactics.

Paul Plantinga owns a great hunting property in the Thumb area of eastern Michigan, where his acreage is part of the 2,500-acre Rubicon quality deer management co-op. When I asked him how he uses food plots to enhance his hunts, he said, “We have to compete with some incredible farming operations in our area, so I plant a variety of forages to attract and hold deer on our property throughout the year.

I plant large and small food plots, with the smaller plots set up for hunting during archery and gun season. The smaller hunting plots are set up to take advantage of wind patterns, close to bedding cover and away from roads. Doing this and providing great food options has given us some great opportunities over the years.”

Whether you have 50, 500 or 5,000 acres, the key is to make your property attractive to deer. To do this, you’ll need to be well versed in everything from wind patterns, bedding areas, where to plant food plots and which forage to offer your deer. The bottom line is this: If you want better deer and better hunting, it is all about cover and food, for he who has the food has the deer. ^

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Rotation Realities For FOOD PLOTTERS

By Scott Bestul Photos by Charles J. Alsheimer

t is, I believe, simply in our nature: We expect success to repeat itself.

We have a great year in business, and before our taxes are due, we’re planning on a repeat performance.

Our favorite college basketball team reaches the Final Four, and we’ve convinced that returning the next season will be a snap. Your kid made the honor roll the fall of his freshman year, so he’ll be in that elite group through graduation, right?

Well, perhaps. But a more common scenario is this. Instead of building on success and looking for ways to get even better, we rest on our laurels. We expect that today’s triumphs will repeat themselves, as if we’ve unlocked a secret to Easy Street that requires no additional thought or planning. Most times, that approach leads to abject failure.

What does this have to do with planting food plots? Plenty, and if

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you’ve been planting for a while, you might have run into this scenario. The first year you establish a plot, things go unbelievably well.

Your seeds germinate, the plants explode and the deer swarm to your field like fire ants on a nest of quail eggs. Patting yourself happily on the back, you adopt the same program for the next season, which, although not as impressive as the maiden voyage, goes reasonably well.

The plants look pretty snappy, and though the deer aren’t as nuts as they were the previous fall, enough come in to merit planting the same seed the next year, and the year after that.

Then, mysteriously, the wheels start falling off. That tried-and-true plant variety suddenly isn’t growing well, and doggone it, the plants that are there look … well, kind of sick. And worse yet, the deer that wander through the plot turn up their noses and keep on walking.

So what gives? Well, if we were professional farmers, we’d have been smart enough to know we should never have been planting the same plant in the same soil for too many years in a row. This practice is known as crop rotation, and if you’re a food plotter, there’s a strong chance you might have heard the term but don’t really know what it means.

Crop Rotation: What is It and Why Should You Care?

Crop rotation sounds pretty much like its name. But just to be sure, I sniffed around a bit and discovered a definition from a farming article written in the 1970s that explains it pretty well. According to that www.whitetailinstitute.com

paper, crop rotation is “a system of growing different kinds of crops in recurring succession on the same piece of land.” For most farmers in my area, this means alternating between two or three plant types (corn, soybeans and alfalfa, for example), as they farm a specified acreage. For example, a certain strip will grow corn one season, the one next to it might grow beans, and a third, nearby strip may be planted to alfalfa.

The next season, the corn and bean fields will be flip-flopped and the alfalfa left alone. But within a season or two, the alfalfa is dug up and planted to one of the row crops, and a field that previously grew corn or beans is devoted back to alfalfa. This rotation is maintained on a regular cycle in a long-term plan that has several benefits. Chief among them are improved soil quality, better plant health, and the reduction of diseases and insects.

Farmers have probably been practicing crop rotation as long as there’s been agriculture. But Matt Harper, a whitetail nutrition expert who has feet planted firmly in the worlds of agronomy and whitetail hunting, said food plotters need to get familiar with the practice as quickly as possible.

“We need to use the same principles in food plots and for the same reasons,” he said. “The old-time farmers didn’t know a lot of the technical terminology we use today, but they called it resting the soil. And food plots need that same rest that a field devoted to corn production does.”

Farming Parallels If you’re even vaguely aware of production farming techniques, you probably recognize that growing corn requires a tremendous amount of nitrogen.

“Brassicas act in much the same way,” Harper said. “While they’re

an excellent whitetail food and very popular with hunters, brassicas pull lots of nitrogen from the soil. And many food plotters have had big success with brassicas, and the temptation is to just keep planting them, year after year. In my experience, it’s just not a good plan.”

Because brassicas suck nitrogen, soil testing and applying the appropriate amount of fertilizer can help remedy the situation — to a degree.

“Fertilizer can correct nitrogen deficiencies,” Harper said. “But I’m not convinced they can do it for long-term soil health. We’re seeing a lot more production corn farmers planting corn in successive years in fields they would normally rotate. Naturally, they’re applying a bunch of fertilizer, but unless they’re knifing anhydrous (ammonia) deep into the dirt every couple of years, I’m still not convinced they’re replacing enough nitrogen. The jury is still out on that, as it’s a fairly recent phenomenon, driven by high corn prices and demand.”

Another important consideration is plant disease, according to Harper.

“Many plants are susceptible to molds, bacteria and diseases, and the chances of those occurring are much greater the longer you plant a field back to the same thing year after year,” he said. “And once those start occurring in a food plot, it can take some rehab to get them out. Having a good rotational planting plan in place is a good preventive measure.”

Harper said diagnosing a plot suffering from disease or infestation is fairly easy.

“Molds and bacteria are the most common problems you’ll see with a brassica plot,” he notes. “The most obvious indicator is black or discolored leaves, which are easy to spot. To make sure, pull up some plants by the roots. Short, discolored or weak-looking roots will really tell the tale.”

Forming a Food Plot Rotation Plan Obviously, avoiding disease or other maladies is far better than trying to figure out how to cure an ailing food plot. Achieving that goal is simply a matter of planning, according to Harper.

“I use crop rotation on most of my plots, but a three-acre patch on one of my farms is kind of a textbook example,” he said. “I have it on a rotation that seems to work pretty well.”

Starting in a hypothetical year, Harper divides the three-acre piece into a trio of one-acre sections.

“The first plot will go into a perennial, like Imperial Whitetail Clover,” he said. “The next section will be straight soybeans, which will boost nitrogen in the soil and serve as an attractant for deer in summer and during the late season. I’ll plant the final plot into brassicas like Winter-Greens, which are always a great draw for whitetails after the first frost and well into winter.”

The next year, Harper will flip-flop the brassica and bean plots.

“The Winter-Greens will have drawn some nitrogen out of the soil,” he said. “So I’ll soil test, add the proper fertilizer and then plant the field to soybeans, which will serve the double purpose of attracting deer and elevating nitrogen in the soil.”

The former bean plot — now rich in nitrogen — will get planted to brassicas, and the clover plot will remain. This rotation can be repeated for a third season and possibly a fourth.

“Generally it’s best to go with a three-year cycle, but if soil tests are good and the plants look healthy, I might go ahead for another,” he said. “Some of it depends on the condition of the clover field. If it’s

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still looking good after three years, I hate to dig it up. It’s a judgment call. But if I decide to rework the clover, I just start the process over.

It’s just a matter of looking ahead and planning things out for three seasons, but I’m convinced it makes a big difference.”

Harper noted that it’s possible to speed up the cycle slightly, if that’s a desired goal.

“Instead of planting the one plot to clover, you could plant an annual and then you’d have three plots available for rotation every year instead of two. I know some guys that do this, and it’s legitimate. But the other consideration is this: Just because a plant will grow well and fit the needs of your rotation, it doesn’t mean it’s preferred by deer. I know how much the deer like Imperial Whitetail Clover so it’s awfully hard for me to mess with a system that I know is successful.”

Other Killer Rotational Plans

1

A. Take the same three-acre field mentioned above and divide it into a trio of one-acre sections as mentioned. Often times a one-acre plot of soybeans will be wiped out early in the growing process and won’t produce much food for very long, much less during the hunting season. So with this in mind, change the one-acre section from soybeans to Whitetail Oats Plus. Whitetail Oats Plus grows extremely fast, is winter hearty, can take a lot of grazing and attracts deer like crazy.

Then next year you can flip-flop the sections of Winter-Greens and Whitetail Oats Plus.

B. For example, let’s say you have six smaller plots you plant in food plots. Consider planting two of them in a perennial like Imperial

WALL HANGER

Whitetail Clover, two of them in Winter-Greens and two of them in Whitetail Oats Plus. Then next year flip-flop the Winter-Greens plots and Whitetail Oats Plus plots.

Other Considerations and Benefits In addition to soil and plant health, there are other benefits to crop rotation, Harper said.

“Probably the most obvious is that you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket,” he said. “If you plant an entire field to brassicas and, for some reason, the crop fails, well, you’re just kind of out of luck for that year. I hate operating like that. I want to know that, regardless of heat, drought or other factors I can’t control, that I’m going to have at least some successful plots.”

Variety is another consideration. Deer are notoriously fickle in their dining preferences, and that can be true from day-to-day or seasonto-season. Growing several plant options —especially in relatively close proximity on smaller acreages — ensures that whitetails will find something they like on your property regardless of the season or condition.

Finally, Harper noted, crop rotation can be used to formulate sound hunting strategies.

“Brassicas are always a great late-season food source in my area,” he said. “I can plan for good late-season hunts when I’ve got it planted in plots that are close to winter bedding or security areas, such as cedar thickets or other dense cover. If you learn to take a big-picture view of your food plot plan, it not only results in better, healthier plants and soil, it can help you be a more successful hunter.” ^

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 37

Whitetail Institute RECORD BOOK BUCKS…

Chris Williams — Ohio I can't say enough about Whitetail Institute’s Tall Tine Tubers. The last two years I have bow killed two of the biggest bucks of my life. I was lucky enough last year to harvest a 143-inch 11 point that weighed almost 300 lbs. This year I shot this 148-inch 8 point that was pushing 250 lbs and Whitetail Institute and Tall Tine Tubers helped make all this happen.

Jeff FitzRandolph — Wisconsin

Richard Bilger — Pennsylvania

I am 64 years old and have been hunting the same piece of property for over forty years. We have been managing our herd and using Whitetail Institute products to hold deer on our property and to help them with nutrition and promote more antler growth for four years. This year we shot a 5 ½ year old buck which grossed 193 5/8. Far and away the largest deer ever shot in our area! He had called our farm home for three years, which proves what you can do with a property if you provide sanctuaries, water and good sources of nutrition! Thank you Whitetail Institute.

My friend’s and I have been using Whitetail Institute products for the past eight years in Central PA and in NY. For the last two years I’ve been after a monster here in PA. I had many trail pics of him the last three years. At the end of August I knew I had to do something to keep the does in my area and not in the cornfield.

That’s when I decided to plant Whitetail Oats Plus. It didn’t take long for it to grow and not long for the deer to find it.

It was the last week of archery season and I was seeing does and small bucks in the Whitetail Oats field. While sitting in my stand overlooking the Whitetail Oats field, I watched a 7 point check the field out for does. Then at 4:50 p.m. I noticed a deer coming along the field edge. I pulled up my bino’s and couldn’t believe it. There he was walking into the field. This was only the third time I ever saw him in 3 years. Well I got my bow up and was just waiting for the right shot. I passed on a 40 yard broadside shot because I just couldn’t take a chance of something going wrong. He then started making scrapes and thrashing bushes along the Whitetail Oats field. He was at 8 yards broadside with a branch across his vitals. I just couldn’t take the chance.

Then he quarted away from me and I stopped him around 20 yards, put the pin behind his shoulder and it was over in a second. It found its mark and he only went 30 yards. Unofficially he has a 19-1/2 inch spread with 14 points and 6 kickers. His live weight was 240 lbs. and the base of the antlers were eight inches. The Whitetail Institute has helped me a lot with suggestions over the past 8 years. I would never think of using any other products because they are the best out there. Thanks again Whitetail Institute for all the help in the last eight years.

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Dan Walker — Iowa After planting Alfa-Rack Plus, Tall Tine Tubers and Winter-Greens my property has and holds more deer all year long. Since I’ve been using 30-06 Mineral I’ve noticed that I have bucks that carry a lot more mass. Whitetail Institute products are the best by far. I will always use and recommend Whitetail Institute products.

Enclosed are two pictures of some nice bucks that have been shot on my property since I started using Whitetail Institute products. Whitetail Institute products helped hold this 175 inch buck on my property (1). I killed him with a bow. My friend from Pennsylvania also killed a dandy of a buck coming off one of my Alfa-Rack Plus food plots. He killed him with a bow and he scored 177 inches (2). ^

Dan Perez — Illinois I let my Reconyx trail cameras do a great deal of my scouting for me and my cameras are what helped me identify a buck I named “Long Main Beam 10” on my Pike County, Ill. farm last summer. Adjacent to what I believed was Long Main Beam 10’s core area, I planted a large Imperial Whitetail Clover food plot.

Clover has become my favorite choice when it comes to a perennial food source that I can count on to attract and hold a large number of deer. Imperial Whitetail Clover has been the industry standard clover seed for years and it’s the only clover I use.

During October, I almost always hunt food sources during this early part of the season and for this reason, I usually hunt evenings because I don’t want to bump deer off the food by risking morning hunts. Another part of my strategy is waiting on cold fronts. I don’t hunt every day — just the best days and these are usually after a weather event or cold front passes.

On Oct. 5, the temperature dropped about 12-15 degrees to 58 degrees by early evening. With all the photos I had of Long Main Beam 10 in my Imperial Whitetail Clover plot, I knew he was bedding close by. I also figured this early season cold front would get him on his feet before dark. The season had been open since Oct. 1, and I had not hunted yet.

For once, the script went exactly as I wrote it. I got in the stand around 3 p.m. before any deer entered the plot. Does, fawns and a couple younger bucks entered the clover to feed throughout the evening. At 5:15 p.m., about an hour and a half before dark, I caught movement in the edge of the timber. Long Main Beam 10 stepped out and began displaying his dominance over the other deer in the plot.

He worked his way around the timber edge toward me, pawing scrapes and trashing limbs. After a brief altercation with a smaller buck, he worked his way into bow range and I let an arrow fly as he turned broadside at 35 yards. The shot was true and he only went about 80 yards before tipping over.

My success on this hunt and the demise of Long Main Beam 10 was nothing secret or special. I planted and fertilized a fantastic, lush plot of Imperial Whitetail Clover and stayed out of the area — only using cameras for scouting. Photos told me what deer were using the plot and hunting intuition told me when to finally go in and hunt — when the wind and weather were perfect. Using these methods, it’s possible to go into an area and kill a mature buck your first sit. Long Main Beam 10 scored 161 inches and was the victim of good scouting and tasty Imperial Whitetail Clover.

All of us at Whitetail Properties have had great success with and become dependent on Whitetail Institute products for our food plot needs. They are simply the best!

Send Us Your Photos!

Do you have a photo of a buck that qualifies for the Pope & Young, Boone and Crockett or your state record books that you grew or took with the help of Imperial products?

Send it to us and you might find it in the Record Book Bucks section of the next issue of Whitetail News. Send your photo and a 3 to 4 paragraph story telling how you harvested the deer and the role our products played to:

Whitetail News, Attn: Record Book Bucks, 239 Whitetail Trail, Pintlala, AL 36043

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 39

Strategies to Compete with Crops

Competing with crops is a common dilemma for hunters in predominantly agricultural areas, and it can be particularly frustrating for those of us who plant food plots. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to build and maintain them, and it might seem a worthless endeavor when you’re competing with hundreds, possibly thousands, of acres of nearby crops. Let me assure you, it’s not. There are many things you can do to make even smaller parcels of non-agricultural land more attractive, and sometimes especially when your piece is an island in a sea of crops.

By Bob Humphrey

As a hunter-manager, you have different goals than a farmer. His objective is largely a short-term effort to maximize his investment in production and appreciate the greatest financial gain from a piece of ground. The farmer wants to plant and harvest as much as possible in a season. Yours is nearly the opposite. Admittedly, our goals are not entirely altruistic, but we want to leave as much of our investment on the land as possible to maximize a long-term, sustained yield. Further, our crop is not what we plant but the deer we feed it to. If we want to maximize the results of our efforts and effectively compete, we need to meet their year-round nutritional and habitat requirements.

Photos by the Author

ou should have been here yesterday.” If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that or something similar from a hunting or fishing guide, I could buy a brand-new rifle or a fancy fly rod. So I was particularly delighted when I got just the opposite from my Illinois outfitter, responding to my questions about deer movement. “You’re hitting it just right,” he said. “They just cut the corn, which should make things a lot better for you.” I hoped he was right.

Goals

Conservation 101 Those of you with any professional training or who have taken a hunter safety class should remember the four basic elements of habitat: food, water, cover and space. The farmer’s emphasis is on one: food. And it’s for market, not wildlife. The wildlife manager’s goal is to maximize all the elements. Land that holds the most and the best of each in close proximity will support the most and the healthiest wildlife.

Make no mistake, a lush corn or soybean field will be highly attractive to deer at certain times of the year and day. But they only provide one, possibly two elements. If you provide all four, the deer will spend more time on your ground.

Wildlife Biology 500 The long-held axiom of a deer living within a square mile is probably a pretty good average. But in good habitat it can be considerably smaller. One recent study

Crops typically get harvested just about the time deer need them most, making food plots even more effective.

40 WHITETAIL NEWS

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www.whitetailinstitute.com

showed buck home ranges averaging less than 300 acres. Core areas — where deer spend more than 50 percent of their time — are even smaller, often less than 100 acres. Look at a landscape dominated by crops and dotted with pockets of cover and guess where those bucks’ core areas are. They might include the agriculture fields but probably aren’t dominated by them.

There are several reasons why, and one is feeding habits. Watch a deer feed and you’ll notice they rarely spend much time in one place.

In the forest — a natural environment — they move along, stopping periodically to nibble a leaf or a twig or suck up an acorn. Even in crop fields, they rarely stand in one place very long. They’re selective, and like us, seem to prefer variety. It’s also an adaptive strategy for survival as lingering in one place too long makes them more susceptible to predation. Deer also have dynamic nutritional requirements that change with the seasons. Crop fields only meet some of them, generally for brief periods.

Habitat Management The key to effectively compete with crops is to identify and address limiting factors — sometimes referred to as the low hole in the bucket.

If food is readily abundant in the form of crops, look at what you can offer in terms of cover.

Does your ground contain a diversity of habitat types? Does it contain sufficient dense bedding and fawning cover? If so, you’re already on your way. If not, create some. And make sure you leave a sufficient amount of undisturbed area (sanctuaries). This is particularly important on smaller parcels as excess disturbance could drive deer off entirely. Remember, your oasis could well be the core bedding area for many of the deer that use adjacent croplands for feeding.

Deer need water, which is often present in agricultural “islands.”

Low ground and land along watercourses generally don’t lend themselves to agriculture and are often left out of production. Further, environmental regulations often require leaving a buffer around watercourses and water bodies. If your ground doesn’t have it, build it. Even small ponds will attract deer and other wildlife.

Planting food plots in predominantly agricultural areas might seem a losing proposition, but if you do it right, you can effectively compete and win. They key is understanding how a whitetail’s nutritional needs change throughout the year.

In spring and summer, protein demands are extremely high. Does begin the season in their third trimester of pregnancy and then must nurse fawns throughout the ensuing months after birth. Meanwhile, bucks are entering a period of rapid antler growth.

A crop such as soybeans will meet some of those demands but has a limited window of availability. It won’t be there in the early spring to meet peak protein demands. Conversely, a perennial like Imperial Whitetail Clover is one of the first things to green up in the spring, providing high protein content when it’s needed most.

Also consider variety. Imperial Chicory Plus offers the one-two punch of Imperial Whitetail Clover and Chicory. The latter, because of its deep roots, will do better on drier ground or in drought conditions, when agricultural crops will struggle.

As summer yields to fall, a deer’s dietary demands shift from protein to the carbohydrates and fats they need to fatten up for winter. Corn provides some of that but offers little in the way of protein for nearlygrown fawns and near-fully-developed antlers, and provides no nutrition after it’s harvested.

That’s particularly true with the super-efficient harvesting practices used by most farmers nowadays. I’ve traveled to the Midwest annually for the past couple of decades, and each time I’m amazed at how much more land is put into production. Where hedgerows, wind rows and CRP fields were once abundant, corn and soybean fields stretch from road ditch to road ditch. That enhances the value of cover and any food remaining after the crops are harvested.

This is when your fall annual plots will really shine. Plantings such as Imperial Whitetail Winter-Greens, Pure Attraction, Tall Tine Tubers, Winter Peas Plus and Whitetail Oats Plus are the most attractive in the fall and winter and they provide carbs when deer need them most and when they might represent the only nutritious food on the landscape.

Conclusion So, competing with crops isn’t that difficult after all. Corn and beans are a great food source for deer but are available only for a limited time, and not necessarily when they’re most needed. And crop fields only represent one of the essential habitat elements. Food plots fill critical nutritional gaps, and a sound habitat management plan addresses the other important elements. ^

Just like crops, deer also need water. If you don’t have it already, add some to your agricultural island to create an oasis.

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 41

Imperial Whitetail Pure Attraction

Two-Stage Fall Annual Delivers a One-Two Punch

By Whitetail Institute Staff

f you’re looking for an annual forage planting designed to provide immediate attraction, rapid growth and sustained food and attraction for whitetails during the coldest months of the year, Imperial Pure Attraction delivers across the board.

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Designed for planting in late summer or fall, Pure Attraction’s superb performance is a product of its two-stage design. The combination provides managers with a single annual forage blend that delivers top performance from early fall through winter. Stage One features Whitetail Oats and winter peas. This combination germinates and grows quickly, and its high sugar content attracts deer right away, providing them with the carbohydrates they crave at that time of year as they store energy for the coming winter. At this same time, the WINA brassicas in Pure Attraction establish and provide even more tonnage during the early season.

The second stage of Pure Attraction really kicks in as the weather turns colder later in fall. Frosts cause an enzyme in the brassicas in Pure Attraction to turn starches in the plants to sugars, making them even sweeter and irresistible to deer. These brassicas stand tall in the snow and continue to provide deer with highly attractive and nutritious forage even during the coldest months of winter. That’s a huge benefit to deer, not just in terms of survival but also to help them maintain health and body weight during the winter months so that they can recover their winter health losses as quickly as possible in the spring and turn their nutritional resources to antler growth in earnest.

Like all Whitetail Institute forage products, Pure Attraction is the result of the Whitetail Institute’s exhaustive research, development and real-world testing across North America. As a result, you can be sure that Pure Attraction will deliver top performance.

Pure Attraction is easy to plant. The planting instructions and planting dates for Pure Attraction are shown on the back of the forage bags, and they’re also available at www.whitetailinstitute.com.

If you haven’t tried Imperial Whitetail Pure Attraction yet, do yourself a favor and try some this fall. You’ll find that it establishes very quickly and attracts deer right away. Pure Attraction is designed to produce lots of succulent, carbohydrate-rich forage and continue to attract deer through the late season. If you have any questions about Pure Attraction or would like to order, just call the Whitetail Institute’s in-house consultants at (800) 688-3030, or visit www.whitetailinstitute.com. ^

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FOUR CHAINSAW PROJECTS…

TO CREATE LONG-LASTING HABITAT

By Scott Bestul Photo by the Author

ldo Leopold, the father of modern game management and author of the classic “A Sand County Almanac,” advised that the two most important tools for the deer manager are “the rifle and the axe.”

The firearm explains itself, but when Leopold mentioned the axe, he was stressing the importance of creating and maintaining the young-growth timber on which whitetails depend.

Chainsaws are, of course, faster than an axe, and I bet if Leopold were still alive, he’d recommend their use.

In fact, I’d argue that for the modern deer manager, there might be no more important tool than a chainsaw. And trust me, I’ve played with plenty of them. I’ve planted more food plots than I can count, shot and tested dozens of bows and crossbows and hung tree stands until my body ached. I’ve owned or tested virtually every gew-gaw, gadget and gizmo available to the modern deer hunter.

All that work has certainly helped me encounter some good-sized bucks. But I really didn’t make my hunting grounds exponentially better until I learned how to run a chainsaw.

I know next to nothing about the stock market, but the $500 I spent on a chainsaw and some safety gear was the best investment I’ve made

44 WHITETAIL NEWS

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for deer hunting. Throw in $20 for gas and a little sweat equity, and I turned a few small sections of deer woods from OK to kick-butt in a year. My initial work will provide dividends for years to come.

Don’t get me wrong: I know food plots are important. I love ’em as much as the next guy and spend more time as a gentleman farmer than I probably should. But how you manage the wooded habitat on your property is equally critical. Deer bed, feed and seek security in young-growth timber, and one of the best ways to create or maintain that young growth is with a chainsaw.

Seek Professional Help But before you fire up a Husqvarna and start felling trees, make a plan. Your property might have valuable timber on it, and you’d be wise to consult with a forester before going crazy with a saw. I’ll discuss a few do-it-yourself projects later. But before those can occur, you want someone with skills and training to walk your land and come up with a management plan.

This is critical because we’re not just talking deer habitat here; we’re talking money. Your forest is a valuable, renewal crop that can produce income for years to come. But if that crop is harvested poorly, the results might be irreversible, and the profit will be negligible. Managing a forest means thinking long-term, with an eye toward maximum tree health and a series of paychecks spread over years or decades. And unless you’re a forester, you’re probably not knowledgeable enough to put a plan in place.

In my region, state foresters will often visit a property for free or a nominal fee. But paying a consultant’s fee can be worth it. He can assess your timber, listen to your goals and then help create a long-term plan. This extra step will not only result in your immediate dream of improving deer habitat but also a blueprint that will make money for you (and future generations) as you harvest marketable timber.

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plan but will also oversee each timber sale, and the goodies you get from those — logging/access roads, log landings for plots, even carefully designed thickets and sanctuaries — are worth the wait. Plus, they’re done with huge machinery, operated by skilled pros who can do in a week what would take you months or longer. So Step One: Get someone with know-how to develop and run a management plan.

That said, there are plenty of immediate improvements you can make to your property with a chainsaw in hand. So let’s get you in the timber and start making some deer habitat. But first, this message:

Start With Safety Many men feel a genetic entitlement to the use of power tools. But a chainsaw is not a cordless drill. My good friend and closest neighbor nearly cut off his leg and bled to death because of a chainsaw accident many years ago. Dave is no weekend warrior but a farmer who works with big, powerful machinery many times a day. He survived only because he was young, tough and very lucky (a Medivac chopper reached him in time, and this was in the pre-cellphone era).

If you’ve never run a power saw, learn basic safety rules first — they’re all over the Internet — and read the handy owner’s manuals that accompany each saw. Better yet, have a pro teach you the ins and outs of running one. Then, purchase — and wear — protective gear: helmet, goggles or safety glasses, hearing protection, gloves and chaps.

You can even buy vests and jackets to protect your arms and torso.

If I sound like your grandma, consider this: Another of my close friends is a full-time logger; a man who has felled hundreds of thousands of trees in a long career. Tom won’t even touch the start button on a saw without being fully covered in the safety gear mentioned above. If you need further proof, Tom’s wife, Heather, is an occupational therapist, who treats all the macho loggers who think, “I don’t need that sissy safety stuff.” After she patches these tough guys back

together, she helps them find a second career.

Do-It-Yourself Deer Projects Despite these warnings, chainsawing needn’t be dangerous. Nor is it rocket science. With safety gear and a basic knowledge of tree species and whitetail habitat needs, even a chainsaw newbie (like me) can have a lot of fun and make great strides in improving deer habitat.

Here are four projects anyone can tackle.

• Clear a bedroom: Almost any property will produce better hunting if it contains high-quality bedding cover. In my area, unfortunately, that is the one component most frequently missing. Make no mistake; whitetails will bed almost anywhere. But they prefer to bed in dense, second-growth cover that gives them maximum seclusion. In the oakhickory forests that dominate my local landscape, second-growth timber is tough to find, mainly because oaks are slow-growing trees that aren’t logged very often.

So here’s what my friends and I have learned: We seek out small stands of aspen (frequently called “popple”) trees and clear-cut them.

Aspen trees regenerate vigorously in the aftermath of a clear-cut, primarily by sucker-sprouting (sending saplings up from the root systems of existing trees). Saplings will also sprout from seeds dropped by mature trees. These seeds will lay dormant in the soil until exposed to the ample sunlight created by a clear-cut. Because most aspen stands are relatively small (1/4-acre to 5 acres) in this area, two men with saws can clear-cut a popple stand in a weekend of work.

I use the term clear-cut literally — but with exceptions. Species such as aspen regenerate best when exposed to sunlight and minus the competition from other trees. So we take down every tree (including brush species) unless it’s unique for the area, has some market value or is a mast producer. I showed my young daughter the results of a just-completed clear-cut recently, and her jaw dropped at the apparent devas-

For the modern deer manager, there might be no more important tool than a chainsaw.

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www.whitetailinstitute.com

Food Plot Planting Guideâ&#x20AC;Ś PLANTING DATES FOR IMPERIAL CLOVER, ALFA-RACK PLUS, EXTREME, NO-PLOW, CHICORY PLUS, CHIC MAGNET AND EDGE

Call for planting dates Apr 1 - July 1 Apr 15 - June 15 Aug 1 - Sept 1 Coastal: Feb 1 - Mar 15 Sept 1 - Oct 15 Southern Piedmont: Feb 15 - Apr 1 Aug 15 - Oct 1 Mountain Valleys: Mar 1 - Apr 15 Aug 1 - Sept 15

Feb 1 - Apr 1 Aug 1 - Sept 30 Feb 1 - Apr 15 Sept 1 - Nov 1 North: Mar 15 - May 1 Aug 1 - Sept 15 South: Mar 1 - Apr 15 Aug 15 - Oct 15 Apr 1 - June 15 July 15 - Sept 5 Apr 1 - May 15 Aug 1 - Sept 15

Mar 20 - May 15 Aug 1 - Sept 15 Sept 15 - Nov 15 Feb 5 - Mar 1 North: Sept 5 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15 Feb 15 - Apr 1 Sept 1 - Oct 30 North: Sept 15 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15 Feb 1 - Mar 1 Coastal: Sept 25 - Oct 15 Piedmont: Sept 1 - Oct 5 Mountain Valleys: Aug 25 - Oct 15 North: Sept 25 - Nov 25 South: Oct 5 - Nov 30 Mar 1 - May 15 Aug 1 - Sept 15 Feb 1 - Apr 15 Aug 20 - Sept 30 Apr 15 - June 15 July 1 - Aug 15

21

22

May 15 -July 1 May 1 - June 15 July 1 - Aug 15 May 15 - July 1

PLANTING DATES FOR DOUBLE-CROSS, PURE ATTRACTION, SECRET SPOT, WINTER PEAS AND BOWSTAND

Aug 1 - Sept 15

Coastal: Sept 1 - Oct 15 Piedmont: Aug 15 - Oct 1 Mountain Valleys: Aug 1 - Sept 15

Call for planting dates Call for planting dates

Aug 1 - Sept 30 Aug 15 - Nov 1 North: Aug 1 - Sept 30 South: Aug 15 - Oct 15 July 15 - Sept 5 Aug 1 - Sept 15

Aug 1 - Sept 15

Sept 15 - Nov 15 North: Sept 5 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15

Sept 1 - Oct 30

North: Sept 15 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15

Coastal: Sept 15 - Oct 15 Piedmont: Sept 1 - Oct 5 Mountain: Aug 25 - Oct 15 North: Sept 25 - Nov 25 South: Oct 5 - Nov 30

21

22

July 1 - Aug 15 June 15 - July 15 July 15 - Aug 31 July 1 - Aug 15

Aug 1 - Sept 15 Aug 20 - Sept 30

PLANTING DATES FOR WINTER-GREENSâ&#x201E;˘ AND TALL TINE TUBERSâ&#x201E;˘

Call for planting dates Call for planting dates July 1 - Sept 10* Coastal: Aug 15 - Sept 30 Southern Piedmont: Aug 1 - Sept 15 Mountain Valleys: July 15 - Sept 15 July 15 - Sept 30

North: July 15 - Sept 30 South: Aug 1 - Oct 10 July 1 - Aug 30

July 1 - Aug 30 July 15 - Sept 15* Sept 15 - Nov 15 North: Sept 5 - Nov 1 Central: Sept 15 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15

North: Aug 15 - Oct 1 South: Sept 5 - Nov 1 North: Sept 5 - Oct 30 Central: Sept 15 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15 Coastal: Sept 1 - Oct 1 Piedmont: Aug 15 - Sept 20 Mountain Valleys: Aug 5 - Sept 15

Aug 1 - Oct 1

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North: Sept 15 - Nov 15 Central: Sept 25 - Nov 15 South: Oct 5 - Nov 30 July 15 - Sept 1 Aug 1 - Sept 30

* Earlier (spring) planting dates may be applicable. Call Whitetail institute for more information. ** For northern Pennsylvania, earlier (spring) planting dates may be applicable. Call Whitetail Institute for more information.

July 1 - Aug 15 June 15 - Aug 1 July 15 - Aug 31 July 1 - Aug 15

Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 47

A helmet, gloves, ear protection, hearing protection and common sense are necessary to stay safe while using a chainsaw.

tation. This fall, I’ll walk her back to that area and show her aspen whips that are six to eight feet tall and being eaten by deer. And in two years, Brooke will see young, healthy trees reaching for sunlight in the same spot. Better yet, deer will use the cut to bed, feed and escape hunting pressure.

• Make a hinge: Not all forests contain species — such as aspen — that respond so perfectly to clear-cutting. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create habitat with a chainsaw. Hinge-cutting is simpler than clear-cutting, because all you do is cut the tree at a spot about four to five feet above the ground and then saw through just far enough through the tree that it tips over. And then you leave it. The hingecut tree not only creates a bedding-cover tunnel near its trunk, but the terminal crown and branches will continue to grow for a time (sometimes several seasons), creating a browse source. Even better, hinge-cut areas allow sunlight to reach young trees and shrubs and encourage their growth.

Like a clear-cut, hinge-cutting helps you creating a bed and breakfast that can last many years. Just this past winter, I helped a neighbor with a hinge-cut on his 80-acre hunting property. The sheltered ridgetop had long been a preferred bedding area, but in recent years whitetails had abandoned the park-like woods. Low timber-value species such as hickory and elm had matured and were robbing sunlight from the forest floor. So we went in there with chainsaws, hingecut a wide swath of trees and, in a long afternoon, made it a bedding area again. Bucks started using the area only months after our saws went silent.

Hinge-cutting works best where low-value, or particularly abundant, tree species (in my area, trees such as box elder, elm, ironwood, young maples and even hickory) grow in relatively small patches close to more valuable timber or mast-producing trees. Clear-cutting isn’t a viable option, but small hinge-cutting projects can create bedding areas in an otherwise mature forest.

• Please release me: Chainsaws are often thought of as instru-

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ments of destruction, but release-cuts do the opposite. If you know the timber on your property well, you’ve likely identified species — if not individual trees — that you want to grow strong, healthy and propagate more of their kind. Release-cuts encourage these prime trees by eliminating competition for food, water and sunlight.

Let’s start with a simple example. White oaks are as valuable in my region as they are anywhere else. To encourage young white oaks to grow, we’ve often eliminated competitive trees growing near them that have little or no timber value. Basswood, box elder, elm and ironwood (among others) are often found growing in stands of young white oak, and felling trees from these species has helped us give the oaks a boost.

Sometimes, a small clump of white oaks grow in close proximity to each other, and a release-cut can eliminate the poorer candidates, allowing the sapling with the most potential to do its thing. However, unless you’ve had some experience, it’s usually best to consult with a professional forester to help you decide which oaks should go or stay.

Soft-mast species can also benefit from a release-cut, and individual trees might also be improved by pruning. Apple trees — an excellent whitetail food — are a perfect example. I recently drove through southern Wisconsin, one of the Midwest’s largest orchard regions, and was amazed at how aggressively these trees had been pruned during winter! I knew that come fall, these trees would look well-rounded and fully leaved, and would pump out bushels of prime fruit. But their offseason haircuts made them look like pathetic stumps. Again, a pro could give you a short course on apple pruning, but there are also many easy-to-read guides at the library and online.

• Steer your deer: Chainsaws are also excellent tools for creating funnels in and around stand sites. By felling and moving poor-quality trees and brush, you can steer deer toward areas that will offer you the best shot, avoid winding you or both. Here are two examples.

Small food plots — often called harvest or kill-plots — are a perfect example. Whitetails adore these small, secluded food sources, but deer quickly develop the annoying habit of establishing entry trails from multiple directions and then entering the food plot only when they have the wind at their advantage. Of course, this is usually the deadwrong wind for you. The simple remedy is to pile stems, brush and other debris across all but a few select trails, blocking any whitetail on-ramps you don’t want them traveling.

I used this technique this past fall, when my hunting buddy and I planted a food plot on a log landing (an opening in the timber where loggers stack saw logs before loading them). After Alan and I planted the plot, we realized deer could enter it from multiple directions. Trouble was, there was only good stand tree in the area, and you couldn’t shoot the entire plot from that spot. So we blocked a few trails that we didn’t want deer to use and opened a couple of others that steered deer past our stand. Our labor was rewarded in October, when my dad shot his biggest whitetail ever; a beautiful 9-pointer that trotted right into the plot where we wanted him to.

Get To Work!

This is just a sampling of the work that can be accomplished with some chainsaw time. I’ve found these projects to be satisfying and successful, and they create positive changes in habitat that will last for years. Even better, the best time to complete chainsaw projects is during that late-winter/early-spring period — before trees start the year’s re-growth — and the tasks create one more excuse to be in the deer woods. ^ www.whitetailinstitute.com

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IN OKLAHOMA

By Brad Gaddis, Oklahoma Photo by the Author

received my Whitetail Institute seed around Sept. 1 and planted it around Sept. 15. The food plot was about five acres, and I planted a variety of seed types that included Whitetail Oats Plus, Pure Attraction and Chic Magnet. I was fortunate enough to get some timely rains, and by Oct. 1, the seeds had started to sprout and the deer started to move in.

Before long I had two dozen deer using the food plot on a regular basis, including a half dozen bucks.

On Oct. 5 at midday, I went to check my camera on the northwestern corner of the food plot, and I had a picture of a large buck from the night before. The buck was a long way from the camera, and it was hard to make out, so at the time I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t realize exactly how big he was. I returned two days later to check my camera, and this time I had some really good photos of a monster buck.

My initial thought was that he was at least 200 inches â&#x20AC;&#x201D; by far the largest buck that I have ever hunted.

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www.whitetailinstitute.com

For the next week, the wind did not cooperate for my stand location, so I stayed patient and stayed out of the area so I did not pressure the buck. I continued to monitor the trail cam photos, and he was showing up on the food plot every night. Finally, on Oct. 12, the wind switched in my favor. I hunted every day from Oct. 12 through 25 with no sightings of him. I passed on several nice bucks in the 140- to 150-class range during that time.

Muzzleloader season started Oct. 26, so I hung up the bow and knocked some dust off the black powder, got it dialed in at the range and was ready for black powder season. Oct. 26 and 27 came and went with no sightings of the monster buck, but he was still showing up on trail camera photos every night. At that time, I decided to move back into the timber 50 to 100 yards to try and cut him off before he headed to the Whitetail Institute food plot. I hung a new stand on a creek bank where I knew he had to be traveling and continued hunting with black powder. I was still getting pictures of him every night on the food plot. He was just being extremely nocturnal.

Finally on Friday, Nov. 1, I had my first encounter with him, but because I had moved back into the thick brush, it happened too fast to get a shot at him. By the time I realized it was him, he had vanished back into the timber. I knew I was getting close at that point, because bucks were starting to rut, and he was finally up on his feet during shooting hours.

I continued hunting through Nov. 3, the last day of black-powder season, with no other encounters with him. I had been hunting the same deer for 22 straight days. I was exhausted and decided to take a day off on Nov. 4, the day after black-powder hunting ended. I snuck into my hunting ground midday on Nov. 4 to check my camera, and what did I find at 9:30 a.m.? He was hanging out right under my stand for 45 minutes with a doe. I was sick.

I knew he was with a hot doe, so I figured he would follow her wherever she went. The does were really piling into the food plot at this point, so I figured this was my chance to put him on the ground.

I switched back to stick and string.

On the morning of Nov. 5, I quietly snuck into the stand one hour before sunrise hoping that would be the day. It was a still, cold November day. As the sun just started to break the horizon, I heard footsteps in the leaves. I pulled up my binoculars and could see legs through the brush headed my way. As it came closer, I realized it was a doe. I was hoping this was the doe the monster had been locked down with the past few days. I caught movement behind her, and when I pulled my binoculars back up, there he was—following right behind her, coming down the same trail.

I stood up, had my bow in my hand and was ready for him to present a shot. I let him get as close as possible, and when he walked into one of my shooting lanes, I let out a quiet grunt that stopped him in his tracks. My heart was pounding out of my chest, so I had to calm my nerves to make the shot. I lined up my sights right behind his left shoulder and let the arrow fly. It was a 25-yard shot, and he was slightly quartered away. I knew immediately that I had a good hit on him. I watched him running and thrashing through the timber until he got out of my sight.

It was 7:30 a.m., so I waited about an hour before I started my track.

Once I started tracking him, I didn’t have to go far. I found him less than a 100 yards from my stand. At that point, I’m pretty sure I let out a loud yell, because I had just killed not only the biggest buck of my life but also probably the biggest buck I will ever see. The official Boone & Crockett score was 212-5/8 nontypical. ^

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 51

It doesn’t look like much but the Old 706 is missed when it’s broken down.

The Day the Tractor Died Necessity Spurs Food Plotting Innovations

By Matt Harper Photos by the Author

hen I started planting food plots, I didn’t own a tractor.

Fortunately, my dad allowed me to use the “old 706,” which was an International Farmall 706 with a diesel engine. This tractor had (and has) a special reverence to me as I grew up with it. It was born a few years before me, in the late 1960s, but dad bought it when I was very young, and throughout my formative years, I climbed on, rode and eventually drove the 706. By the time I started planting food plots with it, I knew every little nuance of the machine, and it became a helping partner that I could not live without, or at least that is what I thought.

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ATV and UTV implements can be great options in the absence of a tractor or for those hard-to-get-to spots.

By my fourth year of planting food plots, I was starting to get a bit cocky. I had some beautiful fields of Imperial Whitetail Clover and Alfa-Rack Plus, of which I think I had more admiring photos than of my kids. When the planting season of Year Five rolled around, I made plans to delve into the world of annuals, create new food plots in new areas and increase the acreage of my perennial plantings. And as plans go, I had a pretty good one and things started out swimmingly.

I plowed a new field in a part of the farm that had good cover but no food, disked down a couple of fields that I had fall-plowed the year before and cleared a site for a another new food plot. But then, as often happens in farming, the plans fell into a seemingly unrecoverable heap. I called Dad to ask him if I could borrow the tractor during the weekend to work on food plots, and he broke the bad news that the tractor had died. OK, a non-living thing can’t die, but the motor had blown up, which effectively meant that it was dead. He was going to have it fixed but it was going to take several weeks, meaning that I was going to miss my food plot planting window. I had to come up with a plan — fast.

Tillage Tillage encompasses breaking the ground and then working the ground into a plant-ready seedbed. I came up with two avenues to break the ground; one being my old walk-behind tiller and the other being a small section of an old field cultivator. I can’t weld for squat,

Taking Inventory When the initial shock wore off, I decided to take inventory of what I still had. I had a 350 cc ATV, a hand-spreader, an old worn-out walkbehind tiller and body and brain. Not a lot, but it was at least something. I knew that I could do some handwork on some of the steps in the process even though it would take quite a bit of time. I remembered talking to an old guy from Pennsylvania at a hunting show I was working at, and he told me that he shouldered some old horse harness and pulled around a harrow section. That thought was no sooner in my head than I decided to make the ATV become the new power source and forgo the Schwarzenegger routine. The problem was that I really didn't have any equipment for it, and I didn't want to spend a ton of money on something I would abandon when I had access to a tractor again. So I made of list of the basics I would need to make it through food plot season.

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This big 5 point was shot on his way to a Imperial No-Plow field. www.whitetailinstitute.com

so I had a buddy put together a three-foot-wide section that contained just the small tillage shanks and then added some weight on top to hold it down. It was cumbersome and hard on the ATV, but it worked — kind of. More on that later. I also took a small section (the part with the hitch) of an old horse-drawn disk that was somewhat usable after some creative engineering. The drag was a section of chain-link fence with a couple of old corner posts wired to it and a cultipacker which was a small yard roller I found in grandpa’s garage. Tillage equipment — check.

Seeding and Fertilizing I didn’t use the tractor to lime, as I typically had someone come out and do that for me, but I used the tractor to pull the fertilizer cart. I didn’t think the little 350 was up to pulling several tons of fertilizer, so I needed to come up with an alternative. For this, I ended up spending a little bit of money on a spreader made for an ATV/UTV. There were several good options on the market, but the criteria I used for making my choice was that it needed to have a hopper large enough to hold at least 50 to 100 pounds of fertilizer and have a mounting system that would allow the ATV to support the weight. It also needed to be made of a material that would withstand the corrosive nature of fertilizer.

Additionally, it needed to be able to adjust to various dispensing rates to accommodate different fertilizer particle sizes and large and small seed. Equally important was that the adjustment gate needed to hold its position even in a bumpy field. (There is nothing more frustrating than having to stop all the time to open the dispensing gate or

close it after you have used half your seed in one pass.) I wanted the spreader to have some kind of an agitator in it to prevent bridging and of course it needed to evenly spread its contents. I realize that this is a lot of attention on a spreader, but if you are going to spend the money on one, you should get one that doesn’t make you want to take a hammer to it after each use.

Aside from fertilizing and liming, food plot maintenance boils down to weed control, which is typically done by mowing or spraying. An ATV, at least the one I had, doesn’t have a PTO, so I again spent some money on a pull-behind mower with its own power source. The results with the mower were mixed. My final purchase was a 20-gallon tank sprayer with a small four-foot-nozzle boom to replace the threepoint sprayer I used on the tractor.

Seed Types Knowing that I would not be able to create as good a seedbed with my ramshackle array of equipment as I did with my regular equipment, I also closely considered the type of seed I was going to plant.

The perennials would work, especially on the areas that I had already tilled up, but on the new areas I changed some things in terms of food plot size and seed type. I needed seed types that could be grown successfully with minimal tillage, which led me to my first planting of Imperial No-Plow that ended up a huge success. Although it was not available at the time, I later discovered that Imperial Extreme also worked very well as a minimal tillage food plot, with the added bonus of it being a perennial. Brassicas such as Winter-Greens can also do fairly well planted with minimal tillage, although it performs better

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WHITETAIL NEWS 55

in a well-tilled field. At the same time, I had to forgo some of the seed varieties that absolutely require good tillage, such as corn and soybeans.

Planting and Maintenance Techniques

actually help provide nutrients to the young seedlings. In these areas, I planted No-Plow by dragging the field, broadcasting the seed, then re-dragging the field to ensure seed/soil contact. The results were fantastic.

For maintenance, the sprayer worked great as you might expect. A couple of things on sprayers: You should get one with the biggest tank your ATV/UTV can handle so you make fewer trips back to the hydrant to refill. Also, get the biggest, highest-quality pump you can afford. This is really the heart of the sprayer and needs to function well.

I also like to use a sprayer that recirculates the spray mixture as you are using it to keep the spray thoroughly mixed.

Planting was a matter of trial and error and matching the right seed to the right conditions. Basically, I had to understand my limitations and work within them. In the areas where I had already disked down a fall plowing, I used my ATV spreader to put on the fertilizer. I then used the chain link drag and yard roller, which performed well and produced a good seedbed. I planted these fields with a hand seeder, but that was because of preference more than the lack of the ATV Now That the Tractor is Back spreader’s ability to work in that situation.

Since that experience several years ago, I now own a couple of The raw plowed field and the untilled areas were not quite as easy. tractors, but that doesn’t mean that I have abandoned some of the On the plowed field, my makeshift field cultivator and disk worked techniques that I discovered ‘that year’. I have moved to a UTV and a as you might expect — not all that well. There were several hours of slightly bigger sprayer, but I use it now probably more than my threemotor-blowing pulling while the implements slowly knocked away at point sprayer bethe clumps of plowed cause it is easier to earth. After picking transport. I don’t up my teeth that got have the chain-link jarred loose from the fence drag anymore ride, I had at least but have replaced it managed to break up with some salvaged the seedbed someharrow sections that what. However, even work well on smaller after dragging it, the plots. My spreader seedbed was not is also a bit bigger good enough for a now, but it stays atperennial, at least in tached to my UTV my opinion. I ended pretty much all the up not planting that time. I do nearly all field in the spring my broadcast seedand let Mother Naing with it and still ture work on it. Rain use it for fertilizing and wind helped out on smaller, hard-totremendously, and This plot was planted with nothing get to plots. I have after a spraying with more than an ATV but pulls deer in on scrapped the little RoundUp in late a regular basis. disk and field cultisummer to kill the vator but also disweed growth, I covered there are dragged it and rolled much better-engineered ATV/UTV implements than what my skills it and planted a Winter-Greens plot that did pretty well. One other could produce. thing that I would mention about dealing with roughly tilled fields is to consider the soil type and soil moisture content before you till the ground. Soils heavy in clay are much more difficult to break up and Conclusion smooth out than sandy or loam soils. Further, having a decent amount of moisture in the ground when you till/plow the field will I think I heard somewhere that innovation is spawned from necesalso help to more easily smooth out the seedbed. sity. If you don’t have a tractor or your tractor is in the ER, it doesn’t In the untilled areas, I approached them in two ways. For some I mean that you can’t plant some high-quality, highly successful food used the walk-behind tiller to break up the soil but for obvious reasons plots. It takes some planning, thinking and a dose of realism, but you the areas were much smaller than originally planned. I found that if I can still produce a plot that you can confidently sit over during huntsprayed the area first before using the tiller to kill the root systems of ing season. It certainly worked for me. The year I was forced to exexisting vegetation, the tiller was far more effective. In other areas, I periment with tractorless food plotting, I shot a five-point buck (really simply sprayed the area to kill the sod layer then dragged the field or a six, but one brow was busted off) that scored 138 gross and weighed burned it off and then dragged the field. If there is enough dead vege290 pounds. The deer was traveling from a bedding area to a No-Plow tation and you can do it safely, burning is a great way to prepare a field I planted with my ATV. Needless to say, I was glad I didn’t throw minimum tillage field. It completely removes any thatch, and the ashes in the towel when Dad told me the tractor had died. ^

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COYOTE PREDATION IN SOUTHEAST CALLS FOR NEW DEER MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

By John J. Ozoga Photos by Bill Marchal

hitetail deer are still unquestionably overabundant in many sections of the nation, especially where hunter harvest is the only important source of deer mortality. Meanwhile, some areas are experiencing a disturbing decline in deer abundance, primarily because of poorly understood natural mortality factors.

Whitetail numbers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are currently at their lowest level since 1979 — in my view, because of the poor condition of deer wintering habitat and resultant poor reproductive performance. Further, I contend this pattern probably extends across the Upper Great Lakes region in general, where the quality of the winter habitat and severity of winter weather still determine deer welfare.

A recent commentary by John Kilgo and other biologists from South Carolina and Georgia, published in The Journal of Wildlife Management, indicates that whitetail numbers are also declining in the Southeast — coincident with a corresponding increase in coyote abundance.

Kilgo and his group admit the available evidence “does not establish cause and effect between coyotes and observed declines in deer recruitment.” However, they present a rather convincing argument that

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coyote-induced newborn fawn mortality is seriously lowering annual deer herd recruitment rates. If so, this tends to invalidate deer population models, commonly used in eastern states, which consider hunting as the only important mortality factor for deer.

More important, despite the apparent lack of concern among “wildlife professionals” in the region, if deer recruitment is reduced because of coyote predation on fawns, as the authors of this commentary propose, “Management strategies may need to be altered.”

Unfortunately, coyotes are relatively new arrivals in much of the Southeast, and the importance of their predatory effects on deer has not been thoroughly researched. So currently, there are probably many more questions than answers concerning coyote-deer relationships in the Southeast. Here is what the experts know about the situation, based largely upon data gathered in South Carolina. www.whitetailinstitute.com

Whitetails in the Southeast Whitetails were nearly gone from the entire Southeast region by 1900. Protection of remnant deer populations, trapping and translocation programs, improved habitat conditions and law enforcement in the 1940s and 1950s brought quick results. Deer populations increased rather dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s.

In South Carolina, the deer population peaked at about 1.1 million between 1992 and 1997.

Since then, it has dropped to about 750,000 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a 31 percent decline.

According to University of Georgia professor Karl Miller, this deer population pattern has occurred throughout the Southeast.

A deer population model developed for the Savannah River Site, a 301-square-mile tract in western South Carolina, indicated that hunter harvest of deer was the primary mortality source from 1965 through the mid-1990s; non-hunting mortality accounted for about 26 percent of the annual mortality across all sex and age classes.

Beginning in the early 2000s, deer spotlight surveys revealed that model estimates were no longer accurate. From 2003 through 2005, model estimates continued to climb, but spotlight indices showed a decline. Low hunter harvest rates also reflected declining deer numbers, suggesting that non-hunting mortality factors were involved.

Kilgo and his group acknowledge that many factors, such as changing forest management practices and extensive land development, might have played a role in the recent deer decline. However, as noted, timing of the deer decline occurred coincidental with the increase in coyotes.

Coyotes in the Southeast Coyotes are not native to the Southeast. Historically, this was home to the red wolf. Habitat change and the disappearance of the red wolf undoubtedly helped the establishment of coyotes, but human activity was probably more important. Apparently, many coyotes were intentionally or accidentally translocated and released by humans.

According to Kilgo and his co-workers, coyotes colonized much of the Southeast only recently and are now abundant where they did not occur 20 to 30 years ago. For example, in South Carolina, the first coyote was reported in 1976, but coyotes were found throughout the state by the mid-1990s. Based on harvest records by trappers and incidental

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Coyotes are among the greatest predators of newborn fawns. Here the victim was a young buck.

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shooting of coyotes by deer hunters, most of the coyote population growth has occurred since the mid-1990s.

The first sighting of a coyote on the Savannah River Site was in 1986. By 2005, a population survey estimated 1,177 coyotes on the area, or nearly four coyotes per square mile — that's a lot of coyotes.

This density is higher than the average reported for Texas, which is less than a coyote per square mile. Also, this suggests the Savannah River Site coyote population grew from almost zero in the early to mid-1980s to being well established by 2000, a pattern that has probably prevailed throughout the Southeast.

The decline in whitetail abundance and the sharp drop in the number of fawns per doe occurred concurrently with the rapid rise in coyote numbers.

Kilgo and his group ask the obvious question: "Could coyotes be the unknown new source of mortality to fawns in the population?"

Incriminating Evidence Coyotes are without question one of the most effective predators of newborn fawns; they’re at least as efficient as black bears and far better than gray wolves. Certainly, given their current densities, coyotes are potentially a critical player in whitetail population dynamics throughout the Southeast.

According to Karl Miller, there is no reason to believe that in-utero productivity among whitetails in the Southeast has declined. To the contrary, the best evidence indicates that nearly all adult does (one year and older) conceive and, on average, carry about 1.7 fetuses per doe. Hence, the major reason for the decrease in number of fawns observed per doe is because of high newborn fawn mortality rates — and it definitely appears that coyotes are responsible.

Interestingly, Miller noted that lactation rates (which are indicative of fawn rearing success) for does two years old and older have declined from almost 100 percent to 70 percent. In other words, currently, about 30 percent of the adult does do not raise fawns.

The ratio of fawns per adult female in the harvest also indicates that fawn survival has declined in recent years. Using an average conception rate of 1.7 fawns per doe, these data show that newborn fawn mortality rates from 1965 to 1990 ranged from 26 to 53 percent, annually. However, from 1999 to 2006, 67 to 87 percent of the fawns died before the hunting season each year.

Study of coyote food habits conducted on the Savannah River Site during 2005 and 2006 provided firm evidence that coyotes are eating fawns. During peak of the fawning season (May), 31 to 38 percent of the coyote scats examined contained deer fawn remains. Fawn remains were also identified in 15 to 23 percent of the June-collected scats and with lesser frequency through August. In some Southeastern states, evidence of fawns has been found in more than 70 percent of the coyote scats examined during the primary fawning period. As a result, investigators agree that coyote-induced fawn mortality is probably significant.

Studies conducted in Alabama provide supporting evidence that coyotes are having a major impact upon deer populations. For example, University of Georgia student Cory Vangilder used camera surveys to determine fawn-to-doe ratios before and after experimental predator removal. Before predator removal, the fawn-to-doe ratio was 0.41.

After the removal of 22 coyotes and 10 bobcats the ratio increased to 1.2 fawns per doe.

Another study, conducted by Sarah Saalfeld and Stephen Ditchkoff

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in Alabama, also revealed high newborn fawn mortality rates, primarily because of coyote predation. During a two-year study conducted in 2004 and 2005, 36 fawns were captured, transmitter-equipped and monitored daily in an exurban setting. Overall, only 12 of the 36 fawns (33 percent) survived longer than eight weeks, with coyotes being responsible for 42 to 63 percent of the mortality.

Saalfeld and Ditchkoff concluded this: “Coyotes and their predation on neonatal deer should be considered an integral part of any [deer] population control strategy in the exurban landscape.” In other words, in certain situations, where hunting is not controlling overly abundant deer, coyote-induced fawn mortality might be considered beneficial.

Management Implications

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Granted, the data linking coyotes to low deer productivity in the Southeast tends to be circumstantial. Obviously, more research is needed. Other factors, such as disease and accidents, could also periodically contribute to increased fawn mortality, as could malnutrition in some instances. Nonetheless, there is every reason to believe that coyote predation of newborn fawns is responsible for the recent poor reproductive performance of whitetails and is the primary factor causing a decline in deer numbers throughout the Southeast.

The authors of this commentary call attention to a number of questions pertaining to the relationship between coyotes and whitetails.

Aside from a need for more research on the subject, they also warn that changes in deer management strategies may be required.

First and foremost, they ask, “What is the level of coyote-induced mortality, and is it additive?”

In the North, malnourished pregnant does produce stunted fawns that die soon after birth, often because they are abandoned or not defended by the mother and are killed by predators. Hence, killing of small, weak newborn fawns by predators is largely compensatory because the fawns would have died anyway.

In the South, does are less likely to be malnourished during pregnancy (unless deer populations are extremely high), so coyote predation of newborn fawns is more likely additive and must be considered when setting deer harvest rates to avoid the risk of overharvest.

Miller points out that deer population size is also important when considering the potential significance of coyote predation. High-density deer populations might be able to avoid high levels of predation through so-called predator swamping (overwhelming predators with potential prey). In contrast, if a deer population has been reduced to a low level by disease or high harvest, each fawn is important, and coyote predation can slow population recovery.

Although specific fawn habitat requirements in the densely vegetated Southeast are unknown, habitat quality might also be important in determining the vulnerability of newborn fawns to predation. Some managers have suggested that land owners can minimize coyote predation by managing to provide favorable fawn hiding cover. Also, habitat might be manipulated to increase alternative food items for coyotes, such as soft mast and small mammals, thereby decreasing coyote predation of fawns.

Clearly, if coyote-induced fawn mortality is causing the deer population to fall below favorable levels for hunting purposes, managers must increase deer productivity or reduce fawn mortality. In some cases, this might call for limiting the harvest of female deer — which might not set well with Southern hunters accustomed to extremely liberal deer harvest regulations. ^ www.whitetailinstitute.com

Imperial Whitetail Double-Cross The Perennial Forage with a ColdSeason Kick

By Whitetail Institute Staff

ave you ever wished for a perennial forage planting that could also deliver the enhanced availability and tonnage of a fall/winter annual?

If so, your wish has come true.

Imperial Whitetail Double-Cross is designed to do exactly that.

Perennial forages can serve as the backbone of a food plot system in many cases because they are designed to last for years and, at least in the case of Imperial perennials, provide high nutritional levels and sustained attractiveness to deer on a yearround basis. The role of annual forages in food plot systems is

also well known. Annuals can be used to supplement existing perennial forages or by themselves to attract deer, hold them and provide nutrition during specific seasons. Imperial Whitetail Double-Cross provides the best of both worlds, in an all-in-one forage planting.

The perennials in Double-Cross are the same clovers that make Imperial Whitetail Clover the Number 1 food plot planting in the world. They’re the only clover varieties ever genetically developed specifically for deer, and they can last up to five years from one planting. These clovers exhibit early seedling vigor, excellent heat and cold tolerance and exceptionally high nutrition and attraction for deer; and they’re only available in Whitetail Institute products.

The annuals in Double-Cross consist of the Whitetail Institute’s annual forage brassicas, which boost early and late-season tonnage even further and provide an abundant food source for deer into the coldest months of the year. The Whitetail Institute’s Golden Jumpstart clovers are also included to help the stand establish and start drawing deer as quickly as possible.

Double-Cross is designed to be planted in late summer or fall. The brassicas establish and grow rapidly to complement the perennial clovers, increasing early tonnage and carbohydrate availability. As the perennial clovers continue to provide nutrition and attraction through fall and into winter, the brassicas sweeten with the first hard frost of fall, further boosting the plot’s attractiveness. When winter arrives, the brassicas can stand tall in the snow, providing deer with highly nutritious forage during one of the most stressful times of the year. As spring arrives, the perennial clovers are ready to help deer recover their winter weight losses, and also later to provide them with abundant protein for antler development, doe pregnancy and lactation and overall herd health.

Double-Cross should be planted in soils that are loam, light clay or heavier. One 4pound bag of Double-Cross will plant up to one-half acre. Larger quantities are also available. Full planting instructions are available on the Institute’s website, www.whitetailinstitute.com, and on the back of each Double-Cross product bag. Additional information is also available toll-free by calling the Institute at (800) 688-3030. ^

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WHITETAIL NEWS 63

Greatest Benefits of Food Plotting are Personal

By Mark Kenyon Photo By Dustin Reid

t was an early autumn evening, fresh greens still lively, but increasingly mingled with October browns, orange and red intruders of the approaching fall. Rain drops splished, splashed and kerplunked upon the roof of my blind, providing the necessary percussion to accompany the wind-rustling symphony of this first hunt of the season. Soon, a turkey emerged from the woods and stepped carefully into the tender greens that stretched before me, stopping to peck periodically along the way. Not long after, a curious woodchuck burst across the opening, paused for a moment to feed and then sprinted back from where he came.

And finally, as the sun began its return to home upon the horizon, a doe came into the lush patch of Imperial Whitetail Clover and Pure Attraction’s blend of oats and brassicas.

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Only 10 yards away, I could see in perfect detail each careful bite of greens she pulled from the earth, and I watched as she chewed long and thoughtfully, and then finally took this nature’s bounty into herself.

It was an incredibly satisfying moment for me. I had worked long and hard that preceding summer, tilling the ground, sewing seeds and enriching the soil with the nutrients it needed to spring forth this lush carpet of growth. And there I sat, enjoying the show, as I watched Mother Nature’s creatures enjoy the small gift I had given back.

For me, I’ve found the act of planting food plots is much more than simply a project completed to improve my chances of killing deer. It’s much more than a task endured just to grow bigger bucks. It’s more than just a job to be done to encourage higher or healthier populations of whitetails. www.whitetailinstitute.com

For me, I’ve found the act of planting food plots is much more than all of that. It’s a way of connecting with the earth. It’s a way of giving back. And it’s a way for me, as the great conservationist and wilderness philosopher Aldo Leopold said, to “ … see land as a community to which we belong … ” and to “ … use it with love and respect.”

The practical benefits of planting food plots on your hunting property are plenty, and they’ve been regaled in countless numbers of articles, books and magazines through the years. We all know that quality food plots can offer terrific supplemental nutrition to deer. We all know that they can help does acquire the nutrients needed to care for their young. And we all know that food plots can provide the protein necessary for bucks to develop their antlers in spring and summer and the nourishment needed to help deer make it through hard winters. And because we know these many positive notions of food plotting, I’ll let that lie.

For me, though, as mentioned, there is much more to this food plotting thing than just the practical. Much more often, the greatest benefits of food plotting are the personal.

It’s the simple joy of breaking ground, getting dirt under your fingernails and spreading a seed that someday — if all goes well — might turn a rough, brown earthy ground into a lush carpet of green.

Food plotting is the simple, if not immediately understood, joy of becoming more aware of the natural cycles of life, rain and sun and how these dance intermingled and dependent upon each other. Never before did I become so interested in rain and it’s possibility of arrival as when I became involved with the ritual of planting and praying for the sky to unleash.

Food plotting is the simple joy of watching all creatures, deer or oth-

erwise, enjoying the fruits of my labor and being happier and healthier for it.

Some might decry food plots as “just like baiting” or “too easy,” but I disagree with those accusations. For one, have you ever heard someone speak so affectionately as this about the benefits of baiting?

Doubtful. Baiting does nothing for the greater environment, requires no understanding of the earth and asks for no long-term investment of sweat and time. And as for being too easy? These claims come from the outside looking in, as no one who has actually attempted to plant forage for wildlife would ever still hold such a belief.

No, food plotting is not baiting, and it is not easy. Far from it. To food plot is practically beneficial to all surrounding wildlife and personally beneficial to the simple man who pulls the plow and sows the seed. And for that reason, I choose to dirty my hands each spring and summer, knowing full well the impact it will have on the earth — and on me.

Closing Thoughts Aldo Leopold explained, “Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a good shovel.”

I’ve found that planting a food plot, just as a pine, allows me this simple joy — one ordinarily reserved for gods and poets — of creating something beautiful and giving something important back to the wilderness that has given so much to me.

It’s the least I can do. ^

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 65

For Love of the

Hunt

By R.G. Bernier Photo by the Author

66 WHITETAIL NEWS

/ Vol. 24, No. 2

“I used to believe, I still do, that if you give something your all it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, as long as you’ve risked everything, put everything out there. And I’ve done that. I did it my entire life.

I did it with the game.”

— Billy Chapel in For Love of the Game.

Have you ever considered why we continue to hunt whitetails in this day and age? We certainly could attribute it to innate desire. As described by Robert Ruark, “Deep in the guts of most men is buried the involuntary response to the hunter’s horn, a prickle of the nape hairs, an acceleration of the pulse, an atavistic memory of his fathers, who killed first with stone, and then with club, and then with spear, and then with bow, and then with gun, and finally with formula.” I believe it goes far deeper than just being instinctive. Perhaps it is simply for sustenance. Could table fare be the only reason to dump money, time and energy into land management and food plots? How about the need of a recreational outlet? What about solitude and peace of mind offered by the outdoors? Or the contest against no mean antagonist, or even the idyllic hope of possibly shooting something far bigger than our imagination could conjure up? All of those reasons, and many more, are but bits and pieces of a much larger picture of why we, with unbridled passion, enthusiasm and determination, head to the forest each fall in search of a very secretive creature: the whitetail deer.

I, like Ruark, believe man was indeed born for the hunt; an essential communion with nature whereby he pursues the wiles of the natural creature. These animals must be wild and worthy of the chase, with the ability to tax us, because we find no real pleasure in vanquishing an unworthy foe. The enchantment surrounding the hunt lies in the fact that each day will be different, creating memories that will last a lifetime. The excitement comes from the simple fact that we have no guarantee of success, despite our best efforts. However, the real joy of hunting is only slightly diminished with our failure. We revel in the pursuit. We’re grateful for the chance. After all, in hunting, a chance is all we can ever really ask for.

I find no better illustration in my analysis of why we hunt than in the baseball movie classic For Love of the Game. The plot line revolves around 40-year-old Tigers pitcher Billy Chapel, who is faced with a major decision: retire or be traded at season’s end after a 19-year tenure with the Detroit team. In his final start as a Tigers pitcher, Billy is caught up in his thoughts without realizing that he is pitching a perfect game — until the bottom of the eighth inning.

Before taking the mound in the ninth, Billy has some final ruminations about his career. He picks up a baseball and pen and inscribes, along with his signature, “Tell them I’m through, for love of the game.” The ball is delivered to the former Tigers owner who, when reading it, smiles in approval of the decision. He then finishes a perfect game.

Chapel didn’t play baseball for money, fame, fans or ego. He played it because he loved it. His girlfriend, Jane, said it best: “You, the ball, the diamond ... that’s perfect ... perfectly beautiful.” He played for the right reason: self-satisfaction. That used to be the case for hunters of the whitetail deer. They hunted for love of the hunt. Regrettably, I sense a major shift in the motivation of today’s enthusiasts of the sport. The excitement is still prevalent, and the desire to expand their whitetail knowledge continues to rise, but in the end, the overwww.whitetailinstitute.com

arching trend within our deer hunting culture has become notoriety, ego and for some, financial gain. Let’s look at this further.

A Photo Says it All The first point to understand is that hunting is not killing. They are two distinctly different activities often thought to be synonymous with each other. We hunt for our keys, wallet and cell phones, not to kill them, but to locate them. We hunt for a job, which doesn’t have anything to do with terminating the company that hires you. Although killing might be the end result of a game hunt, it doesn’t constitute the whole or rightly define the very act of hunting. After all, it’s the challenge, not the kill, that motivates the best. Yet the end result is what has become the most visible in our sport. Although we no longer hunt with rocks, clubs or spears, should the changing formula erase the true virtues of the sport?

I’ve seen more than my share of dead deer in hero-shot pictures that unfortunately are nothing more than advertisements. The dead beast is positioned favorably to show off his antlers, with the hunter alongside the animal holding a product that supposedly provided the necessary edge in the kill. The latest trend in hero shots seems to be in the positioning of a hunter’s rifle or bow at a 45-degree angle to the buck with the muzzle/riser laid against the animal’s rear flank to ensure that the brand name on the weapon is highly visible. And then comes the brand name attire: hats, pants and jackets with embroidered insignias front and center for all to see.

Folks, I’m not against advertisements or in a position to question the legitimacy of anyone’s product, but this is not NASCAR, the National Football League or Major League Baseball. It is deer hunting, in which the life of an animal is taken. Deer hunting is not a game that can be won or lost. How well you play the game determines the end result, period. Gene Wensel expressed it so well in his documentary, Primal Dreams: “Why we hunt is far more important than where, when, or how. Hunting for the right reasons is much more important than the act itself. It defines fair chase, our level of passion, our future; our very existence.”

In his article, The Blooding, T. Edward Nickens reveals the antithesis of this all-too-common behavior as he documents what transpired at the kill site of Doug Stoners buck: “Frank (Stoner) steps over the deer’s body and paints a single stripe of blood on his brother’s forehead. No video cameras. No empty platitudes. No fist pumps or Facebook postings. Doug nods slightly, looks down at the deer, and pats a shoulder—once, twice, thrice. A coincidence, perhaps.”

I’m all for taking the time required to set up great field photos with a hard-won trophy and the successful hunter, but does the animal that has already sacrificed its life need to be denigrated by becoming an instant billboard? Are these prevalent dead deer photos indicative of an attitude surrounding our beloved recreational sport of deer hunting?

I don’t know, but it certainly seems to be a disturbing trend as more enthusiasts of the sport are being influenced. We must ask ourselves if we are hunting deer because we love it or does the act itself become merely the means to an end?

Disneyland Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “People only see what they are prepared to see.” In seeing, we find it difficult to comprehend those things that are not what they appear to be. Making an attempt to duplicate

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WHITETAIL NEWS 67

what is seen on outdoor TV, or worse, stacking yourself up against one of the many hyped personalities will only cause the demise of your love of the sport and wreak havoc on your overall attitude. Truthfully, comparisons are nothing more than brutal self-assaults.

Considering the amount of pressure brought to bear on anyone making an attempt at killing a deer on camera — well, despite on-air smiles — it’s got to be tough. Especially when you’re dealing with a living creature like the whitetail deer, which excels at secrecy. Here’s how it plays out: You have a whitetail TV show with sponsors paying the bill. Your celebrities are scheduled along with a cameraman to go on several hunts with the expectation of getting kill-shot footage. So what happens when this doesn’t pan out?

This is when the pressure mounts, not only for the hunter who desperately needs to perform, but for the guys behind the scenes. Money is being won or lost, and the hunt has essentially been reduced to a business in which the whitetail is the commodity. The stress makes perfect sense and is deserved. Deer hunting was never meant to be a spectator sport to entertain the masses.

Where’s the fun? Where’s the enjoyment? And even when the deer has been taken on film, how can you possibly find any inner solace under these stringent guidelines? In reality, another dead buck on film ultimately translates into just another buck. And might I ask, when it’s all said and done, what about the dignity of the fallen deer? Does he become yet another prop used in the commercialization of it all?

The purveyors of such programming lure us in to watch, week after week, and in so doing, have a continual influence on today’s deer hunter. In any society, culture begins upstream, and within the fraternity of deer hunters the headwaters start with those who are most visible. So, back to our initial question, Do you hunt for love of the sport or for pragmatic reasons? Are you a Billy Chapel, or have you been lured into a fantasy world that has overshadowed reality? For deer hunting to be fully and totally enjoyed, the approach can never be just another job, business or duty. It must, if we are to be completely satisfied, be a pursuit of wonderment and curiosity with the knowledge that just being involved is enough. To do otherwise would only be cheating yourself.

Conclusion

Call

800-688-3030

The Whitetail Institute 239 Whitetail Trail • Pintlala, AL 36043 ®

68 WHITETAIL NEWS

Research = Results™ / Vol. 24, No. 2

Although penned more than 82 years ago, the words of Paul Brandreth still ring as loud, long and clear today with a message that should resonate with anyone taking up the chase of the whitetail deer: “Hunting is a recreation and invigorating pastime that never should, through a super-civilized, over-artificialized state of living, be allowed to die out. In this age of neurotic haste it means rest and renewed health to the man whose brain and energies are being constantly overtaxed. It means stronger muscles, a more vigorous constitution, selfreliance, hardihood. A real man does not care for sport that does not involve difficulty, discomfort and sometimes danger. The trouble with modern life is that physically it is terribly softening. We need something to counteract the effects of luxury and too-easy living. Hunting does this because it takes a man to places where he has to depend on first principles, and where he comes in contact with obstacles that tend to build up and strengthen his natural abilities and manhood. It makes his eyesight keener, teaches him patience, and unfold many natural laws and beauties and wonders that otherwise would remain to him unknown. We all need something of the primitive in us in order that we may have a rock bottom on which to stand.” ^ www.whitetailinstitute.com

SCHOOL ARCHERY PROGRAM REACHES MILLIONS OF STUDENTS

By Whitetail Institute Staff

nnovator is a word that describes Whitetail Institute founder Ray Scott. It also accurately depicts Mathews Archery CEO and founder Matt McPherson. The engineering mind of McPherson has been the driving force behind the #1 selling archery company for more than 20 years. McPherson’s inventive mind started the single-cam bow revolution in 1992 in Austin, Minn.

The single cam made Mathews bows lighter, faster, quieter and powerfully accurate, thus revolutionizing the archery industry. Nine years later, McPherson and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, along with the Kentucky Department of Education, put their collective heads together, and from this the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) was conceived.

70 WHITETAIL NEWS

/ Vol. 24, No. 2

NASP is entering its 13th year. Since its inception, more than 12 million student archers from more than 12,000 schools have participated in classroom archery instruction, presented by more than 30,000 NASP-trained teachers. NASP is being taught within 47 states and eight countries. Each of these states holds a state tournament that culminates with the National Tournament held in Louisville, Ky. Each year the National Tournament eclipses its own Guiness Book of World Records as the largest archery tournament, with more than 9,000 children shooting last year. More schools and their students continue to adopt NASP because archery is fun, accessible to all, educational and establishes new friendships.

“Mathews Archery has had the greatest impact of any company or organization in the success of NASP,” said Roy Grimes, the president of the NASP. “We in the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources determined that a school-based archery development program was needed to better secure the future of wildlife conservation in our state. The Kentucky Department of Education thought the concept would also help them improve student enthusiasm for education.

During our initial planning phases, as we were trying to determine which bows, arrows and targets to use in the program, a Mathews Pro staffer put me in touch with Matt McPherson.”

Kentucky educators were looking for ways to improve student attention, behavior and attendance. These teachers were striving to achieve state and national educational standards regarding development of micro and macro motor ability, listening and observation skills. The goal for the educators was to increase graduation rates within the state.

Wildlife conservation agencies were concerned too many young people were too busy sitting on the couch playing video games and forgoing the great things that can be learned outside in nature. Natural resource professionals were convinced that learning target shooting skills would result in character and self-reliance development that would serve the future of wildlife conservation well. www.whitetailinstitute.com

Mathews Archery wanted to be a part of the solution and knew it could play an integral role with one of its creations: the Genesis bow. McPherson was asked if there was a bow that could be purchased for the whole family to use. When the answer was no, his inventive mind said, “Why not?”

So McPherson designed a bow that would have no specific draw length and have the draw weights low enough that everyone in the family could shoot it. The Genesis System eliminates let-off on light-draw-weight bows (where it is unnecessary), so there are no specific draw length

requirements. The result is a bow that fits virtually everyone (15 inches to 30 inches) and that a young person can’t outgrow.

The need for the Genesis bow was based upon the desire to grow the archery category by getting the bow into the hands of our youth. During the same time, a newly formed collaboration between the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Department and the Kentucky Department of Education was evolving. Its goal was to get archery into classrooms across Kentucky. In 2001, the departments approached Mathews with their vision. Together, they concep-

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 71

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The Whitetail Institute 239 Whitetail Trail • Pintlala, AL 36043 ®

Research = Results™

72 WHITETAIL NEWS

Results is a trademark of Whitetail Institute Pintlala, AL. Devour is a trademark of Whitetail Institute Pintlala, AL. RainShed is a trademark of Southern States Richmond, VA.

/ Vol. 24, No. 2

tualized and developed what we know today as the National Archery in the Schools Program — NASP. The reasoning behind Mathew’s passion for the program was and is twofold — the first being to give all kids, regardless of age, height, weight or sex the opportunity to excel within a sport, and secondly to grow the archery category that we all enjoy and depend upon.

Joel Maxfield, Mathews’ vice president of marketing, remembers well the hurdles that faced the newly formed NASP when it came to having the proper equipment for children of all sizes and ages.

“One of the main obstacles of the program was equipment,” he said.

“There needed to be consistency to facilitate broad duplication. At that time, compounds bows were draw-length-specific, which proved too complicated to launch on a large scale. Knowing that in order for the program to work, there needed to be a level playing field. Mathews suggested the Genesis bow.”

The program was launched in 21 Kentucky middle schools on March 3, 2002. Originally called the Kentucky Archery in the Schools Program, the effort’s goal was to enroll 120 schools and teach target archery skills to 24,000 students each year. Kentucky gave itself three years to achieve this goal. Within the program’s first year, the 120school goal was achieved and because of neighbor-state interest, “National” replaced “Kentucky” in the program’s name. NASP also expanded its participation standards to include students in fourth through 12th grades.

“Matt McPherson has been the most enthusiastic supporter of NASP from the first day we discussed the concept to this very minute,” Grimes said. “The great folks at Mathews Archery first made sure that we had a bow that would be safe, fun, durable and efficient for the wide age-range of students NASP would seek to engage. The Genesis bow seems to have been made specifically for NASP, even though Matt came up with it before the idea of NASP was born.”

Mathews Archery then solved the next large hurdle for NASP — financing. Without enough money to support the program, it would have never made it to the heights it has today.

“Matt made sure the lack of financial resources wouldn’t cause us to compromise what NASP should be,” Grimes said. “I’ll never forget when after trying to recruit the first Kentucky schools for NASP, Matt called to see how it was coming — January 2002. I told him that we wanted 10 pilot schools, but 22 schools asked to be included in the start-up of NASP. Matt asked why we wouldn’t just go with all of them. I told him we could only afford 10. He immediately bumped his company’s contribution to cover the additional pilot schools. Matt’s and Mathews Archery’s enthusiasm and support for NASP has only grown stronger over the years. They were our first Platinum Medal Level Sponsor, giving $200,000 per year for five years, and are now a double Platinum Medal Level Sponsor — our only one.”

Grimes added that the growth of NASP to all the states and countries would not have happened without Mathews’ moral and financial support.

“Mathews is proud to be the founding sponsor of the National Archery in the Schools Program, providing millions of dollars in support since it was started,” McPherson said. “With Mathews overwhelming support, what began as a joint venture between state departments of education and wildlife has grown into a national phenomenon. The program promotes student education and participation in the lifelong sport of archery by providing international-style target training in physical education classes for students in grades 4 through 12.” ^ www.whitetailinstitute.com

REAL HUNTERS DO THE TALKING about Whitetail Institute productsâ&#x20AC;Ś (Continued from page 25)

P

icture 1 is from my food plot at my house. I am very pleased with Whitetail Institute food plot products and the 30-06 mineral supplements. I have taken several nice mature bucks. If anyone is after trophy deer I would recommend Whitetail Institute products. I also joined a trophy management club down the road from my house this year.

We use Whitetail Institute products there as well. Photo 2 is of a deer that I was blessed with in November. Thanks

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Whitetail Institute for all of the hard work in providing great products. God bless you all and keep providing us hunters with great whitetail education, information and great products.

Kenneth Anderson â&#x20AC;&#x201D; South Carolina

M

any states were hard hit by a historic drought last year and Michigan was no exception. As it turned out in our case it was a blessing in disguise because we never specifically planted fall products before for the simple reason we felt we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to, after all, we were shooting trophy bucks on a regular basis year after year. We have been using Whitetail Institute products for over 20 years, with great success, I may add. After the drought hit we called the Whitetail Institute for advice, and advice we got. They suggested we plant Whitetail Oats Plus in combination with their famous Imperial Whitetail Clover in August. We have as many as four food plots on each of the farms that we hunt in Southern Michigan so they also suggested that we plant Tall Tine Tubers to round out the year. Never in all the years that we planted food plots did we have so many deer, and so many quality bucks drawn to the food plots. Even in the heat of gun season we were seeing as many as 40 deer a day despite all the shooting around us.

We took three trophy bucks last season and we definitely contribute our success to the Whitetail Institute food plots. A photo of one of the bucks is enclosed.

Fred Abbas â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Michigan

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his Imperial Whitetail Clover plot is six (6) years old. Ya gotta love the WHITETAIL INSTITUTE! I got in my shooting house overlooking one of my nine Whitetail Institute planted food plots about an hour before daylight on opening morning of the black powder season. I saw three deer between daylight and 9:12 a.m., then someone opened the gate! I saw 34 deer (13 different bucks) between 9:12 a.m. and 9:30 when this big boy came out at 55 yards chasing a doe in front of my shooting house with his nose on the ground and coming fast after her. He caught the movement of me putting the barrel of my muzzleloader out of the window and stopped dead in his tracks and turned full body to me.

I knew that I was caught and had no time to waste, I took the only shot that I had, straight on, hitting him dead center of the base of the neck at the top of the brisket. He dropped in his tracks!

I was surprised at just how large he really was when the cloud of smoke cleared and I could see him lying in the Imperial Whitetail Clover. No ground shrinkage on this fine example of a Virginia Whitetail Deer.

Larry Kidd â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Virginia

Send Us Your Photos!

Do you have a photo and/or story of a big buck, a small buck or a doe that you took with the help of Imperial products? Send it to us and you might find it in the Field Tester section of the next issue of Whitetail News. Send your photo and a 3 to 4 paragraph story telling how you harvested the deer and the role our products played to:

Whitetail News, Attn: Field Tester Response 239 Whitetail Trail, Pintlala, AL 36043 Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 73

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Please add $18.00 for shipping and handling for each 45 lbs. ordered. (Not available in Canada.) Please enclose with shipping and payment information or give code on phone orders.

IMPERIAL 4-PLAY

BLOCK™ YOU SAVE Up To $25.00

Suggested Retail: $59.95 (4 oz. - 1 Acre); $159.95 (1 Pint - 4 Acres)

Suggested Retail: $59.96 and $29.95

Price with coupon: 4 oz. - $44.95; 1 Pint - $134.95

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Please send _____ 4 oz. Package(s) of SLAY™ Herbicide.

Please send _____ Pint(s) of SLAY™ Herbicide.

Call for larger quantities.

TOTAL Including shipping and handling $_______

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Please add $12.00 for shipping and handling for EACH Block or $18.00 for EACH Double Pack. (Canadian residents call for shipping charges.) Please enclose with shipping and payment information or give code on phone orders.

Apple OBSESSION “Super” Deer Attractant YOU SAVE $20.00 - $35.00

IMPERIAL

EE FR GHT! EI FR

Suggested Retail: $119.96 — 6-Pak, $59.97 — 3-Pak

NEW!

SLAY™ HERBICIDE YOU SAVE $15.00 to $25.00

Coupon Price: $84.96 or $44.97 Please send ___ Apple OBSESSION 6-Paks @ $84.96 Please send ___ Apple OBSESSION 3-Paks @ $44.97

MAGNET MIX™

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Coupon Price: $84.96 or $49.95 Please send ___ Magnet Mix™ 6-Paks @ $84.96 Please send ___ Magnet Mix™ 3-Paks @ $49.95 TOTAL $_______

TOTAL $_________

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No charge for shipping and handling. (Canadian residents call for shipping charges.)

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IMPERIAL 30-06™BLOCK™ YOU SAVE Up To $13.00

We Offer

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SMALLER SIZES Of Most Seed Products Call 800-688-3030

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TOTAL Including shipping and handling $_______

For Details

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IMPERIAL 30-06™Mineral/Vitamin Supplements YOU SAVE $25.00 Suggested Retail: $90.97 and $99.97 (60 lbs.)

* Important: Shipping & Payment Information * Please Include Daytime Phone Number For UPS Shipments and Any Questions We May Have About Your Order.

Coupon Price: $65.97 or $74.97

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Please send ____60 lb. quantities of 30-06™ n Original 30-06™ @ $65.97 n 30-06™ Plus Protein @ $74.97 TOTAL Including shipping and handling $_______ Please add $19.00 for shipping and handling for each 60 lbs. ordered. (Canadian residents call for shipping charges.) Please enclose with shipping and payment information or give code on phone orders.

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“KRAZE” Flavored Deer Attractant YOU SAVE $40-$65 EE FR GHT! EI FR

YOU SAVE $20 to $35

Suggested Retail: $119.99— 6-Pak, $69.96 — 3-Pak

Coupon Price: $54.96 or $29.99 Please send _____ n 6-Pak KRAZE @ $54.96 Please send _____ n 3-Pak KRAZE @ $29.99

Mail To: Whitetail Institute of North America

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TOTAL $_______

239 Whitetail Trail • Pintlala, AL 36043 Or Call Toll Free: 1-800-688-3030 • Fax Orders To: (334) 286-9723

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 75

Steve Scudder — Indiana

Russ Nitchman — New York 16-year-old Simon Valle wants to be an American hero by joining our armed services. It has been a dream of his since he was a small child. He is also interested in hunting deer. His first year hunting turned out good in the end. At first, he sat alone in the deer stand and did not have shot opportunities. Then he had a shot at a doe, but missed. That is when I decided to take him to the 5 acre destination food plot with Winter-Greens and have him sit with me in the double box stand.

The wind was correct from the south for that evening sit. We arrived about 2 hours before dark. One hour later, at 4 p.m. two bucks and an antlerless deer came running down the mountainside onto the field and headed directly towards the Winter-Greens. The ground was covered with snow as this was December in Ithaca, NY. Deer come from far and wide to chow down on these plants when the temperatures drop and food is scarce as it is this time of year. Both bucks appeared to be nice two and a half year olds.

When the slightly larger of the two bucks was within 70 yards and broadside, Simon scooted down onto his knees in the box, steadied his gun, and fired the 20 gauge slug at the buck. He leapt into the air and bolted toward the far end of the food plot.

After dark we tracked his blood trail through the thick cover and found him piled up just off the deer trail. I think Simon's smile tells it all. He is hooked on hunting and the Winter-Greens did just the trick at getting him his first deer, a very nice buck at that!

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Opening morning of last year’s Indiana firearms season found me sitting with my 7 year old son Hunter, overlooking a Chicory Plus plot that we had planted the prior spring. The deer were hitting it very hard, so we planned to sit over it in hopes for Hunter to take his first deer. It was a cold 24 degrees that morning so we opted to hunt from a shooting house that overlooked the plot. At first light we had a few does and fawns feeding in the plot, but Hunter was after a buck. Not long after that, the shots began to ring out around the countryside and the deer activity ceased around us. Around 10:15 a.m. this nice buck entered the field from a thicket that bordered the East side of the plot. Hunter determined pretty quickly that he wanted to shoot him. He fed straight toward us until he finally turned broadside at 17 yards.

Hunter squeezed the trigger on his .45 caliber muzzleloader and the deer bolted back into the woods and crashed not 20 yards inside the wood line. An unforgettable morning in the woods watching him take his first deer. Thanks to the Whitetail Institute for helping make it happen.

Scott Neeb — Pennsylvania Chance Neeb shot this nice 9 point buck overlooking a small Tall Tine Tubers/No Plow plot. We have one plot of Extreme, one plot Whitetail Oats and one plot of Tall Tine Tubers and No Plow. Every year we see bigger and bigger bucks. Chance is 9 years old and this is his first year hunting under the mentor program. He passed up a nice young 8-pointer to shoot this 9pointer on his first afternoon hunting!

Whitetail Institute products work the best for us here in the Poconos of PA we get some crazy weather here and these products perform for us!

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Travis Pannell — Alabama I wanted to express my thanks to Whitetail Institute for producing a quality product that produces results.

My father-in-law and I picked up a 200-acre lease (with approx. three acres for food plots) in Coosa County, Ala. in the spring. Our first step in our food plot preparation was getting soil samples from Whitetail Institute which provided us a detailed plan for producing maximum results. Please let me also add that we DO NOT own any tractor equipment, all of food plot preparation was done with four wheelers with a pull behind disc.

Through the helpful advice and counseling by Whitetail Institute’s extremely knowledgeable staff we decided to try Pure Attraction, Winter-Greens, and Chic Magnet on our food plots.

Included you will find some pictures of our food plots from approximately 75 days after initial planting. As you will see by the pictures we are extremely happy with the results.

I have never seen food plots this lush that produced so much tonnage. Whitetail Institute products will ensure our deer herd will have an optimum food source and diet here late in the winter that will ultimately improve our herd throughout the coming years. We are 100 percent sold on Whitetail Institute products and look forward to many more years utilizing them.

My seven year old daughter, Ashtyn took her first deer this year during the Alabama youth hunt. The 4-point buck came out on the Pure Attraction food plot and gave her a 75 yard broadside shot and the buck dropped in his tracks. We were both so excited. Our legs were shaking so bad climbing out of the double ladder stand. It was a memory that we will always cherish. Ashtyn did not quit smiling for hours, she even told me her “cheeks were hurting from smiling so much.” Thanks Whitetail Institute for helping with an unforgettable hunt!

Kristi Soignet — Mississippi Here is a picture of my first buck taken last Dec. 30. His stats are: 8 point, 174 pounds, 18 inch inside spread. I was on family land in Mississippi, hunting in a box stand, overlooking a beautiful Imperial Whitetail Clover food plot. The morning started out very cold at about 24 degrees, I had to walk to the box stand where I had decided I wanted to hunt. I chose this stand because it was the easiest for me to get to and it had my heater in it. Little did I know it would turn out to be the hunt of a lifetime for me. I got to the stand about 5:45 a.m. I sat for a while in the dark with my heater on just listening for the woods to begin their symphony. For what seemed like ages I watched the squirrels play, running up and down tree trunks, jumping from branch to branch Around 9:00 a.m. I was getting cold again so I closed the windows and turned on the heater. After about 20 minutes I reached down to turn the heater off and when I sat up there was a buck in the road slightly to my right about 40 yards. No doubt he was a shooter. He went through a small patch of woods and walked into the food plot to my right like he didn't have a care in the world. I was so nervous because I had to get the window open, my gun out the window and the buck in my sights. At this point I refused to look at his head I only wanted to see where I wanted my bullet to go. I knew I had to get him to stop so I made a noise "mah".

He stopped I eased the trigger back, NOTHING HAPPENED. In my excitement I had forgotten to take my gun off of safety, so I quickly did this. By this time he had started walking again but still not alarmed (???). I figured it worked once so I tried again “mah,” he stopped. Not taking my eyes off the spot right behind his shoulder I again eased the trigger back. "BOOM” I knew I hit him by the way he bucked and then he ran towards a patch of woods to my right. When he got to the edge of the woods he stumbled, got up and ran across the road to his left and into another patch of woods. By this time I was shaking so bad it took several attempts to call my husband. I told him “Come get me,” he said “you shot something,” all I could say was “a buck.”

A short while later my husband and my brother-in-law pulled up on the 4-wheeler. They asked which direction he ran all I could do was point, that's when my brother-in-law said is that blood all over that tree. Sure enough when he stumbled at the edge of the woods he hit a tree and from there the blood trail was easy to follow. My husband stepped back and said “OK mama he's your buck you lead.” Well I was just so overwhelmed by it all, my husband spotted my buck in the woods before I did just a few steps later. He turns to me with this look of pure joy and disbelief, “Kris, you got yourself a wall hanger.” My husband hugs me and says “Your mama was with you" (she passed away three months ago to the date). We went see my buck, I put my hands on that beautiful animal, everything after that was a blur. ^

Send your First Deer picture and story to Whitetail Institute of North America, 239 Whitetail Trail, Pintlala 36043, Att.: First Deer Dept.

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Vol. 24, No. 2 /

WHITETAIL NEWS 77

W H I T E TA I L I N S T I T U T E A P PA R E L CAPS All our Whitetail Institute caps and visors are made from top quality cotton, and feature detailed embroidered logos and graphics.

Caps: $9.95, Visors: $8.95 (Please add $5.50 for shipping and handling.)

Camo Logo Cap

Beige Logo Cap

Pink Ladies Logo Cap

Hunter Orange Logo Cap

Black Logo Cap

Camo Logo Visor

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SHORT & LONG SLEEVE TEES All our Whitetail Institute tees are made from 100% preshrunk cotton, and feature screen-printed back and breast pocket designs.

Short Sleeve Tees: S-2X: $13.95, 3X: $16.55, 4X: $17.85, 5X: $19.15; Long Sleeve Tees: S-2X: $15.95, 3X: $18.55, 4X: $19.85, 5X: $21.15 (Please add $5.50 for shipping and handling.)

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Back Design

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Available sizes: S-XXL

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Available colors: Blue, Pink

Available colors: Black

Available colors: White, Green (also

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78 WHITETAIL NEWS

/ Vol. 24, No. 2

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