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Old February 26, 2013, 09:50 AM   #26
Rifleman1776
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Corn. All that is needed. Hurt deer digestive tract? No way. I live in a sparsley populated rural subdivision. A neighbor spends $200.00 a month on corn for the deer. They eat what he puts out then come to my place for more.
The salt block is good too. But I don't use it because I take a lot of pictures of the deer and that big white block ruins the pics.
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Old February 26, 2013, 03:01 PM   #27
reynolds357
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Alex, I thought the best reason for feeding corn was to get deer used to your smell. Deer smells you and says "hmm, smells like my food." Instead of "hmm, I better throw tail in air and run." I spend so much time on my trophy hunting land that deer smell me year round and pay my smell very little attention. On my meat hunting land, its a whole different story.
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Old February 26, 2013, 03:49 PM   #28
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reynolds357..I really never thought of it like that....The deer on my management property are less skiddish than those on other property..but my thoughts were they are around people more and there is less hunting pressure....They all come to corn tho....
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Old March 1, 2013, 12:18 PM   #29
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Quote:
I thought the best reason for feeding corn was to get deer used to your smell. Deer smells you and says "hmm, smells like my food." Instead of "hmm, I better throw tail in air and run."

Have a good friend that feeds the deer on the far side his land by hauling it out in pails everyday or so in the back of his 4-wheeler. He has been doing it for years. The deer are so accustomed to it, that all he has to do is start the 4-wheeler by the garage and they start to come outta the woods heading toward the feeding spot.
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Old March 1, 2013, 09:09 PM   #30
Mauser8mm
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Corn works!

Next to my property about 30 yards from the treeline I weed whacked a patch of thick grass out and spread some corn (just to get deer moving in the area, not to hunt) and I went back the next day and the corn was gone and the patch was full of hoof prints! . Looks like the deer are feeding!!
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Old March 7, 2013, 01:48 AM   #31
justplainpossum
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The best way for me to attract a pig is to say to myself, chances are I'm not going to run into a pig, then I hike down to the pecan bottom without my gun. Works every time!
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Old March 9, 2013, 01:21 AM   #32
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This time of year plant Soybeans. Deer will come from everywhere if you have any that is.
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Old March 9, 2013, 01:48 AM   #33
Garycw
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Best Way To Attract Deer And Hogs?

Deers like sweet clover too. Make a clearing and plant it. I've also heard the sound of a chain saw will sometimes attract deer??Why, because they know they'll find lots of the tender new growth shoots of the tree they can't normally reach.


Sent from iPhone
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Old March 9, 2013, 08:13 AM   #34
Double Naught Spy
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Quote:
Corn works!
Yes, deer and hogs will eat it. You don't have to do anything to it and they will eat it. Having a proper delivery system will make it a lot easier on you to provide the corn and then ideally concentrate your population at least during feeding periods.

You can use soured corn, but I haven't seen anybody with a good metering system that dispenses it at regular intervals. You can dig a post hole and fill it with corn, but then you have to dig a hog and if the hogs get into it (which you hope) then your post hole grows exponentially in size and sooner or later you need to back fill it. Digging and backfilling can be a lot of unnecessary work.

Pig pipes are great for pigs, but have to be filled fairly often once the pigs find them. You can attach a bell on the pipe and hear from a distance when the animals are getting after the pipe, but unless you can fill it every few days, a pig pipe may not be the way to go.

On demand gravity feeders do a good job, but can be emptied by pigs in short order as well.

Motorized dispersing feeders, depending on size can cost $100-500+ (I have never paid more than 140 and if you do fabrication, you can save a lot of money) and can meter out corn or a specific schedule (digital timer) with multiple feeding times and varied amounts of dispensed corn. As mine are smaller feeders, I get about 3-4 weeks of feeding out of 75 lbs from one feeder and closer to 10 weeks out of 150 lbs from the other.

Food plots can be absolutely wonderful. They can also be a lot of work, are not portable, and as with farmers, your food plot can readily be killed by nature. Food plots can be relatively pricey when you consider time and equipment involved and their appeal really varies over time, but it can be a fairly long period of time if not wiped out early. My winter plot (planted in late Sept) has provided browse for the deer all winter (becoming of interest in December after the acorns started to become scarce) and now has a particular appeal to a population of turkeys (though they seem to be harvesting bugs from it, not the plants yet as there is no grain). The hogs have already destroyed about 10% of it from rooting over the course of just 2 nights and if last year is any indication, the hogs and deer will virtually obliterate everything in about 3 weeks time once the grain comes in to maturity.

What goes in your food plot will vary depending on your local environmental conditions and how much work you want to put into it. On some of the hunting forums, there are guys who grow award-winning-like food plots that have electric fences on them for the first few weeks, install irrigation systems, fertilize, pesticide, herbicide, etc., just like growing real crops for human consumption. They grow wonderful plots and have good hunting, but they also have significant investments in time, labor, and materials. I like to plant forage that will thrive well in the local conditions without all that work.
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Last edited by Double Naught Spy; March 9, 2013 at 02:33 PM.
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Old March 9, 2013, 09:40 AM   #35
Jack O'Conner
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Where we hunt there are no grain fields or apple orchards. Deep timber places. Deer love to eat fallen acorns, especially from white oak trees. We gather seveal bushels from trees right in town and owners are glad to see them gone. Then we spread an area day before we hunt there. This strategy works enough of the time to make it worth the effort.

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Last edited by Jack O'Conner; March 9, 2013 at 09:41 AM. Reason: spelling fixed
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Old March 9, 2013, 10:41 AM   #36
shortwave
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Very good write up Double Naught.
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Old March 9, 2013, 11:45 AM   #37
BuckRub
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Jack O Conner- is that a 30-30, love them myself.
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Old March 9, 2013, 01:01 PM   #38
Keg
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Yes..good post DNS....

Jack..good info....
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Old March 9, 2013, 02:39 PM   #39
Double Naught Spy
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Yeah, I think if I could figure out a way to conveniently harvest and store acorns from my own property, I would do so. In north Texas, acorns are preferred food for deer and hogs and the feeders are largely ignored during October and November. No doubt in other parts of the country other resources are such as pine nuts in the Great Basin.
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Old March 11, 2013, 04:42 PM   #40
markj
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When I want to attract deer, I plant a garden they will eat it down to nothing without the electric fence, fall I take the fence down and have deer right there off the deck.....

really, a garden full of tomatoes and sweet corn will bring em right in. Apple trees work too.
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Old March 11, 2013, 08:45 PM   #41
reynolds357
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Plant alfalfa. Deer love alfalfa. Hogs got in my neighbors alfalfa field last night and destroyed it.
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Old March 11, 2013, 09:32 PM   #42
shortwave
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Another deer attractant that might be of interest depending on your hunting area is cover.

Around here, it's hard to compete with the corn,beans and alfalfa fields the farmers grow every year. But I did a select cut in a mature woods a few years back where there was very little undergrowth due to the thick canopy.The undergrowth came back with a vengeance.

There is more scrapes/rubs around that area then any other place on the property. Problem is, every deer I've shot runs dead into those briars that are so thick it's not possible to walk into. Gotta use a machete to chop your way in and out.

I've sit on the adjacent hillside and glassed some nice bucks going into the thickets to bed down.

Knowing I can't compete with all the farmland, having made the select cut and let the thickets hold the deer, I've changed my food plot to sugar beets that have paid off well during the winter months. The more it frosts the sweeter the tops get to the deer. After they eat the tops, they'll dig the beets out of the frozen ground all winter long.

Last edited by shortwave; March 11, 2013 at 09:37 PM.
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Old March 11, 2013, 11:02 PM   #43
Keg
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Quote:
After they eat the tops, they'll dig the beets out of the frozen ground all winter long.
Thats cool....
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Old March 12, 2013, 05:58 AM   #44
Double Naught Spy
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Yeah, beets are good if they grow well where you are. My neighbor has a pic of a deer shot over on his place of a deer still with a beet in his mouth that had just been pulled up when the shot was made.

Of course, the hogs will get the beets as well if the deer don't.
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Old March 14, 2013, 04:46 PM   #45
markj
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Wanta see huge deer? drive around my place at night, they seem to disappear during the day tho....
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Old March 14, 2013, 08:36 PM   #46
reynolds357
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Bucks have a way of doing that.
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Old March 14, 2013, 08:47 PM   #47
shortwave
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^^^You bet!

Got some apple trees in the yard not more then 25yds. from the house and have seen some monster at night munching away. Same in the garden.
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Old March 15, 2013, 08:55 AM   #48
thallub
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What DNS said.

This year i will plant about 30 acres of food plots on three dispersed properties. One of those properties is smack in the middle of wheat country. The old ruined farm has lots of thicket for the deer to hide in. When the guns crack the deer head to that place and stay because of the food plots.
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Old March 15, 2013, 09:05 AM   #49
BumbleBug
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Here's one for you...

A friend of mine had a source for cull carrots. He use to dump a truck load on his property every so often. We'd sit in a blind & watch as the deer ran in & started chomping. The best part was that once they started eating, you didn't have to stay quiet anymore!

CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH....LOL
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Old April 1, 2013, 02:47 PM   #50
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One fruit in the woods that deers and hogs can not resist is the Persimmon. If you find Persimmon tree with fruit, you'll find deers and hogs close by.
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