Turkey Top Results!

3 weeks after establishing my food plot, I checked my trailcams.  The plot was seeded on April 7th and by April 11th it saw its first good action.

This old boy and about 5 hens spent a good part of the morning hanging out in the plot on the 11th.  He gave me lots of great footage and pictures from up close!

One of 3 Jakes that cruised through

2013 Food Plot (Part II)

3 weeks had gone by and I finally got a chance to go check on Turkey Top.  My friend Andy that helped me establish the plot checked on it at the 2 week mark and reported a lot of grass, but couldn't see much clover germinating.  He then proceeded to walk down the hill from the plot and shoot a nice 2nd season Tom off a field closer to the river!!

When I went to the plot on April 28th (3 weeks exactly after seeding) I found a tremendous amount of clover had germinated!

Small clover in the center of the picture. 

Moisture for the plot has been outstanding over the last 3 weeks, but temps have been less than ideal.  Once we start getting some consistent sunny and warm days, this clover should really take off.

Some good green growth, but unfortunately most of it is grasses.

My next step will be to get some herbicide that kills only the grasses and see how that works.  Cabela's and Bass Pro sell a chemical called "Arrest" and the reviews are great for use with clover plots.  I've got some gift cards from my birthday for both stores and I might have to look into investing in some Arrest.

Spring 2013 Food Plot (Part I)

So this spring I've decided to try my hand at a "budget" food plot.  We have a clearing on top a ridge along the west boundary of our property that is perfect for a food plot.  I've decided to call it "Turkey Top" because my ultimate goal is to design the plot to attract turkeys.

On April 7th I did the site prep & seeding.  I had a ton of help from a good local friend.  We used a little prescribed fire to remove all the dead vegetation and grass and kill off a few multiflora rose and poison ivy shrubs.

The burn wasn't as complete as I would have liked it to be, but for the conditions we had, I was satisfied.

Keep in mind that this location is only accessible by foot on our property because of long, deep, and extremely steep ravine that bisects the property.  All the tools we had with us were brought in by hand.

I have a Troy-Bilt weedeater "combi" system that has interchangeable attachments.  I next used the tiller attachment to work up the ground in the areas where we had a good burn.  Following the tilling, we broadcasted the seed and then used a hard rake the rake it in.

This is after I've tilled about half the plot.

Here the tilling is complete and seed has been scattered & raked.

 The seed I bought was on sale cheap at Shopper's Supply during the going out of business sale!  You can still pick it up at most other sporting goods stores, but I bought it because it was cheap and worth a try.

I used Evolved Harvest brand, ProVide Clover with Chicory.  Clover plots are relatively easy to establish and the added benefit of it being a perennial crop made it even more attractive to me.

I set 2 trailcams at different angles up on the plot.  One was set to take pics & videos and the other is set to Plot mode.  Stay tuned for updates on how the plot progresses and hopefully some animal sightings!