A food plot can be a tool for you to increase your hunting success. In this first segment of a three-part series on food plots, Eric Fitzgerald and Jason Obermiller of Rackology answer the most common question “Do you think food plots can help and is it worth it?” They also detail ideal food plot components, proper location, soil, and what ultimately decides if it’s going to be a success. Continue learning and never think you know it all. Tune in to Eric and Jason in this informative episode.
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Understand Rackology Food Plot Part 1 with Eric Fitzgerald and Jason Obermiller
Welcome to another special episode of Spring Series, with Whitetail Rendezvous. We’re going to join up with Rackology. We’re going to talk about food plots maybe in a little desperate way because both Eric and Jason understand the business. Jason, a biologist, he’s a teacher. He knows this stuff as you see in the Rackology logo. He came up with the double helical droptine. Google that, and figure out what that is. Eric Fitzgerald has been an agronomist for several years in Central Nebraska. These guys know their stuff, just like we got a couple of other guys coming on the show that are going to talk about their companies, food plots and land management.
The whole series is built to educate you. About what you can do, what you should do, why you shouldn’t do it, when you should do it. All those things wrapped in the food plots, because food plots have just exploded. Even out west here, guys are putting food plots public land for elk. Good for the elk, going to make them healthier. It’s easy to throw a 25-pound of seeds in their backpack and take a walk. It’s pretty easy to do that. If you got a ranch and you’re feeding elks, deer, coyotes and antelopes for a long time, I’m your alfalfa. Having said all that, guys, welcome to the show. It’s going to be three segments. When are the three segments going to be developed? What did we decide? How are we going to break it out?
The first segment, we’re going to talk about what is a food plot and do you need one? We’re going to get into what are the different food plots that are available out there? What do they do for the land that you’re either managing or hunting on or like to see wildlife on? Then the third is all the planning that goes into it. It’s not just, “Plant it and forget it.” It’s 365 days, year-round devotion to making sure that your food plots take hold on the ground, and then they perform the way that you wanted to do with them. Make you successful with whatever you’re trying to do with the food plot.
Let’s get to food plots with Rackology, presented by Whitetail Rendezvous, part one.
First thing, we always get questions on and we try to answer is, “Do you think food plots can help? I’ve got a little twenty-acre patch of ground. I’ve got people to hunt on both sides. Is it worthwhile for me to put money into doing a food plot if they don’t have one there before?” Our answer is always yes if it’s something that’s economical and your soil can hold a nice food plot and they can be successful.
We talked on the other stuff about the planning and all the worth that goes into land management. When you take it from there, we’ve talked to this person and we’ve looked at it and we’ve determined that 99% of the time, ground can benefit from a food plot. A food plot could be, as the name implies, that puts the groceries there for the wildlife, whether be a whitetail deer, mule deer, pheasants, turkeys. The other side of food plots can act as cover. Whether it be any of those species, it can act as sanctuary. It can act as their kitchen and their bedroom in one area. It makes them feel a little more secure, little less pressured. It draws them in. If that’s what you’re looking for, especially when it comes to whitetail deer, let’s draw those deer in during hunting season. Food plots are a huge tool that you could utilize and be a more successful hunter.
When people hear us say, “I think you definitely benefit from a food plot.” I can definitely see people say, “You sell this stuff, of course you’d say yes.”
Here’s my take on it and this is before we even did this business. I don’t care if you’ve got a ton of acres or if you’ve just got a few. I’m thinking of one particular individual that literally has 30 to 40 acres and they are in between two big landowners. In the past, the majority of the time, the deer stayed on the landowner’s perimeter. Used his place as a travel corridor and he shot decent deer, but he never saw as many deer as he would like. He wasn’t able to keep them on his property because it was small, 30 to 40 acres.
He’s a little skeptical at first, “I’m not going to benefit from feeding a mineral or whatnot unless I get the neighbors because they’ll shoot what I’ve done. What would a food plot do for me?” Not only is a food plot going to help nutritionalize with your deer, and by the way, you can do a food plot so cheap compared to if you’re actually trying to feed deer a mineral or an actual feed.
Food plots are a huge tool that you could utilize to be a more successful hunter. Share on XWhat we’re able to do with a small acre like that is plant food plots that are going to bring the deer in to feed. That sanctuary plots that are going to give them a bedding area. If you give them a bedding area, and they’ve got a food source, they’ve got water nearby. You’re going to start holding your deer on your property even though it’s only a few acres. Not only that, if the deer passing through your property, with just that few acres, you’re going to be able to control now where those deer coming through your property going to the other neighbors. Regardless how big or how small your property is, that’s the reason why you can benefit from a food plot is because it’s cheap to put in and theoretically, on a small parcel of ground like that. Let’s say he put’s in a half-acre of plots worth. The hunter’s going to be into it for less than maybe $50, $60. The payoff is going to come during hunting season, when these deer are frequenting his property far more than if it was just nothing.
For me when I say yes, that’s my follow-up explanation. It’s cheap, my tagline with stuff like this. If you’re serious about hunting and you want to get good quality deer come into your place, how can you afford not to do a food plot? For me it’s a no-brainer. There are people that will say, we’ll get into this when we get into the how-to part, “I don’t own any tractors, I don’t own any of this type of equipment.” We’ll get into that more later on, but there are ways that you can still get these things done for minimal price and see a big difference in your hunting success and what you see.
When people talk to me, I say this many times that I’m not a farmer, I don’t own any land. We’ve got a big farm that we do hunt in and there are some tricks that we’re putting in. One of the things that I’ve found is that trails to and trails from stands. Old logging roads, old access roads for the farmers, because all his access roads were up and down or around, and he’s kept his field set up along with this topography. All those are opportunities for you to come in as the farmer, “Can I put in a trail mix?” It’s a cover crop and it also has food value in it. Even if you’ve never plowed up the ground, if you look at your land and see the trails that have been there naturally, that have been there for hunting Wisconsin. Forty years of logging trails have been there, closes in. You do some simple stuff, that’s a food plot for me. Your thoughts?
I agree. Anytime you can get anything to grow that wasn’t there naturally to get whatever you’re doing, in this case whitetail deer, to frequent it or to maybe stop by and to give you an advantage during the hunting season is definitely a food plot. It could be less than that. We’ve got guys that plant 100×50 feet food plots and they work perfectly.
We’ve talked about 99.9% of the time that people ask us, “Would a food plot help our land?” We say yes. There are times where we do the pre-planning with guys and we go through land management. We look and we decipher what’s out there. I can’t say this enough and stress it enough, all soils aren’t created equally. If there’s no place on that twenty-acre patch, that food plot is going to take hold and flush. A lot of times, it will germinate and get an inch tall to two inches tall and then it starts running out of either water or nutrients or it gets too much direct sunlight. There are times that we say, “No, this won’t be economical for you to have a food plot on here.”
There are also times where we look at the pre-planning stages of this, and the discovery stages of looking at the land. Let’s be honest, corn, soybeans and alfalfa monocots or stuff that people raise for cash crop or for livestock is a food plot as well. Let’s say you hunt a guy’s property. You don’t even lease it, but they let you hunt there. You look at it and there are food plots of corn and soy beans, because deer like them as well. If they’re all set up in a good strategic location and all of them use to find that travel corridor. That’s another time that we might say, “You do have food plots out here.” As the land gets bigger and the areas get bigger, there’s more land in between those fields. That in between staging areas or deer specially during rut, like to set back and learn their surrounding before they go out to these big cornfields. A lot of times, they don’t go out to the cornfields and beanfields till later.
What we try to do is if the land gets bigger and more expensive, there are times where we can put in a staging zone plot. Like a brassica plot, that will funnel and centralize those deer. They’ll feel safe coming out to those areas than getting out in the open of the cornfields earlier in the day, so you might have a shot prior to sundown at those deer. That’s where we can evaluate everything. There are times when we say, “No, that food plot might not work,” but 99% of the time, we’re going to find something that’s going to improve their odds of seeing or harvesting the deer.
One example of the places where I hunt at is north of town here. The person that’s running the land for farming is mainly running their cattle on it. They’ve got some alfalfa up on top. No corn, no soybeans there. The neighbor however, that slipped on to us. They’ve got corn and had some soybeans in years past. What I was starting to find with, the deer were wanting to stay on their property. For me, what’s a little food plot going to do? Just by putting two one-eighth acres, so a total of a quarter acre of plot on that property, changed things tremendously.
What started happening now was before the deer was on a B-line from their bedding area to these guys cornfield or beanfield. Let’s face it, corn and beans are good early in the season. Deer will eat the corn all the way into the fall and winter, don’t get me wrong. Deer’s palate is still going to want something green. When fall starts rolling in, and the deer are on the way to these fields, they’re swinging by my food plots to get a munch of greens before they even go out to the cornfield.
What I’ve watched them do is they’d go through umpteen different places on the way to the field. No matter where I put my stand, the deer were going on a different corridor. By putting this one-eighth acre plot in this area, all of a sudden, the deer are coming through the trees to the central location. Grabbing a bite to eat because they love the clovers, they love the brassicas. I like to mix a couple of our Rackology plots together. Then they’re off to the field. The good thing that does is you’ve hunted the deer long enough.
This has probably happened to you as well as many other guys. You’re sitting in a tree stand. You don’t want to get locked into the tree stand an hour after dark. That’s what happens when these deer come in. Guys I know that they live in there where they’re allowed to bait. Those deer might stand on a bait pile. You’re stuck in a stand. You have to bust some deer to get out of there. With the food plot, they come through and they munch on what they need and then they’re out of there. You might have them there for five, ten minutes. These small micro plots, whether you have a big piece of ground or small piece of ground. They work great to put in between the bedding area and the farmer’s fields. You’re funneling them into an area that’s going to allow you for a shot.
Sounds like you’re setting up an appetizer. The main course is a section away in Nebraska it could be, or in Wisconsin by yard. All of a sudden, there’s an appetizer. I like how you said it, their palate. Deer know what they need, when they need it. They do better than we do. That’s one thing I know about observing whitetails. They’ll tell you what they’re going to eat, when they’re going to eat it. I’ve hunted elk and I’ve seen elk mushrooms. Mushrooms are only around for a short window of time. If you get in on them, you can get ahead of them. There are a lot of neat things you can do by observations. What are these creatures eating? Then what you just described, we call kill plot. You set up a little stop place. You want that buck to stop, not a staging area per se, but he’s looking where he’s going next. He’s got some food, he’s relaxed, he’s not pressured. Nothing’s happening and if this wonderful then you got a shot on this kill plots and they’re small.
I learned this tip from a guy. He sets it up by the wind. Every single stand by the wind, he’ll set up a kill plot. When people start taking it to that nth degree, then you know they’re really thinking. Anything he sets, he knows what deer are there and the opportunity. That’s what we’re looking for is opportunity. During the rut, all that is off. They just starve. Bucks need to eat but they’re not thinking about it. They’re going to town and they got to sire another generation, that’s all they have.
Let’s stay on this subject. If you have questions about, “Should I have a food plot? Should I grow a food plot?” Realizing and seeing a video on the Sportsman channel and go, “I’m going to build a food plot.” Before you do that, call one of these guys. Call Rackology, call my friends over at Land & Legacy, call them at Grandpa Ray’s. To get information because they’ll talk to you, they will. They want to help you use better of your land, a better hunter. Jason, he’s a teacher. He’s good at teaching people and sharing ideas and getting you started. Whether you buy somebody’s product or not, at least have the smarts to go and ask some questions and get some input. A lot of people and I’m included, you write a check here, you put something on the credit card and you hear something, “Let’s go do this.” My farmer buddies will look at me and go, “You don’t know what you’re doing, stop.” That’s the truth.
We have a product that we pride ourselves on. Our willingness to help people, our knowledge that we’ve taken in so far, it’s an ever-evolving deal. We’ve tried to stay that might be coming up new and exciting in the food plot realm. We encourage people to call us, we encourage to email us. If you’ve got questions and concerns, “Do we have the right equipment if we decide to go this way? Am I setting myself up for failure? What do I need to do so that doesn’t happen?” That’s what we’re here for.
Who decides in the end if a food plot is right for my 10 acres, 5 acres, 200 acres?
It goes back to what we talked about with land management. When we worked with a guy who ultimately decides is the landowner, the tenant or the hunter, whatever the case may be. We obviously give our suggestion as far as what you might want to do, what you should do. They have to take it from there. That’s in their hands but we get them the information to make the best. As a teacher, you want to give kids the ability to make the best educated decision. We want to give the hunters the best knowledge to make the best educated decision. Whether it’s a biology side, the food plots and nutrition, and growing times, all these other things.
Eric, he’s been an agronomist for I don’t know how many years. He’s an expert in the agronomy field. When you call or email us, depending on the question will depend on which one of us two you’re dealing with. When you’re calling talking about, “What do we need to do for soil sampling? What do we need to do to grow the best food plots on our land?” Agronomists, that’s what they do. It’s land, soil, soil health, plants, what to plant when, anything plant related. There’s nobody else to talk to about that other than an agronomist. Eric would be the one that you’d be directly emailing or visiting with on that.
Deer will eat the corn into the fall and winter, but a deer’s palate is still going to want something green. Share on XWhat I’ve always said, it’s the hunter, landlord, tenant. Whoever’s leasing, it’s their decision. Who makes a food plot successful? It feels like to us, the people that are doing it, whether it be the landlord, putting the food plot in. It seems like it’s 90% blood, sweat and tears and 10% luck. I look at that and I say, that’s only about 10% of what determines a good food plot or not. The other 90% is Mother Nature. That holds the key if that food plot is going to be successful or not.
We’ve had times in 2012 when it was the driest year in record that I remember here in Central Nebraska. Let alone corn and soybeans on dryland, they weren’t making it. We were sucking air with the pivots, just to keep them running. To keep that stuff going, the maturity on our row crop stuff, the food plots, the cover crops. They all suffered because a lot of it is not sub-irrigated or they don’t have any water, it’s too hot for too long. Mother Nature definitely rule the rules when it comes to food plots and keeping them alive and going. The prep work that we do, and the land manager whoever spilled the food plots in. That could be the difference in the time you put into it and the way you think where it’s going to go. That’s why I say it’s successful because we try to take Mother Nature out of it as much as possible to make sure we got food plot. Definitely, that’s another thing to consider. After a person makes a person to do it, there could be some uphill battles but a lot of all those years, 2012 was one of the worst years we’ve had and ever since then it’s been pretty good. One year out of ten years, Mother Nature’s going to be somewhat decent to us.
Eric, you lead to this earlier about your plan. Audience, if you’re going to jump into this game and start developing a solid three to five-year plan for your land, for your deer. What you’re going to feed them, where you’re going to feed them, how you’re going to feed them, when you’re going to feed them. That’s where it all confect to this land management. That’s one of the reasons I started this because I want everybody to realize that they can afford, for some of you to put some eyes. That’s not the best, but sometimes at least some eyes on your land. The best thing is having people like Eric and Jason come and walk your land. That will put you up and set you up. It could be for twenty years depending on what happens to your habitat.
Having said that, before you even consider doing a food plot, figure out why you’re putting the food plot, where you want to have the food plots and what are you putting in there. Just like Jason said so happily, he set up a little appetizer bar for bucks and does in between bedding and the main meal. That’s all it takes. The guys that I know are setting up these kill plots. They’re absolutely minute, they’re 365 around their stands and it’s almost a throw and grow. They take a rake and do whatever they need to do, but they go in there and it’s just that hesitation, “This is food. I’m good, I’m going to take a munch. I just pause.” You don’t have to snort wheeze at or grunt to try to hold them. They’re going to naturally stop. They’re used to doing this. There are a lot of intricacies about this deer hunting that have expanded with food plots and land management. If you’re going to be a 365 hunter, which most of my audience are, keep learning. That’s what you tell your students all the time, don’t you, Jason?
Yes. That’s what I tell myself all the time. Unless when you think you know it all, that’s when you’re done learning unfortunately.
On this section, any more thoughts?
One of the last things that’s on my mind, which we’ll get to in the next couple of segments, is getting back to when we talked about whether or not we do a food plot. The yes factors, if I got a small area of land and I can only put an eighth or a quarter of an acre down. They might mow it down by the time hunting season even comes around. We’ll talk about how to do this better in the next couple of segments. Don’t be afraid. You can fence small micro plots off, keep them out of there. They’re still going to be going from their bedding to their fields whether you have that plot there or not. You can strategically time it to when you take those fences down. It’s like you open up the floodgates. It’s a fresh meals farm and it’s now available which even increases the draw to it that much more because they know it’s there but they couldn’t get to it.
Guys that even have a very small piece of land can still have success with a food plot if you incorporate fencing it off and keeping those deer out and you can do it. You can still do that really cheaply. We’ll talk about that later on. That’s one key factor I wanted to throw in there is the whole yes thing. This is on my mind, I can only put in a small plot, I’ve done that before and a deer mowed it down and how do we keep that around, how do we time that for the hunting season?
Just to piggyback on what Jason said, we’ve had guys that actually put in a half-acre or a quarter-acre. No fence, so it keeps deer moving through there knowing that there’s something there to feed on. When I say it’s hard to keep deer out of places, but we’ve had guys successfully put up higher fences, and I’m not talking metal fences. Whether it be electric wire or whether it be poly tape wire. Something that deer know that they can’t get in there. Then when they release all that fencing and they know it’s there, at least they’re in a pattern knowing that deer is there and then you give that stuff ample time. Knowing deer density on your property is huge because if you plant an eighth of an acre plot, and you’ve got a ton of deer out there, your density is just astronomical. Even on the high side, they are going to take that food plot, especially a spring planted plot. Whether it be a spring planted brassica plot, and they’re going to keep it trimmed down. Whereas, our plot 365 can handle the travel, the pressure and the constant grazing. There are times when we talk about, “Yes, you have a high-density deer. This is what we suggest you do.” You have success.
That’s going to be a wrap of the first section of food plot with Rackology. How do people get a hold of Rackology?
The best place is go to our email, [email protected] or get on our webpage, Rackology.org. Our phone numbers and our email address are also on there. Any social media, Facebook, Instagram, we’re also on there.
We’re going to wrap this up and who we’ve got with section number two and we’re going to talk about what they are and what they’re not when it comes to food plots with Rackology.
Important Links:
- Rackology
- Eric Fitzgerald
- Land & Legacy
- Grandpa Ray
- [email protected]
- Rackology.org
- Rackology on Facebook
- Rackology on Instagram