PLANT IT AND THEY WILL COME

by Jerry Hinz

Our hunting strategies changed as we started losing

more and more of the private land we’d hunted for

years. My wife, Marlene and I began pulling together

a plan to buy property of our own and then to manage

it for wildlife.

Over the years property in north western Wisconsin changed hands. Farmers found it financially advantageous to sell their land rather than to continue working it Sometimes smaller parcels of land were sold to retiring urbanites seeking the quiet of the north woods away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

New owners were not always agreeable to permitting bowhunters on their land. Other landowners were firearms hunters and wanted to harvest the deer themselves. Much of the wooded land in our area was purchased by bowhunters. We began in earnest to look for land to buy.

We were fortunate enough to have a respectful relationship with the owner of one of the areas we hunted regularly. When he was ready to sell, we were contacted first. Without hesitate we purchased those 80 acres we’d become very comfortable hunting.

Since we bowhunt for deer, bear and turkeys we wanted to make the habitat as appealing as possible for wildlife. We started talking to the DNR, friends and a private forester regarding the best way to manage the land. On the recommendation of the forester we select cut the aspen and maple. We left the oak trees and the stands of pine trees.

We requested that the loggers came in after the white tail season had closed. This allowed us to work with them to assure that some of our treestands along major travel corridors were left undamaged. We were also able to suggest where we wanted turn-around or loading areas used by the logging trucks.

January brings sport shows to many major cities and on several weekends we found ourselves listening to seminar speakers and talking to seed representatives regarding food plots. For us BioLogic products seems the best choice for our area because researchers actively tested their blends in our climate zone.

We made the decision to put in a food plot where the logging trucks had turned around once they were loaded. We chose this spot because it was about a quarter of a mile into the property. Having the food plot away from road traffic is important because it prevents others from shining the field and disturbing the feeding deer. Deer feel more secure surrounded by woods and we hoped they would be more prone to use it earlier in the afternoons and later in the mornings.

As soon as the frost left the ground we took soil samples and evaluated the pH level using one of BioLogic’s meters. The University of Minnesota also has facilities to test samples for a nominal fee and results are usually available within a couple of weeks

The next step was to eliminate the weeds once the weather warmed even more and the woods started to green up. We only needed one application of Roundup®. A week or so later we worked appropriate amounts of lime and fertilizer into the soil using a neighbor’s disc.

That same day we cast out Clover Plus using a hand held seed spreader. The plot measured 30 yards by 60 yards so that any work we needed to do could easily be accomplished in a day. Once the seed was spread, we prayed for rain.

Within a few weeks the clover was up and there was evidence of deer already using it as a food source. We couldn’t have been more delighted with our efforts and the results BioLogic’s Clover Plus was giving us.

We also decided to provide mineral supplements for the deer. We put in BioLogic’s Full Potential formula at two different spots on our 80 acres. One we placed along a corridor for the deer traveling north and south and one for those traveling east and west through the property. Our goal for adding the mineral pockets was two-fold—to promote antler growth and to give nursing does additional nutrition.

What we’d done seemed to bring more deer into the 80 acres and also to hold them there. We felt the food plot, the mineral supplements and the new Aspen growth provided the deer with cover, browse and security. During the rut we saw more bucks than in previous years and I took my first Pope and Young quality buck that fall.

At the end of the season we started thinking about adding another food plot the following spring. We were ready to see what else we could provide for the resident deer to make the next season better yet.