I cannot believe how many frustrated hunters there are this hunting season. Guys have been spending lots of hours on stand watching squirrels. Not only public land hunters, but land owners as well.  After a few days in a row of getting up early and sitting in a cold tree, burnout starts to set in, especially if you’re not seeing the deer like you hoped.

While you’re sitting there hoping even a doe or small buck shows up, you start thinking about what you can do to make next year’s hunting season better, like do more scouting for some better spots, improving whitetail habitat like plant some food plots, find more property to hunt, or say screw it, and go to Iowa next year.

Whoa, not so fast.

Before you throw in towel on your hunting property, I want you to watch a video which will get the wheels turning in your head. This video was shot in southern Michigan on Jake Ehlinger’s 67 acres. However, only 35 of his acres are usable by deer because of his house, barn, yard and lots of water. Jake has no fences. Instead, he is surrounded by other hunters who hunt close to his property line hoping to get a shot at the bucks that live on his property.

Why?

Because Jake has done his homework, and is a master at improving whitetail habitat where big bucks gravitate . It works so well, that he now shows other land owners how they can do the same thing. Last summer he gave a tour to about 200 hunters who wanted to see his property layout and why big bucks hang out there.

A couple weeks ago Jake gave me a personal one-on-one tour to show me all the rubs and scrapes from the rut that was starting to wind down at the time. Now he didn’t take me through the core bedding areas because it was still hunting season, and he didn’t want to push deer off to his neighbor’s properties. So we only toured 7 acres of his property. 7 Acres! How much property do you hunt? You can have the same kind of buck activity Jake does if you know how to do it.

Jake is going to share all of his knowledge about improving whitetail habitat step-by-step on video in 2012 starting in January.

Check out the video on the right side of this page.

Finding deer bedding areas are like finding gold mines, however, if the area is not hunted properly then your efforts of discovering one will be lost. Just follow a few key rules and you will be able to harvest the buck that has been constantly slipping through your fingers season after season.

3 Tips to Hunt Deer Bedding Areas

1. Set up your stand according to the prevailing wind direction and only hunt that stand in the most ideal conditions for you. One whiff of you and a mature buck might never return to your property again.

2. You must beat the deer to your spot. Unfortunately this could mean sitting by 3:30 AM to hunt deer bedding areas. If you think that you will be too late, then don’t bother sitting there. That is the time to sit farther away from the deer bedding areas on a trail to their food supply.

3. Do not over hunt the stand or go there more often that necessary. Stay clear of the area well before hunting season starts, so make sure you have everything set up. Deer Bedding Areas The best times to hunt is the rut so stay clear until that time, there is no need to let the deer know you are near the deer bedding areas before that time.

For more guidelines to follow and tips to locate deer bedding areas near you visit:

Hunting The Deer Bedding Areas of Whitetail Deer.

I ran across a bowhunter who had a 40 Acre Isolated Woodlot surrounded by ag fields with corn, soybeans, hay and alfalfa. He wanted to know how to compete with all the agricultural fields to attract deer onto his property. His isolated woodlot was the only woods around for at least a mile in all directions. He had several tree stands in the woods but could not seem to connect on a mature buck in the isolated woodlot.

Do you have access to hunt property like this, or a large  isolated woodlot surrounded by buildings and houses? If so, are you using the property in a way to give you the best hunting opportunities?

In a situation like this, the number one thing to do would be to turn that isolated woodlot into a place where every deer in the square mile will rush to hide when the hunting season starts and the corn is harvested. That woods being surrounded by acres of fields is your best source of sanctuary and cover to hold deer on your property, after all it is an Isolated Woodlot. You don’t want to penetrate it to access your stands, or deer will not be comfortable using it for a home base when hunting pressure is on. It would be better to reverse the thinking. Rather than hunting the center of the cover, give it to the deer, and hunt the edges. You want them living in the center of the isolated woodlot.

How to Prepare Bowhunting an Isolated Woodlot

Pull every stand out of that isolated woodlot and turn most of it into a sanctuary. You will be better off having the deer bedding in the center of that wooded area than having them at the edges as they are now. If you or anybody else alerts deer while accessing a stand, they will hunker down tighter on your property rather than departing it. This is because it is an isolated woodlot, which means the deer have no other place to go for a miles.

Make it so thick in there that you can’t see 30 yards anywhere. Make it difficult for deer to move directly into the fields from these woods. You want them to travel from their bedding areas in the thick woods, and into your food plots on the edges of the bedding areas on their way to the fields in the evening, and have your food plots be the last place they visit as they come home to bed down in the morning in the thickest part of the isolated woodlot.

You will actually find deer sneaking out in broad daylight to have a bite to eat if the cover is sufficient around the food plots.

Where to Put Your Stands in an Isolated Woodlot

Now your new stand locations will be to intercept deer moving along those fence rows and at travel routes to and from your food plots to their sanctuary, or to and from from your food plots to preferred areas of the ag fields. Check out the fields very closely. The deer will not use the whole field for the most part. They will have preferred areas where they hit the corn or beans hard. These areas are easy to pick out if you examine and few plants and see that the tips are nipped off, and they will probably be on the outer edge of the isolated woodlot.

Those are now mini food plots within the larger field, and you will be able to intercept them on their way to and from these spots and your food plots. You want both perennials like a clover-chicory mix and annuals but most importantly late season varieties that become desirable after the harvest. If it’s possible to enhance the cover to give them a more comfortable route to your food plots, great! Say autumn olives for example, or switch grass in the isolated woodlot.

Much of the successful deer and habitat strategies come from thinking outside the box. Most guys are thinking about competing with other food sources when the real advantage comes in the form of having quality bedding areas and more of it in an isolated woodlot.

The property where deer spend the most time bedded down during daylight hours wins.

Most of you guys who are always looking for buck hunting tips are good hunters. You practice shooting your bows and make sure you have everything in tune before the season. However, when shooting your bow well before the season starts, you’re building up all this adrenalin and when opening day of bow season comes, you want to hunt hard like my neighbors.

You’re going out every morning, every evening, taking your showers and doing your scent control, getting up early and going to your best stands. buck hunting tips you happen to see a mature buck on opening day, you get pumped! You don’t even want to go to sleep that night. buck hunting tips All you can think about is getting out there and having that buck walk within shooting range. You want to get to him before someone else gets a crack at him because after all, you want to be the first guy among your buddies this year to get a nice buck.

Hunting Season Buck Hunting Tips

Buck Hunting Tips #1

When you hunt day after day after day in October, and you’re not seeing your buck, you start second guessing your stand location, you start guessing your theories, and your set-ups. Even though they were okay, you were just making your move too early on a big buck. It’s still hot out and mature bucks do not move when it’s hot, buck hunting tips especially when it’s hunting season. buck hunting tips You can’t force the issue.  buck hunting tips Pace yourself.

Buck Hunting Tip #2

You only have 1 or 2 days at the beginning of bow season to shoot a mature buck while he is still in his summer pattern. After that, they go very nocturnal. This is called the October lull. There’s nothing you can do about it. If you really buck hunting tips need to enjoy the outdoors this time of year, you’re better off going fishing.

Buck Hunting Tip #3

Here’s what I do during the October lull. buck hunting tips  spend as much time at home with the family as I can.

The only bowhunting I do is with my daughter in one of our doe harvest food plots on the weekend. Then when Halloween comes, buck hunting tips I can be in my treesaddle almost everyday during the first 2 weeks of November which is the best time of the season to shoot buck hunting tips a mature buck.

Don’t be the guy who over-hunts through the month of October. You’ll burn out your stands, burn out your wife and family, and just when the hunting gets good with the pre-rut, around halloween, your wife turns to you and says, “You’ve been out hunting everyday for the last 30 days. It’s about time you stayed home and spend some time with the family.” This can lead to you having to go shopping or finishing the honey-do list while your buddies are out seeing and shooting big bucks during the pre-rut.

The best buck hunting tips for shooting big bucks every year is all about off-season preparation, and knowing when and where to pick your spots during the season. buck hunting tips.  Other than luck, it takes understanding whitetail behavior, developing a plan, and hunting with confidence.

For more buck hunting tips, visit my video training series on shooting mature bucks.

So I thought I would post one of these questions and my response on my blog. This one is from Sonny in IN.

Good Morning Randy,
My name is Sonny and I live about 20 miles south of Indianapolis, In.  I do a lot of whitetail hunting south of Trafalgar, IN.   I am investigating using deer food plots for the first time.  I saw your YouTube video on how you made a small 8×10 plot.  Do the the deer pretty much devastate that area before you can even hunt it?  I have about an 1/8 of an acre that is open for planting.  What would you recommend planting.  It is in a heavy soil.  I am in the process of getting a soil sample.
Thanks,
Sonny

Hi Sonny,

My best deer food plots are 1/8 acre. I plant a lot of different seed varieties to grow a lot of different things. However, the best food plot seed I have ever used is “Infinity” made by http://WhitetailSelect.com It will grow great in your heavy soil.

I plant it the first week of August and it’s 1 foot tall by Oct 1. The deer hit it really hard, but it lastswell into December, and greens up fast in the spring. I get about 5 years out of that plot before I have to replant.

The really small deer food plots I have, 8×10, do get annihilated by the middle of October. I know that will happen before I plant them, but the idea in those plots is to steer the deer traffic where I want it and stop them for a shot for my daughters during the first 2 weeks of the bow season.

A mature buck will hit those little plots the first 2 days of the bow season, but will then go nocturnal due to heavy hunting pressure around our area. Then it’s primarily a doe harvest plot for me and my kids until the food and plants are gone.
This also keeps us out of our bigger plots, 1/8 to 1/4 acre, so we don’t burn them out like many guys do early in the season.

When the pre-rut and rut starts, I hunt thick bedding areas with my treesaddle in smaller trees where no other type of treestand will work, which keeps all the other hunters out of there during October.

I hope this helps. For more how-to videos on what to do each month of the year leading up to hunting season so you can get a leg up on a shooter buck next fall, check out this site about deer food plots.

If you have any other questions before you get started, feel free to contact me anytime.

Have a great weekend,
Randy VanderVeen

Let me say right from the start, I love the great state of MI. I was born here and will probably be buried here. There is so much for an outdoor loving sportsman to do, a guy just can’t do it all. Having said that, let me also say that I don’t like many of the hunting regulations the MI DNR has in place.  Many of their policies are driven by the almighty dollar, the anti-hunting crowd, and supposedly are designed to cater to sportsmen without seemingly having little regard for the health of its wildlife, namely whitetail deer.

The MI deer herd is so out of whack it’s not even funny. Over 700,000 hunters get 35 days to shoot two bucks with a firearm and 80 days with a bow, including a crossbow, not that I’m against crossbows at all, I’ll probably have to use one someday myself. But with all those days to shoot 2 bucks, can you say annihilation of the buck population?

In many areas there are not enough bucks to breed all the does. That results in a lot of does coming into estrus in December and even January.  Whatever bucks are left, run themselves ragged deep into the winter when they should be conserving energy and building their nutrition level for the harsh MI winters. Bucks that go into winter in poor shape have a deeper hole to climb out of in the spring nutritionally, if they even make it at all, resulting in smaller antlers the following fall.

Need proof? How many deer hunting TV shows or videos are filmed in Michigan in which mature bucks are consistently harvested with a bow? Hmmm.

Many attempts by the MI DNR have been made to try to increase the doe harvest instead of decreasing the buck harvest to one buck per hunter per year period like most states. Now there is a MI early doe  season with firearms that starts on Sept. 16-19. Does anyone believe that with the ” brown it’s down” mentality of many hunters, if a big 140″ class buck, while in his summer routine, gives him a shot, that all hunters will be able to keep the safety on? No Way!

Poaching is already way out of hand. Now we’re going to give these poachers a license to go out with a firearm while it’s still summer? Gimme a break. It will result in more bucks being MIA before the season starts. Most MI hunters never even see a trophy buck during hunting season and some will not be able to restrain themselves. You know who you are.

The other reason I don’t like the MI early doe season is that most of the mature bucks will be totally nocturnal by the opening of bow season Oct 1. Not only because of the MI early doe season, but also the early youth hunt on the following weekend just before the regular bow opener. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the youth hunt. We need to recruit new youngsters into the sport. All 3 of my daughters took does with a bow during the youth hunt. I just wish the youth hunt was the only firearm season before the bow opener.

After all, MI just legalized crossbows to help more hunters shoot more bucks and does. Why do we need yet another firearm season to kill does while it’s still summer? It’s too hot, many deer will go to spoil if not found soon after being shot, and mature bucks will go nocturnal even before the youth hunt!

There’s a lot of things that should be considered and changed for the sake of the health of the MI deer herd. I could go on and on with more reasons but it won’t do any good because money talks and the MI DNR would never do anything that could decrease revenues coming in.

At a time when we all see so many TV hunting shows and videos of big bucks being harvested, these policies will only result in more MI hunters becoming discouraged and deciding to give up the sport or spend their hunting budget dollars out of state where better deer management is taking place. Either way, MI loses out on more revenue and MI hunters lose more voices to keeping the anti hunting crowd from taking away more outdoor privileges.

I believe the MI early doe season is just a way to raise more revenue without any consideration of the deer herd’s well being.

I would love to hear what you think. Feel free to leave a comment below.

White Oaks White Acorns and Red Acorns

• White acorns taste better because of the fewer tannins which give red acorns more of bitter taste.
• The leaves of a white oak have rounded lobes  around the whole leaf.
• The crown or cap only covers about 1/4 of a white acorn.
• Acorns tend to be long and narrower rather than fat and round.
• They also grow at the ends of their branches of the current year new growth White Acorns and Red Acorns.
• The bark has shallower gaps between the ridges and can be flaked off with your fingers.

White Acorns and Red Acorns Red Oaks

• The leaves of a red oak are larger and have sharp pointed lobes.
• The crown or cap is nearly flat on top.
• The acorn is shorted and fatter and is almost round.
• They grow in clusters on last year’s growth of branches.
• The bark is tougher with wider deeper gaps between its ridges.

I don’t want you to think that deer won’t eat acorns from red oaks. They certainly will. After all, red oaks produce more acorns than white oaks do. But if you have both types where you hunt, you’ll find that the white acorns will go first White Acorns and Red Acorns.

What’s even better is if you can find a white oak inside of a standing corn field or at least on the edge of corn. The stalks in that spot will probably be knocked down pretty good. If you can sit in a spot like that on opening evening of bow season without ruining the spot before hand by hanging a stand, your chances at an early season buck are much greater than even a week later White Acorns and Red Acorns.

Feel free to leave your comments or questions below.

A lot of guys are looking for that magic bullet, the edge that will be their short cut to seeing more deer and getting a crack at a trophy whitetail this Fall.  A lot of products are hyped and sold on those claims.

Trophy Radishes Deer Food Plot Seed

Nothing beats post-season scouting and preparation for getting a leg  up on all the other hunters. But there is one product I am very encouraged about. One that claims to out-perform many in its class.  It happens to be the trophy radish or Diakon radish. I planted some of these seeds on August 5 and by the 10th they were the first plants to shoot out of the ground…and I planted a big variety. On day 7 they were about 2 inches tall already! This is my first go round with Trophy Radishes and I love what I see so far.

Do you have any food plots started yet this year? Please share your comments below on your progress so far and if you have had any experience with trophy radishes.

Trophy Radishes Great Video.

Most of us bowhunters are trying to get every edge we can. We even want to provide good forage for the deer in our area during the summer so they get used to coming into our food plot.  After all, we want to make sure they know the food plot is there well before the season starts. This is supposed to give us a leg up on opening day of bow season, however many hunters have questions such as When To Plant Food Plots ?

There are 2 choices in When To Plant Food Plots.

First, forget about deer not finding your food plot in time for the opener. Deer roam around most of the night. They’ll even smell your new lush plants before they get there. The deer will be in your plot at night as the new plants sprout out of the ground. If your biggest concern about When To Plant Food Plots is that you are not sure the deer will find it on time, don’t worry about it. Trust me!

Second, don’t worry about the deer not having any food in your plot during the summer. There is so much natural food around everywhere anyway, that your food plot for deer would be a drop in the bucket in comparison. But, maybe your biggest concern about when to plant food plots is to provide good quality forage for antler growth. Actually the biggest impact you can make on antler growth is from January to March. This is the best time to have food in your plots, when the available natural browse is dead and gone.  Deer are in a nutritional deficit in which they need to climb out of in the spring. They need to catch-up.

So if you want to create deer food plots to encourage good antler growth, don’t focus on feeding them in the summer. Because there is not a plant anywhere that can feed all summer and all winter.  Part of your decision about when to plant food plots involves choosing when you want to feed your deer the best forage.

For producing good antler growth the answer to When To Plant Food Plots should be to “feed in the winter” to keep bucks from losing even more body weight like they did chasing and not eating during the rut. The quicker you replenish their nutrition levels, the bigger head start they have in the spring to growing a nice set of head gear.

So the answer to When To Plant Food Plots for deer is late summer, as in August.

What do you plant?

My favorite plant is purple top turnips. Deer eat the green leaves and stems in the fall, and then eat the turnip root in December and January. Some of these roots or bulbs can grow to the size of softballs. Other good choices for providing protein in early spring is ladino clover and chicory. All of these are very easy to grow.

To get all your food plot questions answered such as how to prepare the ground with little effort, how to test the soil correctly, when and how to plant your seed, etc….check out my complete food plot guide here.

Good Plotting,

Feel free to leave your comment below and let me know if this answered all your questions about when to plant food plots.

Latest Bowhunting Technology Tips

• Bowtech has created the OverDrive Binary™ synchronized dual cam system. This cam system is setup to provide stability while still maintaining exceptional cay synchronization.
• Their latest bowhunting technology for limbs are the HardCore Limbs™ which store energy throughout the limbs and not just on the surface. This reduces stress on the bow and causes less vibration after shooting.
• Bowtech changed the cable containment with the FLX-Guard™ system. This absorbs cable guard torque by flexing when the bow is pulled back.

To see more features on Bowtech’s latest bowhunting technology and watch them in action click the link below.

Latest Bowhunting Technology from Bowtech for 2010