Food plots can be key to deer hunting

Food plots can be a key ingredient to improving one’s deer hunting recipe. Not only are they more nutritional, but they are also much more productive than feeders dispensing corn, according to wildlife biologists with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Carefully designed and crafted food plots provide much more than just deer food. They may actually increase your chances of successfully harvesting a deer.

 

Cover is an additional needed ingredient, said Ralph Meeker, AGFC’s assistant deer program coordinator.

 

He explained that deer much prefer situations that have two elements – food and cover. “Deer spend a great deal of time eating and hiding from predators. When these two key elements are provided in close proximity that’s when you get the most ‘bang’ for your buck,” Meeker says. “Providing this cover may be as simple as developing the edges that surround your food plot in order to provide for edge habitat. That’s the transitional area of brush and grass that differentiates the mature timber from open spaces such as fields or food plots,” he added.

 

The usual pattern for deer is to cautiously move from the woods to find things to eat in the food plots. If the plot is ringed with an assortment of bushes and shrubs, this helps the deer to stay out of sight from assorted threatening elements, including two-legged types.

 

With a large food plot, Meeker said, a suggestion is to leave or create an island in the middle of the plot. This island can be a tree or two left when plowing for the food plot, or it can be some bushes left or planted in the middle of the food plot. This island can encourage deer to feed across the plot and to the cover of the island.

 

Persons wanting to create food plots can contact private land biologists of the AGFC for suggestions and technical information, including on-site visits. There is no cost for these services. Phone 800-364-4263 to connect with a private land biologist. Private lands biologists also have a network of partner agencies and professionals including foresters, soil conservationists, grazing specialists, and fisheries biologists, that can help with food plots and other conservation practices on private lands.