Food Plot Friday: Plot Shaping

So, you've decided you want to put in a new food plot. STOP! Before you do anything layout the design, and please, please, please don't just start hacking an opening as big as you can! The biggest mistake my father and I ever made was making our biggest food plot way too open and not winding enough or giving it enough edge cover. We were too busy making the same mistake thousands of hunters make, we thought bigger was better...which is fine but it doesn't mean tons of open space.

You see deer have to feel secure to be comfortable feeding during daylight hours...something that mature bucks will rarely feel once they know hunting season is upon them. So we have to do all we can do to make them feel safe on our food plots.

Our largest food plot comes close to an acre total...sadly until recently its design is for lack of a better comparison a big circle with not much edge cover. This year we plan on doing multiple things to that food plot and some others.

-Hinge-cutting the edges some. This will allow a softer edge into our food plots, create browse and allow us to control where deer are more likely to enter and exit. Creating a safer feel to the food plot along the way!

-We will be either falling a couple trees across parts of the food plot, planting bushes/shrubs or sorghum as site barriers...making it less likely a buck will just walk up to the edge of the plot and be able to visually check it for other deer. He's going to have to hoof around the barriers to accomplish that task now. *Encouraging better movement habits!

-We will be putting in some new food plots as well, but not just cutting an opening and throwing seed. More than likely we will be using one of the two styles I am going to share below, just at a very small scale (these plots are not going to be bigger than 1/4 of an acre).

The following images are great examples of what I'd do with a too open food plot or pre-existing one that is deemed too open, followed by 2 of my favorite designs for food plots that allow deer to feel safer and force bucks to hoof around their bends to check the entire thing out. Other great designs are figure eights and the great 'S' or winding path plots.

Now remember if you have say 80 some acres and you can afford to create a 6-10 acre destination food plot (night time feeding primarily) THAT'S GREAT! You'll be providing deer a primary food source, however your smaller plots running between that big plot and the bedding area is when these shapes and tactics are the way to creating killer locations for catching a mature whitetail.

As always please e-mail me (working with two others right now actually on property ideas) at tylanmiller@gmail.com or feel free to hit me up at bowhunting.com forums under the name Tynimiller. Good luck to all as we lay the ground work now for what will come in the fall!