Leaving a food plot after dark

[Jon H.]

 You can try putting a tent blind off the trails leading to and from your food plots. Remember to brush them in and give the deer time to get use to them!

[bowman12]

It's the toughest thing about hunting over food plots, IMO. When there are several trails running to the plot instead of hunting over one of them a guy can hunt the plot and they're bound to show up, especially when it's a sanctuary type plot.

We've used the the quad idea and used it to bump the deer off but that doesn't always work when both of us our hunting on food plots that night. The best thing we've come up with is on our land that we rifle hunt we have our stands set off the food plot from 75 yards to 100 yards. A guy can get up and down out of the stand without bumping them. It's alot of fun climbing into the stand in the dark and as it gets light to see several deer out eating.

If I'm bowhunting I usually wait them out until they move on, or focus on a trail away from the food source. I've noticed it doesn't always take as long as a guy thinks, they seem to eat for an hour or so and then head off to another food source or to bed or whatever they do.

[Cut N Run]

ORIGINAL: ZEEK

How about taking turns picking up and dropping each other off with a quad. Deer will tolerate being scared by a quad more than a man on two legs.

I did this when deer came into the plot just after legal shooting time. A couple of bucks were fighting and it was too dark to shoot. I radioed for a buddy to ride down the path toward my stand and the deer left well before he got there without being alarmed. Since I couldn't return to hunt there for 4 days, I told my buddy about the bucks and that he should hunt that stand the next morning. He did, and ended up shooting one of the biggest bucks of his life.

If I had climbed out of the stand and bumped the deer thy might have avoided the area in the daylight.

Keep your clothes clean & hang them outside in the breeze away from pets & household odors. You could even stash them in a bag with pine & cedar limbs to help cover your scent. Check the weather forecast for that area and only hunt that spot when the wind is in your favor.

Jim

[Bob Olsen]

This year I'm having my food plots set up differently than ever before. I  have less than 70 acres so I'm trying to leave as much "Sanctuary" as possible. So, I do not want any food in the middle of the farm. This will stop the Deer from staying in the "Sanctuary" and get them moving to the food plot's on the outside while there is still plenty of shooting light. I'm cutting down about 10 apple tree's that really produce lots of big juicy apples I want them to move to the Food Plots. I'm going to plant Native Grasses around the tree lines and my food plots outside of the grasses. I will have my stands set up on the fence line and play the wind. I will also plant Persimmon Tree's recommended by Don Higgins, don@higginsoutdoors.com. It will take 5 years for them to produce fruit, but I can wait. They will come to the beans I'm going to plant that will not split like regular beans. I will plant these late just because there are many other crops to feed the Deer and why have them devastate my beans on the way to the neighbors fields. When the neighbors harvest their crops, I will still have beans. I know I sound like a salesman who works for Don, but I assure you I'm not. I've read his book twice and I've had him out to my farm and if I had to pay him twice as much as I did I would. I will buy my beans and Native Grasses from him too. www.realworldwildlifeseed.com. I've been through quite a bit in the last few years and I can tell you Don is the real deal. Sorry, went off on a tangent. When I leave my stands, I will leave well after dark and walk straight back from the plots and 60 or 70 yards onto the neighbors farm (with permission)(I almost wrote Persimmon, LOL)
I told Don how I used to enter my stands and how many Deer I saw per hunt and now with leaving most of my property as a "Sanctuary" he said my sightings should just about double and the quality of Bucks should improve also. Who know's, maybe I'll go from Quality Deer Management to Trophy Deer Management in a few short years.