Sam16

Looks like you have some relation between the big 8 and the buck in the 4th pic. Racks look to be similar, a few years apart however. Maybe father/son or brothers. Cool pics, good luck gettin the big guy

Love the pic with the fawn. What do u think is going through the fawns mind at that moment? "Are you my daddy?" Pretty funny, but on a more serious note, that is a hawg of a buck. i'd say 170's also

I dont know about in the early morning, but i know they hit the beans real hard until it turns brown, which unfortunately happens right around late sept or oct. Although i did shoot my huge doe on her way to a bean field last year on Oct 5th. Good luck over your field

Ours have been in the ground for awhile now, luckily we've been blessed with rain and our plots look great. Good luck with yours

Hey guys... I was just reading through the Whitetail Institute pamphlet or whatever you want to call it. Of course, they claim their seed blends are the highest quality and outperform everything. Same with BioLogic, same with Tecomate. They all make these claims, then i read many of you guys dont even use name brand seeds. I used Maxi-rack seeds mixed with some BioLogic FullDraw amongst others this year. Just curious why you guys dont ever mention these name brands? Have you have bad experiences? Is it much more expensive? This is my first year of food plots, and just trying to figure out all the brands. Are there any brands you dont trust and others you swear by?

Definite shooter, i would guess 130 as well. Good luck stickin him

A fairly cheap way of killing everything is the cheaper version of Round-up. It's maybe 20 bucks per acre. Get yourself a sprayer and spray the strips. As for the tilling, i dunno what to tell ya without machinery. Maybe hire a local farmer for a couple hours?

It has been my hunting strategy the past few years to hunt the small field edges in the evening, and the wooded bedding areas in the morning. Makes sense right? Well this year we have a 3 small food plots. Usually i wouldnt think of hunting them in the morning, but i've been watching a lot of hunting videos where they are killing big bucks in fields in the morning. Do you guys do that and do you have deer sneak into the fields in the morning hours getting a quick snack before bedding up for a day or what? Just curious what everyone's strategy is.

I hope they like them in Northern Illinois. I'm sure they will once they find it. Last i saw my plots of mixed brassicas and clover, including rival top turnips and purple top turnips, they were maybe 6 inches high and the deer havent touched them yet. This is the first year we've planted them, so maybe they havent figured it out yet. I'm not too worried about it, they'll find it eventually. Those pictures look promising though!

I'm so jealous...

I dont know about you, but in Northern Illinois we have had plenty of rain. Hopefully it keeps up down by you. So far we've been blessed. Maybe if you do a rain dance the next storm will come down by you...

An update on our plots... I couldnt get pics loaded on here because they were too large and i am too inept with computers to resize them. Anyways, the plots are looking good in their early stages. A few of the brassicas were as big as my hand 1 week and a half ago. They are coming up good, but unfortunately i dont think i will be back to the farm until hunting season seeing as i hafta go back to college soon in Champaign. Im trusting the fields will be in good shape with the plentiful rain. The only problem i've noticed so far, is our 3 plots equalling maybe a 1/2 acre result in the outer edges growing much slower due to lack of shade. Since our plots r so small, a good majority of it is slowed down in the shade. Next year i definitly plan on making them bigger. You live you learn. Hopefully this produces some deer though.

Sounds like a real safe bedding area for deer. Is there any other woods or areas to hunt that would be more accessible to hunt? Obviously this area wont work. If there are 3000 acres, must be a few open areas in these woods to hang a stand and get on some sign.. May take awhile to find

Walking in and out of bedding areas is when you get in real trouble. Watching fields and travel areas isnt nearly as harmful as the thick areas. I try to hang a stand in the bedding areas, cut my lanes, and stay out till the season and sometimes till the rut. A bucks bedroom is a fragile place. I believe if you kick a buck out of his bedroom, u may kick him off ur property, just my opinion though..

I saw a real nice buck that died no more than a half hour before i drove past him earlier in the summer. Very nice wide rack with split brows and all. Woulda been a real giant. It happens, unfortunately. Gotta suck it up and hope they died quickly. Too bad really...

I was thinkin that left most clump was his ear. Do you see a point in there? Would be nice if he had a chance to be a 10 pt. Hoping for a better pic of him

Im thinkin it has 160+ potential. Big wide 12 point like that. Hopefully we can score him when he's dead

That is a big mature buck. Nice rack too, very massive frame. He wouldnt walk past me and live to talk about it...

What do you guys think? Is this a spike or are we looking at the G2 and G3 of the left side of an 8 pt's rack? I've been going back and forth for awhile.

very nice buddy, good luck stickin one

As a deer matures, and skeletal and muscle growth is for the most part complete, all nutrition goes to the rack. It is very possible this deer had great genetics, reached maturity and put all his high protein nutrition towards his rack. He must have survived the winter pretty well and didnt have much weight to put on. That is very interesting though. Awesome buck

Some nice deer, hopefully they move onto your hunting grounds come rut

Whats the big deal with someone trying to pass on a good deer hunting site? It's not like this is an anti-hunter we r talkin about. If anything we need to be stickin together instead of causing trouble... The site had some useful info for me anyways. Thanks Stormy

Look similar to me, but the biggest buck is a shooter no matter who's best friend he is. Good luck getting him

Very cool Todd. I planted my small plots about a month ago. I just hope the deer dont eat them up before October. Good luck with your plot, sounds like you got it figured out.