Found an ad on Craigslist and called the guy and arranged for some food plot work on my lease. Well, he came out and did the dirt(y) work yesterday. Turned out to be a great guy and is trying to set up repeat customers from year to year, so he treated me right. Disced, seeded, fertilized, then disced the seeds in a little to keep the birds off until rain. The plots turned out great. He and his helper even helped me tap in some t-posts for the electric fence on both the plots. I only had time yesterday to do a single strand, but next trip will do a second strand of electricity. When the rain comes, these things should produce. Looking forward to a great deer season!







This is a view of one plot from near the blind. This plot should be great as it is tucked back near some cover between the feeder to the right and a tank to the left.

Looks great. A good food plot will pay generously.

How far did he travel to your lease and did you have to pay drive time?

Just goes to show that not all Craigslist turn out bad.

X2

what area does he work in? About how much did he charge?

I though about doing that for hunters out around me. I have all the equipment, but mine is to big to put on a trailer. Not sure I could get enough work to justify a trailer anyway. I reckon if some one was close enough, I could just road everything.

Glad you found a good guy to help you out..

Nice. I need one of those guys here in Adamsville.

He came from the Graham area, and my lease is in henrietta. I didn't pay him by the hour or anything, it was for a turn key food plot, so his travel time was included in the cost he quoted me I guess.

He did 2 plots, one ended up around 1/4 in size, mainly due to physical limitations of the landscape, and the other was right around 1/3-1/2. This ground had never been worked so he chewed it up really well with discs, and then seeded and fetilized and ran over with a disc to get the seed "bird-proof". He was there at 8am and done by 12. If interested I can PM his phone number and you would have to see if he could travel to your place. I don't know how far he is willing to travel, but he didn't bat an eye at the drive from Graham to Henrietta.

Sounds like he has been doing this for several years, and had some experience on his side. He planted wheat, and I think I might go out and sprinkle some turnips in the soil next time I am out there.

I would have added a couple of steps that help make a great food plot out of a good one.

First, I would have used a drag or harrow after disking to create a flatter seed bed. Some even prefer to roll the plot area after disking since you want the seeds lightly covered with soil. If you seed a disked area, the seeds that fall in the deeper cuts will be less likely to come up. This same drag or harrow should then be used to lightly cover the seeds. I've learned this by doing it both ways, disk alone, and disk with drag before and after seeding.

If you want a plot that looks more like a green at Augusta once the deer start hitting it, using a harrow before and after seeding is the way to go.

Nice

WHAT DID HE CHARGE???

Looks like it will turn out nice. Hope you get some rain

This. I'm curious as well.

always find a needle in a hay stack!

Nice

x2

Wonder how much he charged... Ha

If you are interested in the cost, pm me and I will let you know. Didn't want to have money talk act like a licking branch, cuz invariably someone would feel the urge to micturate all over this....and if one does, we know what happens then.

Just an update...went out last evening for some varmint hunting and checked the status of the plots after the rain we got last week:





From what I can tell I got pretty good germination and the wheat is coming up. This rain today is going to help and I pray the rain keeps coming!! I got two strands of electric fence around both plots and so far the cows have stayed out.

I set up a camera on each and turned them to field watch every am and pm, so I will get an idea of when the deer (hopefully not any other animals) start munching on the groceries.

Happy so far!!

I had to look up the word micturate and I applaud your use of vocabulary sir. I will be using this somehow next week at the office. Also, the plots are looking great.

micturate! Me too! Great looking plots!

I try to throw a medical term in every once in a while. It just fit the phrase I was going after without sounding all pizzy...haha


It looked like I got some good rain up at the lease yesterday. I am hoping the wheat takes off and really gets a good stand.

Any idea when deer will start to go after wheat sprouts? With everything green in the area will they even hit it until everything else starts dying? Also, how much browse can early wheat take? Can a 2 week old plant withstand browse pressure?

First time planter, so I am curious about all this, though I expect to find out eventually as things naturally evolve...

I don't have any answers to your questions but to a novice like myself, the plots look very nice! Dare I ask how much you paid for them? lol j/k I just had to find a way to type micturate...there I did it. Kudos to the vocab!

I like that too. Nice plot and something I want to try in the next year or two.

Nice word too.