I've got several acres of crimson clover coming up and the deer are loving it.
Wildlife biologist said it's around 24% protein.

That looks really nice.

very nice! when did you plant that?

I mixed one bag of that (50lbs/$80) in with my 15 acres of oats last fall. We found some blooming but it appeared to freeze out (or drought/eaten out) mostly. Supposed to be quality forage and will help the soil.

I didn't, I just bought the place last June and it was covered with Johnson grass that was waist high. Had it cut
and this just popped a couple of weeks ago. There is 50-60 acres of it.

good stuff! it can add up to 200# / acre of nitrogen back into the soil if it has the right bacteria/inoculant in the soil (yours is established, so it probably does!).
let it go to seed before harvesting hay, and it'll come up perpetually!

Just checked my notes:
I have a small test-plot I planted 5yrs ago in the fall that included a pound of inoculated/coated Crimson Clover;
This spot is poor/sandy soil, and I have not added any new seed, or fertilizer, in this test area since, and every year the crimson clover has come back a little - rather thin;
I've been somewhat careful not to cut/mow this area when the crimson clover is actively growing, and have waited till the seed heads dry out completely (august) before mowing/cutting.
This year, 5 yrs later, it has come back really nicely, tall with lotsa blooms - about as thick as the original stand, and has spread slightly past the original plot (about 20%).

I have a larger test area I planted 2 yrs ago - came up thin last year, but doing pretty good this year too.

1yr ago I planted a 3rd, much larger test area, but did very minimal soil prep/broadcast seeding - haven't noticed any blooms yet from this area - still keeping fingers crossed.

Man would love to get some of that established up here.

I've never heard of crimson clover ... where do you buy the seed? and how many pounds per acre should be put out the first go? It would be really nice to be able to plant something that keeps on coming back annually.

First, you want to buy coated(inoculated) seed (the inoculation lets it grab nitrogen out of the air so no fertilizer needed!) - and plant it in the fall.
Places like this carry it:
https://mbsseed.com/product/dixie-crimson-clover-50-lb-bag/
https://www.7springsfarm.com/products/clover-crimson-50-lb-bag
https://alseed.com/product/crimson-clover/

and locally Justin Seed - https://justinseed.com/product/crimson-clover/



I'm also testing Apache Arrowleaf clover - another great one for poor soils and great wildlife browse;
I'm likeing what I'm seeing from this one but only 1.5yrs into testing . . .
- https://justinseed.com/product/arrowleaf-clover/
https://mbsseed.com/product/apache-arrowleaf-clover-50-lb-bag/



The 'coming back annually' and 'no fertilizer needed when inoculated' were two of my big considerations on these.

I've had really good results over seeding poor soils with both crimson and the arrowleaf clover. And it keeps coming back year after year.