Deer Habitat Management and Food Plots

August 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Most hunters become interested in food plots because of the utility of plots for attraction and harvest during hunting season.

It is often said, when it comes to deer hunting, he who has the food wins!

During the rut, the food is where the does are, and the bucks are out there looking for them. After the rut, the bucks are under pressure to find nutritious food to recover from the rigors of the rut and to increase fat stores in preparation for the winter.

The concept of food plotting is to create and enhance available food sources. This, in turn, may influence deer travel patterns. whitetail deer are selective feeders, consistently eating in their home range as long as palatable food is available there. Lucky for us, they will also move to other areas if better options are made available.

Once a person starts food plotting, they often develop a secondary interest in habitat management.  What starts out as a project to create a single hunting plot can turn into a life long passion for native resource management as well as creating both feeding and hunting plots.

L arger scale habitat management includes water, tree resource and deer population management. If you are interested in larger scale management of your deer herd, the best resource I can suggest for complete habitat management is the Quality Deer Management Association”s: Deer Steward Certification Courses.

www.qdma.com

http://www.qdma.ca/

 

The QDMA now has a Canadian and United States based membership and the first portion of the Deer Steward Course can now be taken online

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