Micro or mini wildlife food plots are in high cotton these days, working well on hunting properties that are not really large enough to justify full-scale farming practices, or where a hunter finds a unique little honey hole somewhere in the woods ideal for creating an impromptu plot.
“I have tried them both with success as well as failure,” said longtime bow and gun hunter Brad Carr, who has hunting land in Holmes County. “There are several tricks to getting these small plots started and productive. It takes just a bit of pre-planning and some sweat work to create a micro food plot, but the benefits can sometimes end up at the taxidermist.”
If you want to go this route and try some smaller isolated food plots on your hunting property then here are some practical bullet point suggestions to follow to create one and how to hunt them.
- Create micro food plots no larger than a house-sized living or great room.
- Odd shaped plots attract more deer than square cornered ones.
- Even micro plots need sunlight for proper plant growth.
- Ideally plots should have escape cover nearby for deer.
- Keep micro plots off main street hunter routes. The more hidden, the better.
- A mini-plot should have rub and scrape sites with overhanging limbs for licking and rubbing orbital glands.
- Disk or otherwise disturb the soil before planting. No-till seeds rarely work.
- Heavily weeded spots might require a herbicide treatment.
- Choose easy to grow food plot seeds like oats and wheat.
- Add suitable amounts of fertilizer to the seedbed.
- Lightly cover seed for decent germination success.
- Pray for rain.
- Don’t put a hunting stand in the plot or on the edge, but back in cover.
- Have a sneak in entry and exit so the wind can be played right.
- Minimize human exposure to the plot.
- Control human smells with scent-killing sprays.
