Micro plots have a niche

In an attempt to be sneaky at my deer camp, last year I decided to put up a couple of hidden stands and I bought two Millennium T-100 lightweight tripods. While only 10 feet high from the seat position they are remarkably easy to hide along woodland edges.

I posted one stand on a dead end ATV trail on the north end of the property between two thickets of timber. On one side was a cutover, thick as bear hide but an ideal hideout for bucks. On the other side was a dense stand of mixed hard and soft woods that led to a swamp. The area had always been a travel corridor.

But something was missing. The thick canopy cover of the timber had shadowed out much of the viable native food resources that whitetails typically use for browsing. The exception to that was the cutover, but still there was no green grass in the area.

So, while shopping for some supplemental food plot seed varieties for some other plots, I ran across a bag of no-till seed mix. This brand happened to be Evolved Harvest, Throw & Gro. The mix listed on the bag includes ryegrass, annual clovers, and rape brassica greens.

The package said “for hard to plant places,” exactly what I had.

After setting up the tripod stand and brushing in the legs, I took a steel rake and roughed up a big patch of soil in the trail about 8 x 10 feet in a rectangle. I simply tossed out the bag of the Throw & Gro, added half a bag of generic fertilizer and lightly raked it all into the soil.

Within a week we had a really nice slow rain on the property. I was hopeful the seed came up. Two weeks later I slipped in on the tripod and micro plot and was elated at what I found. There stood the brightest little green plot of deer feed I had ever seen.

More importantly, there was evidence of deer tracks all over the micro plot. For certain it did not take long for the deer to find the plot.

So, look for some isolated spots on your hunting property to consider for a micro plot. It will not take long to create and — you’ll really like this part — it won’t take long for deer to find it.