Kevin Steffey, Author at Deer Hunting Field

How To Plant Chicory For Deer–How to Attract Deer to Your Backyard

Do you love it when your local wildlife comes to visit your property? Squirrels, rabbits, birds, and deer are wandering around and living their lives. You can become closer to nature and encourage more wildlife with food plots.

Food plots are particular areas of planted land that are set aside to be a food source for wildlife. These food plots usually contain forage grasses, beans, alfalfa, turnip, et cetera. For deer, something they enjoy is chicory.

Chicory is a member of the dandelion family that can be used for many things. It has numerous health benefits for humans and is even used as a coffee substitute. Wildlife also loves it, especially deer.

By creating a food plot on your property, you will encourage wildlife to visit and chow down. If you are attracting them to hunt or if you just want to enjoy nature in your backyard, planting chicory in a food plot will attract deer to wherever you planted it. This guide will tell you all you need to know about planting chicory for deer.

How To Plant Chicory For Deer? What You Will Need

How do you plant food plots, to begin with? You will need several things and to have some patience. There is a lot that goes into making a food plot. The one I will be going over is a mini plot. Mini-plots do not need heavy equipment like tractors to be built.

Here is a list of things you should have ready to create your food plot.

Soil
Leaf blower
Small sprayed with roundup inside

Lime pellets
Chicory seeds
Fertilizer

What You Have To Do

Step 1: Determine the Location of Your Plot

The first thing you need to do is figure out where you are going to put your food plot. Usually, you are also picking what crop you want to plant, but we are using chicory. Take a look at your property for locations that fit the bill.

An ideal location for a food plot is dependent on what you want to happen. Since we are talking about deer, make sure your plot is located in an area frequented by them.

You also want somewhere you can get too easily that is not out in the open. The more cover there is, the more animals will come to your plot.

Step 2: Test the Soil

Getting a sample of the soil that is present where you would like to build your plot. You need to have it tested so you can know how much lime you need to neutralize the pH level. You can have this done at the most agricultural feed store for a pretty decent price.

The pH is the measure of alkalinity and acidity of the soil you are considering. You will not want to skip this step. It is critical to the success of your crop. If the pH is off, your plants may not grow properly, if at all. A balanced pH level allows plants to get the maximum amount of nutrients.

Step 3: Kill the Weeds

With a mower, mow the area as short as possible without hurting your mower deck. After this, using your spray bottle, spray the area with roundup or the weed killer of your choice.

A product with 41% Glyphosate is ideal for this, which you can find at your local home improvement store. After spraying, wait for 10 to 14 days for the weed killer to do its job. This is essential for the health and vitality of your chicory plot.

Step 4: Break Ground

Depending on what is available to you, use whatever tools you have to loosen and break up the soil to be ready for planting. You can use a Rototiller or even hand tools.

With your tools, go over the entire area you would like to be your plot. Make sure everything is turned over and broken up evenly. For other options, you may be able to rent a food plot machine from a local wildlife habitat.

Step 5: Lime and Fertilizer

With the recommended amount of fertilizer and lime for your soil, spread it evenly over the plot. With the lime, you can either use pellets or the pulverized version. The bullet version needs to be redone each time you plant something.

Using a tiller or what tool is readily available, mix the fertilizer and lime in with the soil. You can have a professional ‘disk’ the ground for you if you want to. This is done using a disk attachment from an ATV.

Step 6: Prepare the Ground

After you spread the lime and fertilizer, it is time to make the ground smooth for your seed bed. You can use a chain-link fence or a cult packer, whichever is more convenient for you.

When you have an ideal seed bed, you have to spray it with your weed killer once more. This gets rid of the dormant weeds that are hiding. The fertilizer and lime give them nutrients to come back, so wait for 10 to 14 days before moving on to the next step.

Step 7: Plant the Seeds

To plant your seeds, hold on another week or week and a half before planting. A cult packer is recommended in general for this task, but it comes in handy here. It can efficiently get your seed nice and profound into the soil without agitating any remaining dormant weeds.

Doing anything but planting with your soil is not a good idea at this time. Do not mix it up or spray again with the weed killer. Also, for even better results, watch your weather forecast and see if you can plant before a good rain. The rain helps the seed and the soil to retain good contact.

Step 8: See Your Results

When your results are finally coming to fruition, you probably want to consider treating it with a grass herbicide a few times throughout the season. This helps to control weeds. A little bit of mowing every now and again will probably help the chicory to cultivate nicely.

The deer in your area will appreciate the source of food as will the other creatures that enjoy chicory. If you want to encourage them to come to your property, building a food plot with many different plants will do the trick.

Chicory, however, is well known for its appeal to wildlife. Humans, too, get great health benefits from chicory. It is not used as much as it used to be, but certainly is coming back to be an ideal lunch for Bambi.

Conclusion

Ensure that you have all you need before starting each step. Apparently, you can take some time when you are waiting for the land to be ready. This time, can be used to find the equipment you would want to rent or to find someone to hire to help you out.

Once you have gone through all the trouble, it takes to make a food plot, maintaining it is just as important if you want to keep your success. Treating with grass herbicide goes a long way, and now you can say that you know how to plant chicory for deer. And as always, if you know someone who would benefit from this piece of knowledge, feel free to share this article with them.

How To Score A Whitetail Deer-How To Easily Score A White Tail Deer In 5 Simple Steps

If you are new to hunting, the idea of scoring may be an unfamiliar concept to you – I know it was for me. Simply put, scoring a buck’s antlers is an easy way for you to compare the size of your prize game with other trophy bucks.

Not all deer are created equal, and scoring is a method that different hunting clubs have codified to judge the quality and size of each buck. Depending on which organization you choose to associate with, you’ll score your deer differently.

If your buck has a rack large enough to go into the record books, you could send in your score to one of the four record-keeping organizations. So let’s learn how to score your white tail deer with ease!

How To Score A White tail Deer? First Things First

Before you get your buck’s rack in your hands, let’s briefly go over what you’ll be measuring. In the image above, you can see these different measurements and how the four clubs include or exclude particular dimensions.

For example, only the Boone & Crockett club take into account the symmetry of the deer’s antlers in their score. All four of the clubs measure the Main Beams and most measure the Non-Typical Points.

Organizations can list deer as either Typical or Non -Typical bucks. If your buck has a lot of non-typical points, then it’s better to enter it in as a non-typical buck.

Scoring Terminology

There are two different scores that you’ll hear talked about – a gross score and a net score. The total score includes all of the points and possible measurements, whereas the net score will subtract any differences in symmetry and non-typical points.

I like to go with a gross score because it isn’t a nit-picky scoring method and it allows you to appreciate the immensity of your buck’s rack.

One last thing to be careful of is how long the deer’s rack has been sitting. Once you mount the buck, it will take about 60 days for the antlers to dry out. During this time they will shrink as they lose water.

If you score the deer right after you shoot it, this is considered a “green scoring” because your score will be higher than scoring the antlers after they’ve dried out. Only scores that have been taken after the antlers have dried out can be recognized as official scores for each of the clubs.

What You’ll Need

First, you’ll need to have shot your buck! To get your first buck, maybe you should check out what WhiteTail deer like to eat to help you on your next hunt.

As far as measuring equipment goes, you can get by with a few different tools. Here are the following tools that I recommend for scoring your deer.

Following Tools	Image
1.Steel Measuring Tape with 1/8 Inch demarcations
2.Wire Cable
3.Scoring Sheet

The Steel Measuring Tape needs to be flexible to bend with the curve of the antler. I’ve found that Tailor’s Measuring Tape also works well.

The Wire Cable can be anything that’s long and can also bend to follow the curve of the primary beam. I use a bicycle brake line for this purpose.

Lastly, choose one of the clubs scoring sheets that make the most sense to you. Here are the scoring sheets for the following organizations.

Since Boone and Crocket is the oldest club, it’s typically the one most hunters will try first. I score my buck like the BuckMasters because they do not penalize for non-symmetric antlers. I recommend choosing the system you like best!

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to walk you through the Boone & Crocket Measuring system below. There’s also a short youtube video you can check out to walk through the Boone & Crocket method.

Step One – Counting the Points

Firstly, you’ll want to count the points on the rack starting with the abnormal points and then to the standard ones. A normal point has to be at least 1 inch long and must be longer than it is wide. Anything smaller than this is considered a non-typical point.

Step Two – Measuring the Spreads

Next, you’ll need to measure the spreads. You’ll want to gauge the tip to tip spread between the last two tips of the antler at the front.

Then you need to measure the greatest range which is usually between the main two beams but can sometimes be a kicker point that’s further away than the main beam

Lastly, you will want to measure the inside spread which is the inside distance between the two main beams. This measurement is typically close to the greatest range, but it should be smaller since it’s from the inside of the beams not to the outside.

Step Three – Measuring the Main Beams

Using your wire cable you will want to stretch it carefully from the head of the buck where the antler begins, along the outside of the beam all the way to the very last point. Once you have this length of the wire you used, measure it along your ruler to find your beam length.

Step Four – Measuring the Tine Lengths

This is an important step because you need to be careful where you begin this measurement. You will want to start this at the center of the main beam and then out to the tip of the point.

These are the G1-G7 measurements in the image to the right.

Step Five – Measuring the Circumference

It’s always important to take the smallest measurements when measuring the circumferences. You will only and always make four circumference measurements marked as H1-H4 in the diagram above.

If you only have an 8 pointer, you need to ensure you measure directly between the last tine and the last point.

Measure and Repeat

Once you do this for the left or right side of the antler, then you need to repeat steps 1-5 for the other side as well. The trick for Boone & Crocket is symmetry between the right and left sides.

So you will compare the measurements from the right and left sides of the buck’s rack and then subtract the difference between these two measurements.

Without subtracting your scores, you have the gross score which is the total score minus the asymmetries and non-typical points you find. I use this score for my record keeping, but an official score will use the net score.

That’s It – Not Too Difficult Right?

I wanted to leave you with this incredible video looking at the largest typical buck ever recorded. If you are lucky enough to shoot a buck like this, you’ll want to remember these five steps to score your deer.

What do you think? Which scoring method do you use? Let me know in the comments below! All the best to you as you hunt for your next trophy buck – you now know everything there is to know about scoring it.

Where To Shoot A Turkey With A Rifle

Hunting is often a nice outdoor activity that most people today can enjoy. It is easy to find most people ready to set out on a hunting trip during the various hunting seasons. In this case, we get to look at where to shoot a turkey with a rifle. This is with an aim of making sure that you end up with a great kill on the first shot.

Where to hunt for turkeys

Before we get to the shooting part, we must be able to know where to get these turkeys. Across the country, there are a number of land managers and biologists who are paid to enhance and create a wild turkey environment so that the turkeys can breed and grow before the hunting can start.

Many people would prefer to go for public land hunting because of the number of such hunting grounds.

The public lands will often offer a lot in terms of diversity and population so that you can enjoy the hunting experience. The public lands will also have lots of free room to roam around looking for the turkeys making the experience even better.

The only disadvantage is that the public lands would often have a lot of hunting pressure. This means that within a couple of weeks of hunting by other people, it will take time to scout and find a single turkey to kill. You can always opt for the private land hunting for additional experience.

Turkey hunting season

Most of the states would have it that the hunting season begins during spring. The best way is to keep in touch with the various hunting grounds to know exactly when they are opening it up for hunting.

This should give you adequate time to prepare the gear and practice some shooting before going out to hunt. You do not want to hunt with a poor aim as taking out the turkey is often a one chance affair.

Spring is taken to be a breeding season for the turkeys. This will give you an advantage of where to search for the turkeys as they will be making the mating noise. You simply have to follow the vocals to find the turkeys.

The male turkeys will be making a noise to alert the hens where to find it. This means that you will be getting more turkeys coming to one place. The more the merrier for any hunter.

Scouting for turkeys

When it comes to scouting, you can have yourself an early tour of the hunting grounds even before the official opening. Most of the public lands allow the hunters to have a pre-scouting event before the lands are officially open for hunting.

The turkeys are often messy; thus you might always end up knowing where to find them. Start by looking for the turkey tracks in the snow, mud and sand. The turkeys will also scratch the ground as they will be looking for food.

In the places where you get a lot of scratching, then a large flock of turkeys must have been passing through recently, so you are on the right track.

Hunting setup

Whenever you have to hunt for anything in the wild, camouflage is always necessary. This should always help you to blend into the environment so that you can have an advantage of hunting the turkeys. You might need to get yourself a camouflage shirt, jacket, pants, boots and a face mask. There are still a number of things you will need such as calls, strikers, snacks, decoys, maps and your rifle. These things will always give you an edge over the other huntesrs.

Shooting the turkey

It is crucial that you get to practice your aim with your rifle for a couple of times before heading out to hunt. Most of the time, you need to aim for the head. The head shot is quite effective as you can always count on it being an instant kill. The problem with such shot is that it will always be a small moving target. You can easily do this when you are near to the turkey.

Another alternative to taking out the turkey would by shooting its vital organs. Many hunters think that that the vital organs are at its breast or wing butt. Do it wrong and the turkey will escape even when wounded. Make sure to aim above the turkey’s hip and you will get the vital organs that will keep it down.

Conclusion

You can always expect that the turkey hunting will have a lot of competition, so practice a lot on your aim to end up killing the turkey more often. Another important thing would be making sure that you have the right gear with you at all times. The first aid kit should never miss as accidents often happen while you are hunting. You should now be able to enjoy hunting turkeys with this guide.