I am wanting to plant food plots for the deer on my land. I have an image from Bing below that is somewhat labeled with Microsoft Paint. First off, This is swamp land. Will anything grow here? This swamp area does get flooded every spring, but I don't think it hits our land. 2nd. I was thinking of putting a plot on the grassy island. There are a few trees, but for the most part, its all native swamp grass. Is this the best place to put a plot? How many plots should I try? Where should I put them? I also can't really bring much in terms of machinery down there. I have to get in and out by boat, so it has to be light enough to go in the boat. This also means that I can't really water it too easily, however, the ground down there has never been what I'd call dry. Does anyone have any suggestions? This area of land is 100 acres. As you can see, there are farm fields to the northwest, and the Mississippi River is to the east. I would also like to put mineral sites in there to help. Any suggestions on those, and where to put them? Sorry, the picture is quite blurry. The labels read: Grassy Island on the bottom left, Swampy/Grassy area above that, Mississippi River by the arrow pointing NE, Mostly Hardwoods with some low lying swampy areas in the middle, and Farm Fields by the arrow pointing NW
As far as not being able to get machinery to the site...Bill Winke on midwestwhitetail.com did a great video seg called "poormans food plot." That video is on their website and i bet if you youtube it...it may show up. the video does a good job of showing how to create a site that is similar to what you describe being isolated and also for people who dont have access to machinery. if you're looking for what type of seed that will drown in wetland...ive found that frigidforage.com does the best at explaining what grows best and where. your hands do seem to be tied to some point, but there is alot of seed out there that will grow in pretty harsh conditions.
A back pack sprayer and a hand bag seeder is all you will need to do a food plot there. The most important thig is access. You have to be able to get in and out with out the deer knowing you are there. If you keep bumping deer, it.won't matter what is planted there.
Rake too...but if you can walk to it I will always say you should soil test it. I've hauled in many a bag of lime and fertilizer with a little hand spreader in backpack to get the soil ready. Stuff will grow if you kill and prep the ground...but stuff will thrive if you truly get the soil where it needs to be.
Thanks for the help guys! Yeah, my hands are kinda tied, its not the best land to hunt, but its been in the family forever. I've always been able to get in and out of there without disturbing the deer, they're used to duck hunters going through all the time. This gives me a great start on building a deer haven hopefully. I will look at this some more, and post a picture of where I was thinking of putting some plots and mineral sites.
