Food Plot Management: Sharp Shooting Groundhogs (Episode 186 Transcript)
This is the video transcript. To watch the video for this episode click here.
GRANT: June 10th, we had about 50 deer managers come and tour The Proving Grounds this week while Heath and Lindsey Martin were removing groundhogs.
LINDSEY: That’s a huge groundhog. Look, he’s got a soybean. We caught him in the act.
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GRANT: If you’re in that Boom North Field, which we haven’t been I mean…
HEATH: Right.
GRANT: No one’s even been there in awhile, so groundhogs ought to be…
HEATH: If the winds right there this morning…
GRANT: It’s a, here’s your ladder, it should be across…
HEATH: Right, right.
GRANT: And groundhogs are curious. So, if you shoot one, you’re paying attention. Lot of times, they’ll peak out there – now, they’re not gonna run out in the middle of the field; they’ll be peaking out in the edges, look, and that’s my brother, he shot one and there’s another head coming up looking around.
GRANT: Heath and Lindsey Martin have been part of the GrowingDeer Team for about a year; they’re an amazing couple that really enjoy hunting together. We’re currently experiencing a significant problem with groundhogs killing a lot of our test soybean plots.
GRANT: It wasn’t long ‘til Heath and Lindsey saw some action.
HEATH: Did you get him?
LINDSEY: I don’t know, I think I did.
GRANT: It’s important when groundhog hunting to be patient. You may take a shot at a groundhog – within a few minutes another soybean muncher will probably pop out of the ground.
LINDSEY: Oh my gosh.
HEATH: You got him.
HEATH: (Inaudible) they’re dead. Very impressed.
LINDSEY: I have not made a shot on an animal that far and especially that small, so I’m pumped. I’m excited about that, I hit a groundhog at 165 yards, so I’m impressed with that. There he is. Boom.
HEATH: Holy cow look at that.
LINDSEY: That’s a huge groundhog. Look, he’s got a soybean, we caught him in the act. We caught him in the act. That right there is why we’re getting rid of him.
LINDSEY: I didn’t notice.
HEATH: Soybean clenched right in his teeth.
LINDSEY: Yep. He’s a, he’s a really small compared to the other one. Boom.
GRANT: Removing two groundhogs from North Boom certainly helps the soybeans in that area, but just as importantly, Heath and Lindsey got to enjoy a great hunt during the summer months and spend some more time together in Creation.
GRANT: While Heath and Lindsey were hunting, we were privileged to host a Quality Deer Management Association Stewardship II course.
GRANT: …here out of my mouth, it, it, it’ll light you up. Your toenails will know about it.
GRANT: Don’t just think, just ‘cause you make something and call it a bedding area deer have the same opinion you have. You gotta work with the land, you gotta read it.
GRANT: One of my favorite techniques to create a Hidey Hole food plot, is not necessarily getting in the hinder lands but taking the corner of a larger food plot where I know deer like to forage and excluding deer from that area through the growing season and preserving that forage until the hunting season.
GRANT: We’re at Little Cave food plot and we planted it about three weeks ago. About a week later, we installed this Non-Typical Hot Zone Fence just as the soybeans were starting to germinate.
GRANT: One drawback to that strategy is, of course, there’ll be soybeans growing up through the fence and that can tend to short out or ground out the fence and reduce the voltage going through.
GRANT: We simply weed eat those beans off at ground level once or twice a summer underneath the fence, keep that area clean; keeps the fence from being shorted out and allows the deer to easily see the fence as they approach that area.
GRANT: It’s a real testimony to the growing power of an Eagle Seed forage soybean versus a conventional soybean. If you took a weed whacker and mowed off conventional beans at ground level, they’d be dead and done for but we have to continually mow those Eagle Seed beans a couple times a summer so they won’t re-grow and short out the fence.
GRANT: You can see all the duff or mulch on the ground and that’s serving to protect soil moisture as these days get warmer, predicting to be in the 90’s this week, the sun wants to evaporate that moisture out of the ground, but this mulch is keeping it in, just like in your wife’s flower bed.
GRANT: In addition, the bacteria in the soil, or we’ve added through Antler Dirt, eats this mulch up and it turns those nutrients fairly rapidly into the plant. The exact nutrients that the plants want to grow that’s been extracted by past plants puttin’ it right back into the soil so these plants can have the benefit.
GRANT: The QDMA is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and I’m honored to say I’m a charter life member and I really hope you’ll consider being a member of the Quality Deer Management Association. And in two weeks, it’s incredible the difference in deer behavior. I mean incredible. These courses are designed to bring like-minded hunters and wildlife managers together. They have hands on portions of the class, where we’re out in food plots or trapping set ups or even hunting location set ups so all of us can be better rounded and more knowledgeable as deer hunters and deer managers. I hope you have time this week to go out and work on the Hidey Hole food plot where you hunt and just as importantly, take time to enjoy creation and listen to what the Creator saying to you. Thanks for watching GrowingDeer.tv.
GRANT: Don’t walk on the soybeans!
UNKNOWN: What’s the yellow flower growing up…
GRANT: That’s some brassica’s last fall that just haven’t died yet.
UNKOWN: So that is brassica…
GRANT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’ll make seed.
UNKOWN: Okay, cause I’ve got some guys that were telling me…