As alot of you know from previous posts of mine, we have alot of does, and deer in general where we hunt - too many. But in past years, this large herd has been content to live on our neighbor's picked corn fields (70 acres of picked corn) during the hunting season (not all of them of course). So the last few years, we've been attempting to plant corn - on our 200 acres. We did OK last year, but "got it right" this year, with one 6 acre plot and another 2 acre plot. Added Nitrogen was the key for us.

The ice storm just prior to opening day of gun, really knocked down alot of the corn, but most still stands 4-5 ft tall. The pic below shows part of the 6 acre plot, thae day after the ice storm:


We've had a bit more than normal snowfall so far this year (about 40" total right now for the season) - and the deer have gone nuts for the standing corn. We all made a pact not to go near the bedding areas, and to hunt the funnels to the corn, or the fields themselves - and have all seen more deer than ever. So far this year we've taken 5 mature does, and several bucks,(no giants, but a couple 2-1/2yrs).

The best part is, we really think that more of the smaller bucks will make it through the season, because now that they are on the corn, they bed closeby, and even if we do not see them, they are not elsewhere getting picked off. Personally, I've passed up quite a few 6pt and smaller this year, with one lucky spikehorn getting passed up by me 5 times, and a couple other times by others in our group.

We have really layed off hunting the last couple of weeks, gun season ends this Tuesday, and we are hoping to protect as many as we can till then, and then try to take a couple more does, and hopefully a good buck during the week long blackpowder season that follows gun.