Can food plot change bucks home range

Bloomah

Guest
I have hunted this piece of land 3 years now, only really large bucks cruise thru during the rut and late rut. This year planted a food plot and have many more pictures of very big bucks. Can a perennial food plot possibly change bucks or any deers " home" range ? I always see plenty of doe, but the bucks seem to be much more plentiful lately
 
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cmcarter

Six Pointer
Agreed with lbksmom.

I cleared and planted a food plot last year and have caught more bucks in that part of the farm than ever before. This especially holds true, if you plant something (they like) and can't always get.
This will be my second year planting radishes/turnips. Though they don't eat the bulbs yet, they enjoy the leafy part early.
 

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
I serious doubt it would change the homerange; however, I think it very well could change a bucks core area. As long as good cover, water and hunting pressure/human activities was at a minimum in that area.

I have read research on food plots to see if the deer would leave their home range to use them, the conclusion was no.
 

jug

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Foodplots can help you see more deer where you are hunting. You are not going to change their overall home range. When the farmers around here plant a lot of soybeans like they did this year. The deer have a lot of food and my 2+ acres of foodplots here in Harnett does not get too many visits. The year they planted a lot of Milo I had my best year. Seen 2 nice bucks that year and got one of them . Last year we had a lot of acorns so again the deer had a lot of food and we only saw 1 shooter buck.
"Food plots come in handy when the food supply is low in their home range".
That is it in a nutshell. This year in Rockingham county we do not have the acorns we had last year and only fescue/dutch clover hayfields. My 4 1/2 acre pasture foodplot is really producing. We have also seen more bucks and deer overall this year up there.
 
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badlandbucks

Ten Pointer
As far as changing a adult deer's overall home range just by planting food...probably not. What can & does happen is a seasonal shift in range. A large soybean field can pull a deer from his home range in summer, but he will return to his home range once the beans lose palatability. Same for late season...If cold weather & depleted food sources cause a deer to look elsewhere, a late season plot can pull deer in temporarily alter their range until the forage comes back to their original range. What can also happen though..& what I try to do...is that when deer who have a range somewhere else temporarily move in, they remember..& a lot of times young deer (especially buck fawns) that accompanied the older deer to these places will return when the mature does run them off the next spring. Those young deer will seek out a new home range, & may remember the good food he went to as a fawn a few miles away. That in my opinion is the key to growing a deer population on a property...recruitment of young deer.
 
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