Put corn out today.

remy3424

remy3424

Well-known member
We had a good snow and blow last week, Friday. I couldn't get close yesterday, roads drifted closed, today they were open. Broke-out a set of snowshoes I bought around 10 years ago and hiked out. We have placed a steel 55 gallon drum in a hedgerow that is full of shelled corn. I threw out close to 15 gallons. I also placed a trail camera on it. I hope it is close enough for the bird activity to trip it. I will post pics (if any) this next weekend or as soon as I change chips or retreive the camera. Not sure how large of an area experienced this storm....I am kind of where Plymouth, Woodbury and Cherokee counties meet.
 
Would love to see pics.

I’ve driven a couple of hours to a honey hole in years past with a 50lb bag of corn in a winter storm. So I can relate.
 
I think if you rolled into a local grain elevator with a tote, tell them what you want and why, I wouldn't be surprised if they gave you a couple bushels.....or at least it wouldn't be $13/50#s.....but the price is going up, farmers should be in a good mood, if they were able to hold on to some. Not sure how much corn is available in Montana, part of the state must raise some grain.

Kind of excited about seeing what shows up at the corn pile, hope the trail cam is working!
 
remy3424 said:
I think if you rolled into a local grain elevator with a tote, tell them what you want and why, I wouldn't be surprised if they gave you a couple bushels.....or at least it wouldn't be $13/50#s.....but the price is going up, farmers should be in a good mood, if they were able to hold on to some. Not sure how much corn is available in Montana, part of the state must raise some grain.

Kind of excited about seeing what shows up at the corn pile, hope the trail cam is working!
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I wonder if Turkey will show up? We don't have a lot of corn.Grain is everywhere east of butte.
 
Have seen a turkey on that farm, but it is unusal. The Cherokee Cty PF chapter had a wagon or 2 of corn for pheasant food...I think that was 2 years ago now.
 
remy3424 said:
Have seen a turkey on that farm, but it is unusal. The Cherokee Cty PF chapter had a wagon or 2 of corn for pheasant food...I think that was 2 years ago now.
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I'm all for helping the pheasant population. If I lived on a farm, I would not hunt my birds.I would feed them, and the turkeys.
 
There should be a good population of them, I had 4 guys over to hunt this farm with me late in season. We got 14 in a little over 2 hours, could have had the 15th easy enough, but we had 2 guys break-out the group, we hear 4 shots and just assumed they got the last bird...nope! Maybe 30 roosters from that parcel this season....likely none left now.
 
Just check the cam, changed the chip....must be too far away (40') for the motion of the birds...I replaced the chip and tried to aim it a little lower...I will try a different camera if no pics next time. Here is the one pic it took (dang pheasant hunter out there after season) and the pic it took when I retreived it.... remembered I hadn't set the date, it should be right next time.
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Well, I think the camera is just a little too far away, no pics again, I was big enough for it to detect me! We got about 5 more inches of snow last night, less wind, but it sure makes things harder for roosting and feeding. Scraped off the area where the corn was...was still some there and put out 2 more buckets...seems cold out there now, just trudging through snow with a shovel, mid teens I am guessing.1611703724683.png
 
remy3424 said:
I think if you rolled into a local grain elevator with a tote, tell them what you want and why, I wouldn't be surprised if they gave you a couple bushels.....or at least it wouldn't be $13/50#s.....but the price is going up, farmers should be in a good mood, if they were able to hold on to some. Not sure how much corn is available in Montana, part of the state must raise some grain.

Kind of excited about seeing what shows up at the corn pile, hope the trail cam is working!
Click to expand...
My grain elevator has an ibc tote with the top cut off and a gate on the side. They bring it out on a forklift and fill my 55 gal drum with 320ish pounds of corn. At the price right now that is $30.69 roughly. Corn was cheaper earlier so I was getting that much for 25 or 26.
 
We used to put piles of corn out for the birds, but too many deer show up, unless we spread it out enough to make it hard for the deer. The birds like it spread out, and very close to the cover......they don’t want to be seen from the air.....
 
hettmoe said:
We used to put piles of corn out for the birds, but too many deer show up, unless we spread it out enough to make it hard for the deer. The birds like it spread out, and very close to the cover......they don’t want to be seen from the air.....
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I do something similar for the quail and pheasants in Kansas. I use "Currie" feeders on the edges of plum thickets. The only holes in the drum are on the side of the feeder that is shielded by overhead plum vegetation. "Overhead" to a game bird anyway. I also use milo instead of corn. There are always birds around the feeders.

I also have a deer-style feeder on a timer that is loaded with corn. I try to put it on the edge of a thicket for the same reason. Some of the corn falls in the thicket where quail and pheasants can forage with a little more protection.
 
Dang, that camera just isn't picking-up the motion from the birds, I replaced it with a different (older) cuddy today, so not expecting much from it. I do know, next time I will cable the camera to the steel barrel that the corn is in...that will be close enough!1612116530900.png
 
Today I got 2 totes full of corn at the elevator, walked in with 3 buckets, stomped down the snow in a few spots 30 to 50 yards off the road and left piles for them. Returned the feeding area by the barrel and that was picked almost bare, so I threw-out 4 more buckets there. No luck using the different trail cam...one night pic of the same bird hunter (coyote). Put the newer Cuddy cam back out and cabled it on the barrel of corn....I will get pics now...unless these COLD temps kill my batteries first!
 
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