Introducing today’s youth to hunting is the number one challenge to keep the sport viable as the Baby Boomer generation ages. Consider the following story of Scott Chiddister, teenager Chris Hirsch and their experience with deer management.
“There is a young teenager who lives in our neighborhood – his name is Chris (Hirsch),” Chiddister said. “His grandfather bought him a bow about three years ago to teach him about bowhunting. Several weeks after buying Chris the bow, the grandfather had a heart attack while camping with the kids and passed away. So Chris thought his bowhunting days were over. Well he thought wrong! That year I took him to our local pro shop and we finished getting his bow set up correctly, and he received some lessons from the staff at the pro shop.”
Chiddister has 19 acres – surrounded by hundreds of acres of state and national forest – three hours north of his Michigan home. Chiddister took Hirsch bowhunting on his acreage and saw a few deer. The property, however, was not very attractive to deer. Chiddister and Hirsch decided to plant food plots the following spring to make the property a destination for deer rather than a place deer just passed through.
“That following spring, Chris came up to help clear pole timber and cultivate the food plots with my tractor,” Chiddister said. “This kid jumps at the chance to do anything in the outdoors. During the summer I started seeing deer grazing on the plot that had a section planted with Imperial Whitetail Extreme. The Extreme took off the best by far because of my tough soil conditions.
“This is the second year I have been bowhunting,” Hirsch said. “I went up to Cadillac last year with Scott a couple of times and was upset that I did not get a deer. Then this past summer Scott and I went up there and did lot of work on the land. We had to break up a lot of it with a tractor. We spent at least two days doing it. When I saw how it turned out, I knew it was worth all the hard work.”
Towards late summer Chiddister started to see big deer – bigger than what he had been seeing in the region. The early success of Extreme had both Chiddister and Hirsch excited to get bowhunting, so on a rainy October day they decided to brave the elements and hit the woods.
“The weather that particular weekend was what had been typical for the last several weekends – 25-35 mph winds and rain,” Chiddister said. “I felt more like a duck hunter than a deer hunter in those conditions. We left my home at 4 a.m. Saturday and got there three hours later, but we decided to wait out the weather as the forecast indicated a chance for improvement by the afternoon. We visited some friends in the area that were gracious enough to share some lunch with us. They told us how my plot of Extreme was getting munched down, and they told us of one particular big deer that they had seen browsing my plot during the weeks past.”
By early afternoon it looked like the rain was letting up so the hunting duo returned to Chiddister’s camping trailer. Hirsch decided to go out to the bow stand right as they arrived. Scott elected to wait about 30 minutes to make sure the rain was done before making the hike out to the other end of the woods.
“When we went up there on that weekend, I had a good feeling,” Hirsch said. “I climbed up in my stand at about 4 p.m. and was hoping something would come in front of my sites. Around 5:15 p.m. I started to hear things but didn’t see anything, so I turned away and looked where we planted the Extreme. Then I heard a stick crack, and there was a yearling and a doe. My heart was racing so fast that it almost jumped out of my body. I drew my bow back and shot. At first I thought I missed, but I didn’t. I had a clean shot through both lungs. After I saw that it dropped, I climbed down and ran to where Scott’s tree stand was and screamed, ‘Scott I got one!’ Then we went and got the ATV, put the deer on it and went up to the trailer to field dress the doe.”
“My hunting property in Upper Michigan is sandy and often dry in the summer,” Chiddister said. “Extreme has thrived where some of my other plantings were not successful. I tried quite a few other brands this year to experiment with what would and wouldn’t work for me. In just this first year of the food plot, the number of deer seen and the size of the deer seen have noticeably increased. We have already had a successful hunt this year (the first in nine years), and we have seen some good bucks frequenting our area. I expected to wait several years to see positive results, but this product has exceeded my expectations. It has made a believer out of me, and I will be expanding my planting areas next spring. You can bet that those expanded areas will include Extreme.”
Chiddister’s success with planting Extreme didn’t come by accident. With the toughest planting conditions in mind, the Whitetail Institute set out to develop a perennial crop that would not just survive, but thrive in poor soils and under extremely dry conditions. And they succeeded with Extreme, thanks to years of research and careful blending of seeds. Extreme can withstand a pH range of 5.4 to 7.5 and requires only a minimum of 16 inches of rainfall. It is also remarkably heat resistant and cold tolerant. In short, it’s a tough product for extreme conditions. Most importantly, Extreme provides a high-quality, protein-rich food source all year round.
“This was my first year to committing the time, effort and expense to a food plot program,” Chiddister said. “I tried many different products to determine what would grow in my tough conditions and what the deer preferred. I chose Extreme for the bulk of my food plots because of the qualities that were advertised. It delivered as promised.”
“We’ve been quietly working on this planting for a number of years,” said Ray Scott, Whitetail Institute founder and president. “And we’ve really been excited, but had to keep it under wraps until it was absolutely proven. Our policy is to release no product until it is thoroughly tested and proven on wild, free-ranging deer. It was tough not to put it on the market immediately. We knew we had a winner thanks to our field tester reports.”
Scott continues, “Since the introduction of Imperial Whitetail Clover – which is the gold standard among forage plantings ─ we’ve really prided ourselves on developing plantings for just about every possible management situation. It’s been a slow process because low pH and dry conditions are just tough problems, period. But we did it. And we’re very, very proud to add Extreme to our exclusive menu of top-quality forage plantings. Extreme is not meant to replace Imperial Clover or Alfa-Rack Plus. Instead it is to be used in situations where those products have difficulty growing. Plus, it is a great way to offer more nutrition and variety to deer.”