Ep. 1023: Back 40 - Why Deer Ignore Your Food Plots (Biggest Mistakes Landowners Make)
Wired To Hunt Podcast
MeatEater
4.8 • 4.8K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Back 40, we’re tackling a frustration just about every landowner has faced at some point: you plant a beautiful food plot… and the deer barely touch it. We asked one simple question: Why aren’t deer using your food plots? To answer it, we brought in four guys who’ve spent years figuring this out the hard way—Thomas Mlsna, Jared Van Hees, Kyle Heuerman, and Terry Peer. From poor plot placement and overlooked soil issues to hunting pressure and treating food plots like a silver bullet, each guest breaks down the biggest mistakes they see—and what actually gets deer to use a plot consistently. We also get into the importance of transition vs destination, how to properly gauge utilization with cages, and why plot size and pressure are often more connected than you think. One question. Four perspectives. Endless insight.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | O'oy, turkey hunters. Turkey Week is on now at the Meat Eater Store. |
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| 0:34.6 | We've also teamed up with First Light to create the ultimate spring |
| 0:38.9 | turkey giveaway worth over $13,000. From now until Sunday, you get double entries for every |
| 0:47.2 | $25 spent. That's 20 entries for every $25 spent at the meat eater store.com. Check it out now through April 5th |
| 0:58.0 | at store.com. What is going on? I'm Jake Hofer, the host of Back 40. We're back with another |
| 1:06.7 | season. You're going to be getting an episode like this once a month here. And if you didn't |
| 1:11.4 | catch any of the Back 40 series last year, let me explain how this episode format works. It's a little |
| 1:16.8 | bit different. So each episode, we're going to be diving into one specific question, one specific |
| 1:23.1 | white-tail dilemma that we all likely face. And I bring in a panel of experts I ask them all the same |
| 1:27.9 | exact question and we get their perspective and the beauty of this is you can pick up on any |
| 1:32.6 | common themes of shortcomings that they've addressed with their own food plots or their own issues |
| 1:38.5 | or little specific pieces of advice that may be the missing link in your strategy of whatever the topic may be. So this week we have the deer just aren't using the food plots like I see on YouTube, like I see on TV. It just does not feel worth the effort. And we have Thomas Milsna with the Unteem Ambition out of Wisconsin. We have Jared Van Heese out of Michigan with the Habitat podcast. We have Kyle from Team Radical, who is fanatical about his food plots and how it incorporates into his hunting strategy. |
| 2:05.4 | And we have Terry Pier with real world wildlife products and chasing giants who's out of Kentucky and also hunts in Illinois. |
| 2:10.9 | So we have the core of the Midwest here, all different little areas, all different nuances on planting days, strategy. |
| 2:17.3 | And this episode addresses a lot of |
| 2:20.0 | different things, which was the goal from strategy on hunting, from what you plant, how you |
| 2:24.3 | plan it, all the different things. So if you're gearing up to have the best food plotting year |
| 2:28.7 | ever, what does that mean? And is it actually going to help you or hurt you? All that's addressed |
... |
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