CRP Land

[Bear82]

Anyone ever plant CRP land? Just wondering how much it cost or does it help deer hunting? CRP signup is this month. Any negatives?

[wellingtontx]

I have hunted on CRP land - lots of times. Nergative is that you are highly restricted on what you can do with the land - which is essentially nothing.

[Cape]

CRP is great bedding areas for deer for my understanding.

also i think you can get $15 per acre for a 15 year contract.

[tbeak]

Yea but like wellington said, CRP's are very heavily restricted.

[leebtattoos]

what exactly does a CRP field consist of? i know it is a silly question, but i just never knew what CRP really means.

[BrianL]

Yes but it was 15 + years ago. Great for deer, as opposed to improved pasture or crop land. Keeping it mowed and brush free is a pain depending on where you are at and the equipment you have. It will cost you betwwen $8-10/ac to hire the shredding done. As far as planting they will tell you what mixture of native grasses to plant, and you have to use a no till drill for it. We hired the planting done, and it was so long ago prices wouldn't help you much any way.

[mikemorvan]

I believe CRP stands for Conservation Reserve Program. In a nutshell, the landowner gets paid to not grow anything. I don't think you can lagally plant CRP land with anything. I've hunted it in the past with mixed results. I can be really good. I think that's the very basics of the CRP Program. Maybe someone can confirm or clarify...

[wellingtontx]

As I understand it, you have to plant exactly what they tell you to plant, then you cannot mow it or do anything else with it unless you are instructed to do so. You cannot run cattle on CRP.

We were going to put a trailer a few yards inside the CRP boundary and the US Land Man for the district - said no, no, no - move the trailer.

I am sure that there is an explanation somewhere on the web regarding the do's and dont's on CRP.

[Shane]

My lease has a couple of CRP pastures on it. It's been in grass for several years now. A couple of years ago in the drought, they were allowed to turn cattle on it for a few months to graze. Most of the time, you can't graze it or anything. I don't know why you'd want to keep it shredded, even if they allow you to, if you're hunting deer. You CAN plant food plots for deer. We're about to do that. You can have a plot that is no more than 10% of the CRP acreage in each field. Once you plant one, you have to either keep it planted in food plot plants of some kind or plant it back to grass. You can't just let it go to weeds.

I was skeptical at first about hunting deer in the CRP, but ours is tall grass and it has a lot of brush growing up in it now too. It's excellent cover, and the deer move through there all the time. It's hard to see them in there too. It is hard to bowhunt though. No tall trees to hide a treestand or tripod. Ground blinds are about the only hope, but it's almost impossible to not get winded. With no real structure to force them to travel on a certain trail, they always just circle and come in downwind - no matter which direction downwind is.

Coyote hunting on our place is TOUGH. We are covered in coyotes, but the grass is so tall that they are really hard to see when you call them in. Even at night with spotlights it's difficult. We're not hurting the coyote population much.

[raiderelkhunter]

The family farm I have hunted for the past ~8 years is CRP surrounded by pasture and cultivated land. To sum it up, I have killed the biggest deer of my life and so has my brother and a few of my wife's kin folk. CRP is good, but you have to have the right stuff around it to make it work well and for it to be huntable.

[Bear82]

I may check further into it. I did hear though that they are going to require to keep mesquite out. The people that own the local feed store told me once there biggest deer come from CRP. I really hate that about the coyotes as I have a ton of them at my place and dont want them around more than I have to. The first year I owned the place I had the biggest deer on the trail camera and the farmer left the hay unharvested so there was cover. I wanted wheat planted and I havent seen any as big since.

[Shane]

You could trap coyotes still with no problem - well, with no bigger problem than normal. They're smart. It's just hard to see 'em and get a shot in that tall grass.

[BrianL]

I don't know why you'd want to keep it shredded, even if they allow you to, if you're hunting deer.

.

It's not a matter of want to, but a matter of have to. Ours had to be mowed an least once a year. It was not supposed to be over a certain height, and no brush was allowed in field.

[raiderelkhunter]

It's not a matter of want to, but a matter of have to. Ours had to be mowed an least once a year. It was not supposed to be over a certain height, and no brush was allowed in field.

news to me...the nrcs office we dealt with must have been a little lax, b/c I don't remember it being shredded in the last ten years....

[wellingtontx]

Ours was never shreded either. However, I do think it depends in large part on what was planted and the discretion of the government landman.