REAL HUNTERS, REAL RESULTS!

   Anik Seguin - Ontario

My husband and I have been planting Whitetail Institute Annuals and Perennials on our properties in Eastern Ontario for over 10 years and have implemented QDMA practices along with our food plots program. We have harvested some exceptional deer over the years! We are seeing more mature bucks and holding more deer on the farms. 

I only get to hunt a few days every year having young children so I need to get it done quickly with my limited time. These food plots have made a world of difference compared to spending weeks in the field to try and harvest a mature buck. Our deer herd seems healthier and has bigger bodies then what we were seeing and harvesting when we originally bought the properties.

Thank you, Whitetail Institute, for having developed Authentic deer seed mixes which the deer love and that allow for so many more whitetail encounters for us while we are on our stands.

 

 

Andre Leonardo - Ontario

Just a quick note on my experience using White Institute Products.  I've been hunting for 20+ years for mainly Deer and Turkey.  Growing up I was always addicted to watching hunting shows, primarily hunting over food plots and the success they had with holding and growing big antlered deer.  I've always dreamt of owning my own hunting farm and one day doing my own food plots and growing and harvesting big deer.  Six years ago, my dream came true and I was able to purchase my own farm.  With Big Dreams and NO time to waste I got to work, doing trails and multiple clearings for my food plots.   I was successfully able to clear and strategically place approximately 5 acres of food plots on my 50-acre farm. After doing hours of research and watching countless YouTube content I made my choice and invested into Whitetail Institute Seeds.  I started out using Imperial Whitetail Clover, Winter Greens, Chic-Magnet in the first year and was impressed beyond belief with the attraction of Deer and Turkey to my Farm.  Being that it was the first year, I passed up several up-and-coming bucks that seemed to be living in the area, based on tones of trail camera footage in the plots.  I was now hooked on the wildlife activity level and now wanted MORE.  After several phone calls with my Whitetail Institute Distributor, we came up with a five-year game plan.  Fast forward five years and I've now tried several of there seed blends to grow not only "show quality food plots" but also "show quality Deer and Turkey".  

I've been able to successfully harvest multiple 150"-160" deer with a bow and tag out on Big Ol' Toms on my property over the last 5 years.  I couldn't have done this without hard work, planning and guidance and most of all without the help of Whitetail Institutes Products.  It's been a true magnet to the wildlife around my farm attracting, growing and holding plenty of game as they advertise.  

I look forward to new food plots every year and I'm always excited to hear about and try their new products.  They've been awesome at guiding me through the proper steps and insuring success every single time without ever rushing me off the phone.  Outstanding company with outstanding products and customer service. I highly recommend them to all my hunting buddies or to anyone that approaches me in regards to hunting.  I think it's a MUST for anyone that’s serious about hunting, cares about their heard health and wants MONSTER BUCKS and TOMS.

Thank you, Whitetail Institute of North America, and keep up the great work.

Another Very Happy and Successful Client.

 

Nathan Pickard - Ontario

The walls of our hunt camp are decorated with many small buck racks used for holding coats, towels and toilet paper. In an attempt to attract, grow and retain bigger bucks, we determined that we needed to pay more attention to the nutritional needs of our deer herd, particularly in a part of Ontario where the deer herd struggles to survive on account of harsh winters.  After a conversation with a friend who plants WINA product, our strategically placed food plots on our hunting property were planted in Imperial Clover, Fusion, Alfa-Rack, and Winter Green's over the last several years. As a result, we have been able to attract and hold mature bucks and regularly see 3 1/2-year-old deer use our food plots throughout the season.  The only downfall from using your products has been the need for a good taxidermist!  From coat racks to wall mounts!

 

 

  

Guillaume Paquette - Quebec

As a habitat manager and consultant, I have used WINA products and many others in the last decade. They’re is definitely a great advantage in using some of the WINA products. My customers and I had greater results planting smaller plots with better seed selections at the right place and at the right time. When I open a bag of WINA products, I am 100% confident that I will have the best results. We can get with the conditions available that year! And that’s what I am looking for in any product. There is so much that can go wrong when depending on Mother Nature, so why use a product that is not 100% reliable? 

 

 

Joe Tamborra- Quebec

I harvested this great buck late in December over a Whitetail Institute Clover food plot in Eastern Ontario. After a good snow fall, food is scarce for the deer and the Imperial clover plot was an easy food source for this buck. Still green late in the season despite the snow.

Thank you, Whitetail Institute, for your awesome products!

 

 

Michael Cortellucci - Ontario

My Hunting group and I have been planting Whitetail Institute products on properties in Central and Southern Ontario for over 10 years. We have noticed an increase in the amount of Wildlife holding on our properties. We initially started planting Whitetail food plots to improve our deer herd but to our surprise on our Central Ontario property, Moose are feeding on the plots just as much as Deer, which has led to increased success on our Moose harvest.

The food plots on our southern Ontario property have created increased opportunities for Deer and Turkey, and helped provide a quality food source well into January.

The Product performance and Product support you receive from Whitetail Institute and their team I Canada is why it is my seed of choice for our properties, 

Thanks Whitetail Institute keep up the good work!

 

 

Thomas Horne – Ontario 

I have been food plotting for deer in the Sudbury, Ontario region for 14 years now, and have tried 4 different food plot seed companies. All failed except the WINA seed to attract and hold deer on my property. I now exclusively use Whitetail Institute products in all of my 11 plots after witnessing the deer bypass the competitors to hit my Imperial Clover, and Winter Green's food plots.

The quality of the seed is always perfect and in the 2019 bow season my son and I arrowed these two bucks a week apart as they were digging through the snow to devour the last of the Winter Green's plants and the still green clover in an adjoining plot. I will be a WINA customer for life.

 

 

 

Bernard Fiset – Quebec

This story has been a long time in the making for me. My name is Bernard Fiset and I have been hunting whitetails for over 30 years. I have always marveled at how certain hunters could consistently harvest mature deer on a yearly basis. Magazine photos of giant whitetails were becoming what seemed like an impossible dream from me. After all, what hunter doesn’t have visions of putting the crosshairs on a big racked buck? 

I was always fascinated by all the big buck shows on television and in the industry videos. Those guys always seemed to hunt in big buck country.  

It’s no secret that many of those magazine covers come from ranches or fenced in deer farms, something that has never appealed to me. But some of those bruisers are truly wild and fair chase animals and that has become my obsession. 

I live in Quebec, Canada and have hunted here most of my life. I have chased whitetails east, west, north and south across my resident province without any significant sightings of big deer in all of the areas that I attempted to hunt. I tried reputable outfitters, the famous Anticosti Island and leasing property to try and kill a big deer. But nothing proved to be effective at my attempt to harvest a true mature buck. I then turned to hunting the infamous big buck provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba and made the trip there for 6 yrs. Only on the rare occasion did I get a glimpse of what a mature whitetail even looked like. Still no wall-hanger to put my sights on. The trips out west were beginning to take their toll on me. I was away for weeks at the time for every trip either making the painstaking 30 hr. drive in sometimes crazy winter driving conditions or going through the hassles of hopping on a plane, leasing a rental vehicle upon arrival, motels and restaurant food which are always a treat the first 3 days of a hunting trip but which catch up to your insides rather quickly after that. Still no luck on a good-sized whitetail. I quickly came to understand that expensive outfitters/guides and courteous landowners made countless unrealistic promises about producing a 150-class deer. 

I decided that a changeup in strategy was necessary and concentrate my efforts on somewhat of a different game plan. After all, I wasn’t getting anywhere with the way I was doing things. A long-time friend of mine John Cristinziani, who was not much of a big game hunter at the time, ran a reputable Canada goose hunting operation in southeastern Ontario. Goose hunting is still one of my all-time favorites amongst the hunting sports. Almost every time we got out to waterfowl hunt, we’d come across some large deer tracks and rubs in and around the many properties that we were setting up on and that John was already leasing for waterfowl. We often heard about big bucks being taken in the vicinity and John and I had talked about exploring the deer hunting opportunities but we didn’t get to it for many years due to both of us being tied up in business commitments. John certainly had all the contacts with his outfitter business so why not take advantage of this and give the deer hunting in the area a try.

So, we leased a parcel of land of about 900 acres in total and put our strategy in place. I eventually bought the land when I discovered it’s potential. I felt that everything I had read on QDMA could be put into practice here. This track of land had previously been hunted by several parties of local hunters. Being a local in those days meant that as a deer hunter, you had the possibility of harvesting several deer annually with the purchase of additional deer tags that were being issued by the MNR to help control the growing whitetail population. Rumors were that several deer were being harvested off of this property every hunting season and that was very believable indeed with the quantity of tree and ladder stands that were found there. The pressure and over harvest that this property endured over time was quickly evident. The very first hunting season, very few bucks were seen and the ones that were sighted were all under 2.5 yrs old. The good news was that numerous does and fawns were sighted which confirmed the potential for the future. It was quickly validated that by managing the hunting pressure and with selective harvest, the opportunities at some large deer may indeed be possible. 2 important elements would be solved.  

The next challenge was nutrition! For at least 1 square mile on either of the property line, agriculture was nowhere to be found. There was excellent cover habitat for the deer since there was lots of forest and marshland but no quality food. 

Hence began the research of options to seed some of the old fallow fields that were on the property and that had not been planted for many years. Most were ½ - 2-acre fields that were not drained and that had been abandoned. It would not be a big deal to hire a contractor/farmer with some tillage equipment, throw some seed to the soil which could be purchased at the local co-op and let Mother Nature handle the rest.  I was seeing deer regularly in neighboring green fields so why not do the same. Not only would this allow for better nutrition for the deer herd but I was hoping to hold them on the property and not lose any deer to the neighboring properties. 

Through trial and error, I slowly learned with my very own research that not only did the "usual farming" practices differ when providing nutrition for wildlife but so did the type of seed required for good results. I quickly discovered that many of the so called “deer nutritional” companies were simply buying seeds like clovers, chicory and alfalfa from the Co-op and filling bags with pretty marketing-oriented whitetail deer themes and falsely calling them deer nutritional products. The supplemental minerals and vitamin program that I wanted in place also had to be created for whitetail deer and not for livestock.  

I had heard about a company in the US specializing in “deer nutrition’’. Being an entrepreneur myself and more importantly a manufacturer in my own industry, I know what it means to specialize and be the best in your field based on research and development, credibility and longevity.  

The Whitetail Institute of North America (WINA) products were introduced to me by the same local deer biologist who had tested and researched the products for himself. He raved about how the deer preferred the plants to any other ‘’seed’’ product on the market. He compared the high protein levels and palatability found in all WINA seeds to the levels found in Co-op or Agri seeds which are produced and specialized for cattle and horses and Not for Whitetails. Both have very different needs; both are very different animals with very different challenges they face on a daily basis. He explained how high levels of protein and minerals were vital not only in producing trophy racks but also for building strong immune systems in deer which in turn will produce superior off spring resistant to the harsh Canadian elements. These are seeds that are Canadian proven and not only for the southern US climate. Plus, Whitetail Institute is the only company who specializes in deer nutrition and deer nutrition alone and all of their seeds are Proprietary. 

In the last 10 years, I have become fanatical about deer nutrition. I feel I have found the strategy that works best for me in harvesting a mature trophy buck every year. My property now has over 50 acres of food plots on it ranging from small ½ acre hunting plots to larger 6 acre feeding plots. I have several Mineral lick stations where I regularly disperse 30-06 Mineral/Vitamins directly onto the soil from spring to early fall. The rain helps integrate the powdered product into the soil providing a natural licking station for the deer. Some of the holes they paw the ground into are as much as 2 feet deep. I also place trail cameras on these lick stations which helps give me an inventory of the deer on the property. I have gone to the extent of buying some of my own equipment so I can work my soil, plant my seeds and mow my food plots when they are ready to be dealt with. Relying on hired contractors was always complicated as my timing was never right with theirs. Plus in the long term, I feel it will save me money to have my own equipment. The tractor is especially practical. Once you own property, the things you can use a tractor for around the property are endless.  

The story of this buck begins here: Undertaking a regular pre-rut scouting trip on the property in September of 2009, I began noticing several large rubs and scrapes in a remote area of the property. The deer that was making those rubs was definitely of great interest to me and I would do just about anything to get a sneak peak of what he carried on his head.  

I was never a real believer in trail cameras as I had always felt from my past experiences that they eventually spooked mature bucks. In the last couple of years, every time that I would finally get a photo or video of a decent buck, I would never see him again. Even if I did capture him again on camera, it was either before or after legal shooting time. That led me to believe that the flash on the cameras was not a welcomed encounter for a big buck. But those were old cameras and with the quickly evolving technology, I turned to some of the newer Covert cellular units.  

So, I set up 2 cameras on the heavily rubbed trail that led to the food plot. I immediately began getting nice trail pictures of a particular tall tined deer with good mass during the fall of 2009. I estimated him to be a 150 class 5.5yr old deer. The area he was using was in a very secluded section of the property to the far west side. I decided to step out of the area and let the buck be for the entire ’09 hunting season. I was a little concerned that some of the neighboring hunters might get a chance at him during the rut but at the time it wasn’t a deer I wanted to shoot as I was after another buck so I decided to take my chances. When I saw how thick what I thought was his bedding area, I figured he had a good chance to survive. 

Luck would have it that our 2009-2010 winter was very mild with little snow. We also had an early ‘10 spring.  

I am not much of a shed hunter but I couldn’t help myself from searching for his sheds on several occasions during the spring of 2010. No luck! No sheds to be found. You can imagine my concern for the possibility of him having been shot by other hunters in the area. But he was a big boy and if he lived to be that old, he knew how to survive. At least that’s how I convinced myself throughout the spring and summer months.   

Mid-October came along and I set up the same 2 cameras in a small patch of hardwood trees which was the area where I found the rubs the previous year. It took 2 weeks before my smart cards revealed my first photos of him. I was so ecstatic to see that he had made it through another season. I was even more excited when I saw what he had on his head! What a whopper he turned out to be. Just 1 year later and he put on so much mass and tine length. More importantly his body mass was huge! This was truly the sort of buck I had dreamed off. I knew that I needed that right wind before even thinking about going in there not only to set up a stand but also to hunt him. I waited for a day of strong winds and off I went to set up the portable tree stand. I decided to set up in a cedar grove where the tress would give me a good background to break up my silhouette. The cedars would also serve well to help conceal my scent. It was going to be a tight quarter shot but I felt good about the set-up and the large deer tracks in the well-used trail.  

I had hunted a couple of other sections of the property during the shotgun season in hopes of seeing the buck there because we went through an entire 2-week shotgun season with an untypical East and North East winds which never allowed me to hunt the new set. But I was patient knowing that there was still the 1-week December Muzzleloader season ahead of me and then 3 more weeks of bow hunting before the season came to a close. Finally, on the 3^rd day of the muzzleloader week, they called for a West wind. It was a sleepless night to say the least. I knew that my best chance of harvesting that deer would be my first time on stand. I knew that once I walked in and out of there, despite all the scent control that I spend a small fortune on every year, that my scent would surely alert such an old deer. The pressure was on. 

I walked the 500 or so yards from my truck to the set as quietly as possible in the early hours of the AM. I wanted to get there making the least noise possible and used an access trail far enough away enough from the food plot so as not to disturb any of the deer that might be feeding there. The plan was to try and harvest the buck going from the feeding area back to his bedding. At 9:15AM I had still not seen a deer. I had not lost hope and I knew this was an un-pressured deer and he had no reason to be going back to bed for the day in the wee hours of the early morning during the rut. I was watching hard on that well used trail when out of nowhere there he was making his way towards me. Like he was on a string, he slowly walked towards me stopping every so often to nibble on some green forage on the ground. He stopped at just 15yrds. When I released the arrow from my crossbow, my heart was pounding so hard I thought he could hear it. The arrow founds its mark.  

I heard him go down and gave him about 10 minutes before I got down. I couldn’t wait much longer than that as that 10 minutes seemed like forever. I got down from the stand and recovered my arrow and quickly found a good blood trail. I was pretty confident about the shot after inspecting the blood color on the arrow. Then, there he was, about 60 yrs from where I shot him and piled up on a small ridge. When I put my hands on his rack, I could not help the emotions that I felt. I had waited so long and worked so hard for this moment. His body was huge! The area around us was so swampy that we could not get him out with the ATV so were forced to drag him out by hand. I took us the better part of 4 hours to do so. We were exhausted by the time we got him to the truck that it took us 2 days to recover from it. Despite this deer being taken during the gun season, I opted for my cross bow as my weapon of choice for the simplistic reason that I didn’t want to alert any of my neighboring hunters about my harvest. I knew that if I was to get a shot that it was going to be very close because of the cedar bush I was set-up in.  

The deer’s Net scored is 175 B&C and he field dressed at an even 301lbs. 

My quest is to do everything possible to help sustain a healthy deer herd and to be very selective about the animals that I harvest. I no longer have a problem burning a tag at the end of the season.  

I have set my bar high for myself but I promise you that once you have lived the exhilarating experience of pulling the trigger on a giant deer and proudly holding him up in your hands, all of your efforts and hard work, the countless hours spent on stand, your land management and investment will all be worth it. But like anything else, perseverance and dedication have its rewards. I have been fortunate to harvest 2 giant deer in the past 2 years, I can only hope that my streak continues. 

Not everyone has the means to own a 900-acre tract of land but there are many other possibilities out there to help put that buck of a lifetime on your wall. It’s becoming more and more difficult to hunt for free these days. Everything around our parts is being bought or leased as people are flocking back to the land and to their roots. There is no greater feeling of accomplishment than farming for wildlife. You get better at it as you go along. You make lots of mistakes and try and often take short-cuts to save time and money but in the end, you learn to listen to the advice from those who have done it for a long time and who are experts at it. You don’t need a large tract of land of tens of acres of food plots to help with your deer’s overall health. A little goes a long way when you are using the right recipe for success. 

I want to thank the folks at WINA both in the US and Canada who are always prepared and take the time to answer any of my questions. They want all of their loyal customers to be successful and to enjoy the fruits of their efforts.  

On my properties, after extensive testing of other ‘’so-called’’  deer nutritional companies, all you will find is no-nonsense 100% Authentic deer nutritional plants and minerals from WINA. They are proven products that have set the bar for all the other so called “deer nutritional” companies in the industry and are pioneers in the food plot realm; they have certainly made a believer out of me!

 

Julia DiMarco – Ontario

I am not a hunter but we provide food plots and use only Whitetail Institute products on our property. We don’t allow hunting so the deer get to roam about freely with the only predators to worry about being coyotes. We were finding several dead deer that had been killed by the coyotes and wanted to do something to help them to get through the harsh winter months. My family and I truly enjoy seeing the deer all the time on the property and since we have been planting WINA plots, we are seeing more and more deer over the years. We have tried other seed mixes sold at our local COOP and they grew well but the deer barely touched them. The deer spend hours in our plots now in the mornings and evenings. Great products WINA!

 

 

Kurt S. - Saskatchewan

I have been planting annuals and perennials for the last 4 years with amazing success.   But first I must back up.   I am had zero experience with "farming" if you will so I am as green as it gets.    My first phone call to John had me sold on the entire program!!   I greatly appreciate him taking the time to answer all my questions as I needed help.

The decision to use WINA products was easy as they have many years of experience and that counts big for a rookie like me.    I can't tell you my deer are bigger because of their products but I can tell you they won't stop eating them!   It feels good to sit in the blind and watch the deer eating and going about their day.   I know in my area the deer are now associating my property with food and the deer numbers are unreal.

The decision to start food plotting and using WINA products has completely changed my life.  Sounds cheesy but its true.   I can’t wait for planting season and knowing my deer are better off than when I got there.   Thank you for such great service and products.

 

 

Jimmy Bertoldi - Ontario

It’s all about food plots! 

Using WINA products for all most 18 years has changed my ways of hunting. Most of my success in my fields has been using Imperial Clover, Winter Peas Plus and Winter Greens. For big or small plots, it works! Easy to use and easy to grow. 

These products are being used on our properties in Quebec and Ontario and they successfully hold deer for us year-round. 

If there is a shooter buck in the area … guess where he’s at?...In my food plots!! 

I strongly recommend the use of these products for every deer hunter!

 

Zachary McIlmoyle - Ontario

 

I’ve used whitetail institute products for many of years and year after year my plots produces great yields and help us hold deer on our property all year round.

Giving them the best nutrition in the area helping those fawns in the summer and the whole herd through the winter.

 

 

 

 

Yves & Carl Vincent - Ontario

Since we have been using Whitetail Institute food plot seed blends, we’ve seen a dramatic change and increase with the deer population on our properties. We’re located in an area where snow accumulation has a huge effect on deer movement and in the past we had issues trying to keep deer on our properties particularly in the late season.

By planting Imperial Whitetail Winter-Greens, Beets & Greens and Winter Peas Plus on several plots, the combination is perfect to extend our hunting all the way to the end of the season in late December and to hold more deer during the late season. Here are 3 recent mature bucks that we’ve harvest during the late season using these amazing products.

Big thanks to Whitetail Institute for their awesome products and to the staff at Canadian Whitetail Food Plots for their excellent service and knowledge. These folks know food plots and have been a great help in our success!

 

Ian Sutton - Ontario

I have been using Whitetail Institute Imperial Clover products for over 10 years and have seen my deer population increase so much. Not only in numbers but also in quality!

  

Adam Hughes – Ontario

When I showed this picture to my neighbor of the deer that my friends and I harvested on our 200-acre property in Central Ontario from last season, his mouth fell to the ground. Said he didn’t have a single picture of any of these bucks on his 6 trail cameras. He planted a small ½ acre plot on his 140 acres and bought his seed mix from the local Agri store which told him the deer would smash the plants as soon as it turned cold. That didn’t really happen for him.

We have been planting Whitetail Institute seed blends for years. We have 5X 1/2-acre plots on the property which we often hunt and call our ‘’Kill’’ plots. Then we have another larger 5-acre plot planted with Imperial Fusion in the middle of our property which we rarely hunt unless we have trail camera info that a target buck is using the 5-acre plot during daylight hours. We have been fortunate to kill most of our deer over the smaller ‘’Kill’’ plots and we leave the bigger ‘’feeder’’ plot undisturbed as much as possible as this is where the deer congregate the most. 

Our consultant John at Canadian Whitetail Food Plots has helped us with the food plot designs and with the strategic areas where to create our plots. We looked at bedding areas together and how the deer were using the property before we created any of the plots. John told us that the travel routes would change dramatically once we started providing quality nutrition for our deer herd and oh boy…was he right. Not only have we been seeing more deer than ever before but we are finally seeing mature bucks during daylight hours where we could get a chance at harvesting them.

We have been using Imperial Whitetail Institute seed blends for 7 years now and things are starting to pay off for us big time. We harvest one or two females every year to try and keep the Buck to Doe ratio as even as possible and we only harvest 3.5 old deer and older. 

Prior to discovering Whitetail Institute seeds, we used so called ‘’deer seed mixes’’ which were actually seed mixes put together by the local Coop in my area. We had no idea what the germination rates were, the protein levels, how old the seeds were or what types of seed varieties were actually in the mix? We later discovered that the seed mixes were simply the same agricultural seeds designed for cattle and horses and had nothing proprietary about them. We then tried food plots seeds from a local provider from Ontario only to realize that they too were buying their seeds from the Coop and putting them in pretty designed deer food plot bags. But there was nothing authentic about them either. They were just your average commercial seeds which either did not grow well or, the plants that did grow, the deer did not touch. Kind of what my neighbor has been experiencing. 

We were well consulted from the very beginning. John took the time to explain all the do’s and don’ts to help with our food plot preparation and success. He saved us years of trial and error with the tips and suggestions that he provided for us. Its great to have some of those tips on their new website to refer to for those beginners starting with food plots! 

This has been our best seasons ever and we look forward to much continued success using Whitetail Institute products on our properties. 

A special thanks to John and his team for all the knowledge and information that he has offered us and thanks to Whitetail Institute for all the research they do in developing and providing what we feel are the best products in the industry. 

Its such a great feeling that we are helping to provide some much-needed nutrition for our deer herd!

 

 

 

Rob Seifried   - Ontario

Just send a couple pics of how happy I am with my Whitetail Institute products and with the results! I’ve been using the products for several years now and this one of my 3 shooters that we had on our cameras.