Any Chestnut success?

[Mahindra3016]

I'm not asking about being successful growing trees, i'm asking about filling deer tags, does anyone have any pictures or hunting stories about hunting over chestnuts? Or daytime trail camera pictures of bucks feeding under the trees, My trees are only two years old so i have a while yet.

 

[Mahindra3016]

73 views and no hunting success stories? I am starting to worry that i may have planted the wrong trees, or maybe everybody is to busy hunting over their trees to reply. My boy has an 9:00 pee wee football game so i'm hunting on the forums.

 

[scott44]

I'm in the same boat as you, I have some that are 3yrs old but nothing to hunt over.

 

[TreeDaddy]

I am too early in my chestnut journey to comment

Perhaps some 5 year old bucks will weigh in

bill

 

[chickenlittle]

At least one has been giving hell to my tubed chestnuts and hazelnuts. Thrashing them back and forth and lifting up the tube.

 

[Native Hunter]

I have plenty of chestnuts dropping but don't have a camera on any of the trees. The deer clean up every single nut that falls except for the ones I pick up myself on the ones that drop in my mowed trail.

There is nothing magic about chestnuts. They are the same as apples, pears, acorns or any other food item that deer will eat. If you have a secluded spot where deer are not afraid to come out in daylight, they will come and feed on any of these items equally well, and you just may get the shot you want.

By the time hunting season comes, I have stopped mowing for a long time and tall weeds are around my trees. My chestnuts are mixed in with a variety of other mast bearing trees. I watch deer moving through and have places I can take a shot. But they are not there just to eat chestnuts - they are there for the buffet....

 

[Jordan Selsor]

Great insight as always Steve!

 

[Mahindra3016]

I hope someday mine are a big attraction, I am in bottom land with not a nut bearing tree in sight bedsides walnuts and those don't count, We have plenty of wild pear and apple, The pears are usually a big attraction the first two weeks of bow season, but everything was early this year, and the pears were gone by the time bow season rolled around, Acorns have been dropping in the mountain behind my house since early September, "also early" and it has to be about the best acorn year i ever remember. So as of now our bottoms are a deer ghost town besides a few coming down in the night.

 

[j-bird]

I am in a similar boat as others as I just got my first nuts this year (3rd year in the ground as a 3 gal container tree), so I have no idea how the deer will react to them. I actually stole the nuts to be replanted so my deer still have no idea what a chestnut is. I'm not going "all in" with chestnuts but I think they have just as much potential as anything else out there. I don't see them being some sort of "magnet" either, but I like the diversity and something that will provide generations of deer hunters an opportunity.

 

[H20fwler]

Mine are the same as j-birds but I wasn't quick enough to get all mine picked, about half hit the ground and were eatin by something as fast as they dropped. They are another link in the food chain, I know I'm going to keep on planting them until I run out of room.

 

[Mahindra3016]

Most of my chestnuts are out of 5 foot tubes, i notice some have dropped most of their leaves and some are still dark green, do you think that the ones that still have green leaves are more likely to be later droppers?