Deer avoiding foot plots-what are they feeding on?

[bornagain62511]

Any of you in southern Wisconsin, do you know what is going on with the deer herd? Seems like in the past 2-3 weeks they have disappeared. In August we were seeing more deer than normal around here, and they were feeding heavily in the alfalfa and even starting to hit the rye/radish and rape/turnip plots pretty hard. Now we hardly see any deer in the plots during daylight. There are absolutely no acorns anywhere, we have not seen a single acorn and others we've talked to say the same. Not sure if they are hitting the corn and soybeans hard, or native vegetation and browse? anyone have answers? thanks

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Corn and Brassicas, for some reason up until now. But tonight I saw quite a few deer in the beans. So maybe they will switch feeding spots now?

 

[yoderjac]

I'm not in WI, but in our area, there is a distinct seasonal change at this time of year when deer move off fields on to acorns when they are available.

 

[Tap]

Deer love to eat freshly fallen leaves. I've watched them gorge themselves on maple leaves (seems like they have a preference for the red ones) and they also love poplar leaves.
I've been watching them in my yard eating hickory and walnut leaves in the last week or so.
Lots of food near the bedding areas at this time of the year.

 

[alldaysit]

Deer love to eat freshly fallen leaves. I've watched them gorge themselves on maple leaves (seems like they have a preference for the red ones) and they also love poplar leaves.
I've been watching them in my yard eating hickory and walnut leaves in the last week or so.
Lots of food near the bedding areas at this time of the year.

That is an EXTREMELY interesting observation regarding the "October Lull"


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[gunther89]

We have noticed the same thing on our farm in Wisconsin too. We were picking up tons of daylight on alfalfa, clover and brassicas. Then this past week the cameras just dropped off with pictures. Our area doesn't have any acorns this year and so far no farmers have started combining corn or beans.

 

[bornagain62511]

Deer love to eat freshly fallen leaves. I've watched them gorge themselves on maple leaves (seems like they have a preference for the red ones) and they also love poplar leaves.
I've been watching them in my yard eating hickory and walnut leaves in the last week or so.
Lots of food near the bedding areas at this time of the year.

that was one of my leading thoughts too, which is why I mentioned native vegetation/browse in my original post. I think that might be the main thing going on, so thanks for sharing your thoughts. I raise some dairy goats and their habits are so much similar to deer. sometimes I see them doing things and I think, they are acting/reacting just like deer! And yes, the goats absolutely love freshly fallen leaves!! They will ignore most other vegetation when they have fallen leaves to eat. they gorge themselves on them.

it's been a very rainy summer/fall and very warm too, probably the rainiest summer/fall and the warmest september/october weather I can ever remember. We just had our first night below freezing on the morning of the Oct. 8, and some years we have freezing temps in mid September, so the amount of native green vegetation is very hi for this time of the year as compared to most years. so I think that our thoughts about the deer must be really feeding heavily on the native stuff make more sense too since there is so much more available to them as compared to years with less rain and colder weather with an earlier freeze.

any other thoughts? thanks for all the replies so far

 

[bornagain62511]

Have you been hunting the plots?

Good question, but no not hunting the plots at all. I can watch our whole valley from my house and I'm home almost everyday all day working from home. We have food plots down the middle of our main valley which I can watch as I type this, and good cover all around them. hardly been any hunting at all on the whole 190 acres yet, just 2 of my brothers been out a couple times but not on the plots. we are very careful about our approach to bowhunting too, keeping it real low key. the deer don't know they've been hunted at all, much less on the plots.

 

[Phil]

I am noticing the same thing here in Vermont. My plots were getting pounded abnormally hard in September, now zero usage. We have absolutely no beech nuts or acorns, the apples are also thin this year. Interesting about the maple leaves, I never knew they eat them.

 

[TMIL]

So you are in bowhunting season now, I assume? You aren't hunting, but are your neighbors? Are they out there lumbering around putting up treestands for rifle season maybe? Human activity in the woods increases as the temperature decreases around me, and that, I think, puts them on higher alert. Today was the end of the 3-day youth shotgun season here and I'm sure the deer are quite aware.

 

[bornagain62511]

So you are in bowhunting season now, I assume? You aren't hunting, but are your neighbors? Are they out there lumbering around putting up treestands for rifle season maybe? Human activity in the woods increases as the temperature decreases around me, and that, I think, puts them on higher alert. Today was the end of the 3-day youth shotgun season here and I'm sure the deer are quite aware.

our farm is like a sanctuary to the deer, and they know it. even in the midst of the 9 day gun deer season, and towards the end of the gun deer season when the impacts of hunting pressure are the greatest out of the whole year, we still have lots of DAYTIME deer activity on our property and every evening throughout the gun deer season I could sit here in my home and watch during daylight hours as many deer as ever filter into the food plots in the evening and wander back and forth through our main valley with most of our food plots and great cover all around that I can oversee from here.

 

[Phil]

So you are in bowhunting season now, I assume? You aren't hunting, but are your neighbors? Are they out there lumbering around putting up treestands for rifle season maybe? Human activity in the woods increases as the temperature decreases around me, and that, I think, puts them on higher alert. Today was the end of the 3-day youth shotgun season here and I'm sure the deer are quite aware.

Yes, I agree the fall weather around here has been amazing allot of activity in the woods. However by my property it has been pretty quiet. My food plot is very secluded and no pictures of deer for weeks. My friends are reporting the same thing no pictures. My buddy has sat 13 times and hasn't seen a deer, he typically shoots one right off.

 

[PassThrew]

Deer love to eat freshly fallen leaves. I've watched them gorge themselves on maple leaves (seems like they have a preference for the red ones) and they also love poplar leaves.
I've been watching them in my yard eating hickory and walnut leaves in the last week or so.
Lots of food near the bedding areas at this time of the year.

Still plenty of native food out there becoming preferred, also transitioning out of groups and dispersing to larger ranges. All contributing factors.

 

[H20fwler]

I know that here they switch over to acorns big time.

 

[Gilly]

My guess is acorns. The deer know where those trees are and headed that way.

 

[bornagain62511]

I know if acorns are available, that is a deer's favorite food this time of year and they will ignore everything in favor of acorns. but as I said in the first post, there are absolutely no acorns this year, ZERO. I've never seen such a complete acorn crop failure. Some years are bad, but there are usually at least a few acorns hear and there even in some of the worst acorn crop years. but this year, not a single one. you could walk over thousands of acres of oak forest around here in southern Wisconsin this year and not see a single acorn. so that's not a factor in what I and many others are observing around this area of southern WI. Actually, the thing that is even more confusing is that with ZERO acorns this year, the lack of use of the food plots is the most drastic I've ever witnessed after 20+ years of closely observing the deer movements on our farm. Even in years with good acorn crops, there has never been such a drastic drop off in daytime food plot usage as what I've witnessed happening the last few weeks around here. which makes me think it must be leaves and native browse, which probably has a lot more nutrients this year due to the high rainfall and warm temperatures with very late first frost.

 

[Tap]

That is an EXTREMELY interesting observation regarding the "October Lull"


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This is gonna be a long post but it illustrates when I started really paying attention to how much deer eat leaves. It was also a very memorable hunt so I'll include extra details just for the sake of the story.
I was hunting a fantastic spot in Ohio, 1st week of November. This was a great stand. Easy to access and absolutely loaded with buck sign. I'd seen a 200" class buck on this farm in the past.

It was an ideal morning. Cool, perfect wind, and the beginning of the seeking phase of the rut. It's what bowhunters live for.
My access was through a pasture to the woods and the stand was 25 yards inside. It was still dark when I reached the wood line, and all I could hear is grunting, running and crashing. There was some hard chasing going on and I had to wait until things quieted down to continue any farther. It was well after daybreak when I thought it was safe to proceed. I did not want to blow deer out of this hot spot.
I got 15 yards from the base of the tree and I heard a deer coming. It turned out to be a shooter 10 point that passed within 15 yards but I couldn't get my bow drawn for a shot. But man, what an exciting morning so far, and it had just begun.

After the buck was gone, I finished my approach to the tree.
I hooked my bow to the haul line, re-installed the bottom 3 steps, and started my climb.
I was 6 feet off the ground and stepped onto a perfectly horizontal, 7" limb for my 4th step when I heard more deer approaching I froze in place with my back against the 20" tree trunk as 2 button bucks came less than 20 yards away and started to eat freshly fallen poplar leaves. I thought they would just feed on through but they didn't leave. And there wasn't much I could do but balance myself on that limb. Then the little buggers bedded down to chew their cud. I didn't even have my bow in my hand as it was still hanging from the haul line and I had 2 sets of eyes 15 yards away staring my way. I felt helpless with the thought of a shooter possibly coming past the tree and I was unarmed.
After an hour of watching them eat more leaves and lay right back down, I knew I needed to try to reach around the backside of the large tree trunk and feel for the haul line and attempt to retrieve my bow... all that with deer in my lap. I inched my arm around the tree and located the line and began the ultra slow-motion act of getting my bow. After what seemed like an eternity, I had my bow in my hands and the button bucks never saw me do it. It was an amazing effort if I do say so myself. These deer were still right in front of me while I nocked the arrow. I was still stuck on that limb, but at least I was now armed and hunting.
I still expected them to soon leave, but they spent the next 5 hours eating poplar leaves and chewing cud.
I was getting exhausted standing on that limb with hardly a chance to even blink but I was determined to not be busted.

Finally, after a total of 6 hours of standing on that limb and watching them dine on nothing but poplar leaves, they got up and walked out.
I could finally finish my climb and sit down and rest. I felt like I won an amazing victory as I reached the platform but I was also spent. It was an exhausting and nerve wracking morning to say the least.
Then it started to thunder and within 20 minutes there was a violent thunder/lightning storm so I had to abort the hunt!! After all that effort...I couldn't believe I was climbing back down already!

From that day on the stand's name became "Out On A Limb" because of the 6 hours I spent perched 6 feet off the ground.

That was the day when it dawned on me just how preferred leaves are for deer forage. I started paying close attention and I positive that leaves become a major food source during certain periods of the year. I know deer will be at that tree when the leaves are falling. I've seen it many times since then.

 

[bornagain62511]

I agree, I started noticing 20 years ago through many hours of bowhunting and general observation that deer really love leaves, whether they are attached and green or perhaps even more so, the leaves that have fallen and and are laying on the ground as they begin to fall off in September/October and throughout the fall and winter.

Here's a 190" class buck I shot 6 years ago (click on the images below to view the blowup of each photo). The small woodlot that I was hunting in was surrounded by thousands of acres of open ag land with mainly corn and alfalfa, with small woodlots interspersed throughout the otherwise open ag land. This buck never had to go far to eat prime alfalfa or corn when he wanted to. It was November 13, the peak of the rut around here, and this buck made a beeline to an enourmous mulberry tree whose trunk was about 6 yards from the base of the tree that I was up in my treestand. The mulberry tree was shaped like a huge spreading wild apple tree, all of it's leaves had fallen by then, and this buck came and started eating the leaves that had fallen from the mulberry tree. He was eating the brownish fallen leaves off the ground like a pig at a feeding trough. It seemed like forever, but was probably 5 minutes or so that he stood 6 yards from the base of the tree I was up, eating mulberry leaves the whole time, and the overspreading branches of the mulberry tree totally prevented any chance of a shot. After he had his fill of leaves, he turned to his left (my right) and as he left the cover of the overhanging mulberry branches, he passed into one of my shooting lanes at 8 yards. A double lung shot, a 100 yard dash and a few seconds later, he tipped over dead.

 

[Phil]

So the question is how the heck do you pinpoint what leaves they are feeding on? One guy said red leaves are preferred, one said poplar leaves, how do I possibly scout for this? I do agree some other food source has taken over, we have zero acorns let alone oaks for miles. I wish I knew how I could pinpoint what leaves they prefer, we have sugar maple, poplar, beach, and apple trees, what leaves should I focus on? This could truly be why I see an October lull around here every year. Are leaves for quality forage? My plots are simply amazing why would deer want a leaf instead of a radish.

 

[Tap]

I agree, I started noticing 20 years ago through many hours of bowhunting and general observation that deer really love leaves, whether they are attached and green or perhaps even more so, the leaves that have fallen and and are laying on the ground as they begin to fall off in September/October and throughout the fall and winter.

Here's a 190" class buck I shot 6 years ago (click on the images below to view the blowup of each photo). The small woodlot that I was hunting in was surrounded by thousands of acres of open ag land with mainly corn and alfalfa, with small woodlots interspersed throughout the otherwise open ag land. This buck never had to go far to eat prime alfalfa or corn when he wanted to. It was November 13, the peak of the rut around here, and this buck made a beeline to an enourmous mulberry tree whose trunk was about 6 yards from the base of the tree that I was up in my treestand. The mulberry tree was shaped like a huge spreading wild apple tree, all of it's leaves had fallen by then, and this buck came and started eating the leaves that had fallen from the mulberry tree. He was eating the brownish fallen leaves off the ground like a pig at a feeding trough. It seemed like forever, but was probably 5 minutes or so that he stood 6 yards from the base of the tree I was up, eating mulberry leaves the whole time, and the overspreading branches of the mulberry tree totally prevented any chance of a shot. After he had his fill of leaves, he turned to his left (my right) and as he left the cover of the overhanging mulberry branches, he passed into one of my shooting lanes at 8 yards. A double lung shot, a 100 yard dash and a few seconds later, he tipped over dead.

Click on the thumbnail images below for a full view of each photos

Monster buck! Beautiful! Nice job.