Ignored forages - the acorn asterisk year

[SD51555]

This whole year was such an anomaly, there are no lessons to be gleaned from anything that happened with food plots. In my area, if you don't account for the acorn boom, here are the faulty assumptions I could make:

*I have enough food
*The deer do not like turnips or collards
*The deer do not like awnless barley heads in the fall
*They don't eat sorghum heads
*There is enough browse

It's the barley that's bothering me. I grew the perfect patch of barley in one of my plots this year, and it never got touched. Most of my food went unused with the exception of the clover and jap millet heads. I need to go back to camp once more to wrap up some stuff, and I wanna go back and check that barley patch to see if they ever used it. Frankly, I think they are still gorging on acorns and running from coyotes.

 

[Bill]

I know once they started falling at my place the does all but abandoned my beans. Just in the last week I've been getting pics like normal. Maybe the acorns are finally running low.

 

[356]

I know once they started falling at my place the does all but abandoned my beans. Just in the last week I've been getting pics like normal. Maybe the acorns are finally running low.

The acorns are running low on our NW Missouri home and they are now cleaning the plate on the little remaining milo. This was a poor white acorn year, with a normal-at-best red acorn crop, so the food plots were hit fairly hard. I still see deer in the harvested corn fields, but not the bean fields.

 

[SD51555]

I think what deer are left up by me are still putting on weight for winter. My plots should look like fairways now, and they are far from it. Every day we're not in snow and racking up days for the WSI, we're blessed. I'd love to see brown ground for the start of 2024.

 

[Brian662]

I think what deer are left up by me are still putting on weight for winter. My plots should look like fairways now, and they are far from it. Every day we're not in snow and racking up days for the WSI, we're blessed. I'd love to see brown ground for the start of 2024.

With any luck it'll be a mild winter and give you guys a chance for rebounded population numbers.

 

[Triple C]

Boys - Down south…December is the month that food plots shine. Cereal grains continue to grow along with the milder temps. Deer pile into them daily. Our firearms season runs thru Jan 16th. Still more than a month left. As a trad bow guy, I’m watching way more than shooting but do love to sit on the edge of a plot in December and early January in the afternoons and watch the doe pile in to the plot with the occasional buck in tow.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Boys - Down south…December is the month that food plots shine. Cereal grains continue to grow along with the milder temps. Deer pile into them daily. Our firearms season runs thru Jan 16th. Still more than a month left. As a trad bow guy, I’m watching way more than shooting but do love to sit on the edge of a plot in December and early January in the afternoons and watch the doe pile in to the plot with the occasional buck in tow.

This^^^^^^

Acorns,particularly white oak, trump everything( corn, protein,food plots, etc,etc)

bill

 

[BenAllgood]

This whole year was such an anomaly, there are no lessons to be gleaned from anything that happened with food plots.

There might be some lessons on food preference?

 

[bigboreblr]

I feel your pain. Behind my niehgbors property is a huge line of oaks going into thick woods. Can glass them on the far feild edge going in.

Maybe the one year I did tillage daikon radish it was a good crop over them. Some inbble on the tops, but around december or so, they were interested in them.

MY overall hunting plan most years is to get an easy deer with the bow early october. Then work the rut with bow until opening weekend of rifle in NY. Go in the woods with the rifle here n there. Then get back to consistent hunting early Dec for muzzleloading season. Mostly for deer pressure reasons, but can work ok for oaks.

I've seen deer pass up acorns for hickory nuts. Used to squirrel hunt a good bit in september, there were times you couldn't see a single tree rat in the woods. Then you find some hickories. Squirrel all over and sometimes a doe family with them. MY old GPS is stuffed with hickory markings on publc land. Would mark good acorn spots too.

 

[gjs4]

On our SE Ohio- Appalachia- Hill country Id suspect 75-80% of the trees are oaks and you LITERALLY need to be mindful of your footing on slopes due to the ball bearing effect the acorn mast present. We have so many oak varieties there too..... while i think this could lead to some superior fawn nutrition, my hunting and habitat offerings were so subpar it has me wondering what can "I use for a basis on next years approach?" versus what was a 2023 anomaly (and dont forget the drought most of us had too).

 

[BuckSutherland]

This whole year was such an anomaly, there are no lessons to be gleaned from anything that happened with food plots.

I gleaned the exact same thing this year as I have for the last 5 years regarding food plots, deer, and the Chippewa national forest. They are WORTHLESS in most cases and detrimental to hunting, especially once rifle starts. The deer dont need your food, you arent helping them survive, and they are not helping your chances to kill a mature buck. Chippewa Forrest deer (especially mature bucks) are a different creature than deer in other parts of the state. The habitat NEVER ends by us..



Food plots just push the deer further off your land (especially the big ones) and that means the bucks show up at 3 am. Its a wet dream to think a mature Chippewa forest buck is gonna step into an open food plot to sniff a does ass like they do in other parts of the state. The natural food and THICK coniferous cover /swamps are gonna trump your food plot every single time. I dont know how it could be more obvious. I'd start looking for a mature buck about 1/2 mile away from your food plot cause that's where they are hanging out.




And if oak is some type of magic bullet then I'd start planting swamp white oak as fast I could. Drop times early to mid October and capable of bigly crops.

 

[Barndog56]

Still tons of acorns on the ground here, but the does are chowing on mine on a daily basis now. The bucks are still in hiding yet.

Pumpkins have been completely ignored so far, which is unusual at this point.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I gleaned the exact same thing this year as I have for the last 5 years regarding food plots, deer, and the Chippewa national forest. They are WORTHLESS in most cases and detrimental to hunting, especially once rifle starts. The deer dont need your food, you arent helping them survive, and they are not helping your chances to kill a mature buck. Chippewa Forrest deer (especially mature bucks) are a different creature than deer in other parts of the state. The habitat NEVER ends by us..

Food plots just push the deer further off your land (especially the big ones) and that means the bucks show up at 3 am. Its a wet dream to think a mature Chippewa forest buck is gonna step into an open food plot to sniff a does ass like they do in other parts of the state. The natural food and THICK coniferous cover /swamps are gonna trump your food plot every single time. I dont know how it could be more obvious. I'd start looking for a mature buck about 1/2 mile away from your food plot cause that's where they are hanging out.

And if oak is some type of magic bullet then I'd start planting swamp white oak as fast I could. Drop times early to mid October and capable of bigly crops.

Curious on this thought process of food plots pushing deer further off land. I agree that in my experience getting deer on big open ones in daylight up there is not something I would bet on but why would they avoid the area?

IMO at my parents place the food gets overhunted which then turns it into dead zones for mature bucks but if a guy didn't overhunt the piss out of them I'm not sure why they would be a negative with one exception - best food around = most doe/fawn/young buck congregation = wolves. But if one follows that logic far, what would property design basis be? 100% security and try to keep does/fawns from being attracted to it?

 

[SD51555]

We're gonna learn a whole lot more in the next couple years. There are 3,000+ acres of big block clear cut regen coming online within a mile or two of my property. There will be no shortage of food for the next few years regardless of drought or snow depth, and nobody is going to plant or hinge their way to cover that will compare to those massive blocks of regen. I'm considering altering the cut pattern on my property to save the quality stump-sprouting species for when those public acres age out and no longer provide browse after a number of years. I'll just have to stay on the tag alder alone and keep whacking that with all I've got.

Plots may be the only way to get them out of those areas. There certainly won't be enough deer at first to have population pressure push them outward. There's got to be some component of their lunch menu they can't get from sticks, buds, and leaves to pull them out. I'm thinking high mineral natural forages, and no fallow period.

 

[Brian662]

That's going to be tough to compete with SD, good news is...it is such a large tract that the deer won't be able to keep it held back so the regen should outgrow the deer in 3-5 years I would think. Bad news is....might be a few lean years in there for deer sightings at your place, might have to hunt some public.

Overall should be a benefit to the local herd for years to come.

 

[SD51555]

That's going to be tough to compete with SD, good news is...it is such a large tract that the deer won't be able to keep it held back so the regen should outgrow the deer in 3-5 years I would think. Bad news is....might be a few lean years in there for deer sightings at your place, might have to hunt some public.

Overall should be a benefit to the local herd for years to come.

It's gonna be a challenge for darn sure. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned about it. But I'm also very pleased that the larger habitat in the area will finally get a reboot and become hospitable to wildlife populations again. I'll take a few years of unintended competition if it means we might get the herd numbers back up.