Originally Posted By: perchjerker
Not really Smells. Read the first line again. All acorn trees are not created equal.
"First find the food source they are using" It's easy to spot broken shells and crap. In ag fields you can see half eaten leaves, tracks and crap. It's woodsmanship.


Yes I understand but you may have to cover so much ground to find a spot they are hammering so as to make it counter productive by leaving evidence of your presence all over the woods. Also, lets say you find a honeysuckle patch that's half eaten, that still doesn't mean they will be at that patch in the afternoon. There is literally food in every direction.

Here's an example, last year in my preseason scouting I found an area I decided I was going to hunt. There was good sign and I was hopeful. I might not should have done it but I just couldn't stand it and 3 days before opening day I went back to check the place I thought I would sit on opening morning. Sure enough I found a white oak that had dumped hundreds of big green acorns. I thought this was weird because they were green. Opening morning I get there and climb in the dark. Saw nothing and got down around 10 or 11 or so. Walked over to the oak and there was not a single acorn on the ground, not even a shell. I don't even know if it was deer that ate them and it could easily have been turkeys I suppose or even something else. The point is, to find a "hot" tree you have to go looking for it and once you find it you better be ready to hunt it the next day or even that day. How long does it take a doe group of 4-8 does to clean out an oak tree's offerings? It'll produce more but they may not come back for a week or more just because it's too easy to find higher concentrations under other trees and they're everywhere. Things change fast. I think to some degree deer are like people. Maybe some people eat lunch at the same restaurant every day but most people don't want the same view or taste two days in a row.

I don't claim to know much though so I could be full of it. I may target specific trees very early but after that I'll be looking to intercept them on travel routes.