Mountain hunters north of the Tennessee River: what are your observations on food sources this year? In November I heard a swirl of talk saying there aren't any acorns in the mountains. I didn't believe it, and it's taken me up until January to realize there really wasn't much of an acorn drop worth note at all this year. In eastern Madison county as well, where we had a TON of winter wheat planted last year, there are dormant fields everywhere. That wheat was holding deer on a particular honey hole of mine and where I had some of the best rub-lines, feeding sign, and scrapes I've ever seen, I now have nothing this year. I feel like my honey holes up high are nothing more than vacant pieces of earth.

Have ya'll been seeing more deer down low this year as opposed to mid ways up or higher on the mountain?

cutovers

^^^^^ yep

What are they eating in cutovers?

Buds,greenbriar,leaves, don't know where your hunting but if they can come down in people's yards they will.

This^^^^^. In really tough years they will eat fescue and shrubs in yards and cedar in the mountains. Best I could tell all our acorns were gone about 3 weeks ago. I still see a deer now and then run it's nose under the leaves. I'm glad I have browse and ag crops nearby. If we keep getting cold weather like this, it will stress them this winter.

I agree with 2Dogs,and ridgestalker,if it gets to bad people may have to start feeding just to keep the heard alive,but as of now up here,our deer still have food.

I'm seeing more acorns than you can shake a stick at on TVA land. All along the Flint in Clouds Cove especially I see rafts of acorns on the ground everywhere.

Deer ain't there though ... I have hunted TVA land quite a bit this year but it has been wasted time. I think the hunting pressure has been so intense that the deer have just moved elsewhere

There is nothing to eat up on the land I have in Madison County. All of the deer are staying at the bottom of the mountains near the subdivisions. Can not see a deer in the woods, but see plenty driving out of the neighborhoods every day. ON my other property, I put in two plots on a couple of old log landings I have kept clean and the deer are tearing them up, just a night.

I doubt people are gonna have to pitch in and feed to save the heard. Those animals are finding sustenance.

That's how it was at Wheeler. The bottoms are full of acorns. Not so much in the mountains.

I'm going to put out a couple square bales of alfalfa in TN just to see what they do with it.