why all my hunting spots suck right now!

Acorns Responsible for Fewer Deer Sightings

What acorns?None where im at 2nd year in a row

Spotty around the house for me.

Why not hunt where the acorns are? Anyways I've seen more deer on green fields so far than I have in the hardwoods

Loaded with them in southeast Madison and northwest Marshall County. I'll be glad when the squirrels get them all hid.

Jason

We've got tons of acorns. Looks like it's gonna big a late water oak drop, too. That's awesome.

I have seen more deer in two days than I have in the past two seasons. I must be in a good spot. I have at least 5 oaks dropping right now in one spot.

If you know yer property, doe family groups, bedding areas and such should be easier hunting when they don't move much IMO. I like having plenty of acorns and other natural chow, that means they don't have to roam.

Gotta love Craig...

Paul if you're hunting in the bottoms you need to become familiar with and find some swamp chestnut oaks. The look almost just like a white oak except for the leaves. The most sign that I've seen by far were around the couple of them I've found that were dropping acorns.

Brent I haven't seen any in these bottoms but I will familiarize myself with them and look for them. The bottoms are only a few hundred yards deep then the slope runs up 500 ft in about 2/10 of a mile. I can't hunt the top because it's a hunting club. I can hunt the sides and I know where several hardwood steps are and I think that's where all the deer are. I haven't seen much evidence of anyone taking the effort to go up there. I need to find the time to go up to one of those steps early one morning and set up in a tree.

When I said my spots sucked, I was speaking of the bottoms. I scouted the bottoms all year and was so certain that I was gonna tear them up because I saw good deer there. But when the acorns came a fallin the deer all disappeared. I spent all my effort scouting the bottoms because I didn't know better ... I didn't know that they would change their pattern to such a great extent and when it happened I got screwed.

I've learned my lesson, another good lesson and next year I'll be a better hunter and I'll anticipate this type of thing. Now I've got a problem until the acorns dry up; I don't really know where they are, there is a great deal of real estate to cover on steep terrain, and I don't have enough time to cover it all. Add to that this area is absolutely infested with timber rattlers and that I'm hunting by myself and you see where I am coming from.

If I get time I will try to scout some of the steps on this property but I will probably have to shift to another piece of property on the other end of the county on some farm land where the deer are still working the bottom areas some. This particular property has its own challenges in hunting it but thats another story ... I'll try to write up something for that place next week or so and get ya'lls advice on hunting it.

Last year the deer hardly touched my plots, wasn't sure if it was the hogs that were roaming through or the acorns and other food around the area. This year we are seeing more deer than ever before, not sure if it's because the hogs moved on to somewhere else or what but we're not complaining.

There should be a bunch of acorns in the bottoms too. Red oaks were dropping before the white oaks. Your deer are probably still around just walk around and look til you start seeing piles of poop.

The deer will live with the hogs.

This.^^^ We zero in on white oaks dropping closest to a 4 yr old clearcut. We hung 3 stands this weekend while we were hunting on "hot" trees.

All along clearcut thckets and dropping like crazy. Beaten trails coming off the road bed splitting the clear cut from the hardwoods.

Set up for 30-35 yard shots just downwind of the trees shooting those big runs.

The deer, especially big bucks, love to feed on those trees only a "hop" away from thick security cover.

somebody forgot to tell the deer on our property that; when the hogs showed up in 2012 the deer disappeared, when the hogs left last winter the deer showed back up. Got the trail cam pics to support this.

Rocket

I can show you some. Chinkapins are great hunting too and have a similar leaf to the swamp chestnut oak but different acorns. I haven't seen very many up on our place but there are a few.

The places I've hunted that had hogs, that wasn't an issue. Several times I'd see hogs and kill a good buck not long after. I guess they are different in different areas.

Rocket,

Here's some Swamp Chestnut Oak acorns. Ours are smaller this year, due to lack of rain in the summer.

it was weird, about 12 hogs showed up in August of 2012, camee through and rooted around daily and then left this past winter. Deer stopped coming sround almost completely during this, srapes, rubs, and all other sign of deer all but disappeared