Now that we have had almost two full seasons of the corn rule I am wondering if it has had any impact on movement and behavior?

My club president put some out in a couple aces two weeks ago and daytime sightings seem to have gone down (he is getting great nightime pictures though). He said he wants to draw the bucks to our property. I told him to tell everyone to quit shooting does in late mid and late January and the bucks will come for the does and not the corn.

My sightings are WAY down this season and I'm the only one hunting this piece of land this year (160 acres). Food plots are ate up but I rarely see a deer in them compared to having 10-14 does/bucks in them, at any given time, last year. I'm starting to think people around me is putting out corn and it's got them messed up. At least messed up for me.

Our CAB in their infinite wisdom lost their mind making this decision. It doesn't matter what other states allow. It makes no sense legalizing corn unless you want to sell feeders.

Did I sleep through a law change? When did it get legal to hunt over corn?

Just playing devils advocate here...

How is corn on the ground, that deer can eat at anytime, different from a greenfield, that deer can eat anytime.

I understand human scent left in the area from putting the corn out but this argument that "corn makes deer nocturnal because they can just eat it at night" makes no sense to me. They can just eat the food plot at night, also. Maybe I'm just dumb and am missing something.

That's why I asked the question because I am not sure that corn will change a deeds behavior. I just know that we are seeing less deer movement now and we should be seeing more.

Obviously you missed something. Nothing was said about hunting over corn being legal. There is a lot of hunting over corn going on and half the folks think it is legal. Wake up, Todd.

More corn or less outlaws?

Well except this,

And the OP was asking about the new corn rule changing deer behavior. So yeah, I see your point. I was way off.

Based on the newer laws, corn was legalized to be fed to deer as long as you hid behind a tree or planted cedars in front of the feeder, or possibly using the law to go illegal and hunted over it (that wasn't supposed to happen.) Not a whole lot of difference to me. To me deer behavior would be changed by the law. Not that you would disagree with me or anything like that.

I believe it's gun pressure that makes deer go nocturnal. If you owned a 1000 acres and they had no pressure they would be sighted in daylight regularly, you break out the gun and it does not take em long to get the drift of things. Then you need to know how to hunt and get close enough to catch them at last light (not that easy for me) headed to food supply from Bedroom. It don't matter what they eat to me as long as I know where.

I agree with OP about shooting does in the last few weeks before season end, Does are the ultimate bait.

May or may not be popular but we feed on a small tract that a buddy and I hunt. It's only 60 acres and we mainly just bow hunt it and use ladder stands. We slip in and slip out most of the time without disturbing much. We've hunted it for roughly 8 years and tried to plant it for the first 6 years. Landowner doesn't really want us taking down trees and we only had 2 small places to plant. They were very small and did not provide much forage. We could easily shoot across and end to end of both places with a bow. Its surrounded by houses(subdivision on one side) and the property is mostly pines. There are a few acorn trees scattered around and that's what we hunt when they drop. The fields usually didn't do much because of soil and when they did they got mowed down as soon as the acorns; if there were any were gone. Very rarely did we have a field left past mid December. All that to say; last year we started feeding in 2 places with tripod feeders feeding 1x a day early then increase it as it gets later in the season. Our sightings have not been any different than in years past and if we often see deer at the feeders walking in and out during daytime hours. We do not hunt them and hunt the same places we always have. The closest stand to either of them is prob 125-150 yds. We don't think they have helped or hurt us other than the fact that the deer have something to eat later in the season. We also have done other feed as well. On our club we do not feed at least not that I know of and it's been hard to see a deer there for the past month. I think it has way more to do with pressure than anything at least in my experience in the places that I hunt. Example: I saw 2 deer at the feeders today. One at 7:00 am walking in and the other @ 10:00 am when walking out.

My deer sightings have been down this year after mid Dec also. No corn. My issue is dogs running deer (and not hunting dogs). They have become more of a problem and sighted way more than the coyotes

I believe that if deer have an option of wheat (great field)and corn they will choose the corn.

Not everyone that is supplementally feeding is doing so with a feeder that has a timer that runs at, say 8am and at 3pm. If they are either pouring the corn out on the ground or using a trough or gravity feeder the deer (who while they are not nocturnal do naturally increase there movement at dusk and dawn) will feed from the feeder at times where they have the least interactions with humans.

Deer are very in tuned to their surroundings. I read the tread the other day about the mock scrape and after the guy left a deer was on camera there in a few minutes. I would bet that there are many deer who watch us walk to our stands and we never see them. We don't know that they are there. Think about that. How long does it take you to walk from your truck or atv to your stand? I bet a deer would take twice as long to go same distance. How many of us have been in a stand and all the sudden there is a deer in front of us. We did not see deer approach, just POOF and there there were.

So I guess my best bet as to why deer move at night more would be when the feed is available and the amount of pressure or interactions the deer have with us.

The only reason I could see how feeding corn would make it seem like the movement is down would be that the deer can fill there bellies on corn at night when they are naturally eating anyways. Maybe a full belly at night means they don't eat as much during the day. I also believe that the pressure is the major factor in movement.

In my opinion corn really is just a faster version of a food plot. Especially if you are supplementing with different minerals during the offseason. A food plot and corn are both an artificial food source placed by hunters to feed and attract deer. I have hunted Texas several times where hunting over a feeder is legal. Not really a big difference in deer sighting and behavior. I think human pressure, dogs, and constantly getting shot at in the daylight hours is what moves deer to go nocturnal. Just my 2 cents. It doesn't bother me a bit to see people put out feeders. I wouldn't even care if they legalized hunting over them. Same as a food plot in my eyes. I do not hunt on corn out of respect for the law but really doesnt seem to matter to me.

Unfortunately, I saw this coming. We have data on radio-collared bucks in South Carolina, where baiting is legal. The very large property where we are doing the research used to spread corn out in 75-yard piles near some of their stands (LOTS of corn). What we saw with deer movement was that a lot of our bucks would begin moving just before dark while staying in thick cover. After sunset they would trek across the property to these areas with huge amounts of corn...feed...and then return before sunrise. Some of these bucks were making nightly movements of up to two miles one way. This year they quit doing that and hunting success went way up.

The fact is that the more food you supply the deer herd, the less hungry they are, and the less need they have to move during risky hours. So it's a difficult balance. You want to supply resources for your deer (whether it be habitat enhancement, food plots, or supplemental feed) to improve condition and gain all the benefits of that. But, the more you do so, the less likely you are to see them during daylight hours...because they aren't that hungry.

I don't think the feeders do anything to "hold deer on your property"...contrary to popular opinion. Rather, they just make them less hungry, and the deer don't move as much before dark, no matter whose property they choose to bed on. If your neighbor is feeding, there's nothing you can do about it. But, if you choose to feed to "level the playing field", you're just exacerbating the situation.

You just crapped all over all bunch of people here's beliefs.

Good to hear it backed up by some real research.

How about studies that use an electronic feeder or feeders set to go off at mid day?

thanks for the reply, Steve. Highly interesting.