I was talking to our new lease manager yesterday and he told me about 2 camera surveys he was part of. One on high fence very low pressure lease, and one on a managed lease. Randomly selected the cameras, pulled the cards and would you like to guess how many mature bucks came to the corn during daylight hours?

Less than 1 percent.

And I had dude get mad and leave because we wouldn't let him bait a greenfield ......

Those 20 does coming in the daylight will put the oldest buck on the property there in daylight. People don’t wait and make the does nocturnal.IMO

This^^^^^

Well now you have to define mature. Also I need to know WHEN this survey was done. Early October? Late November? Deer become more nocturnal as the daylight changes and rifle season opens.
By some people’s definition some properties don’t have any mature deer anyway. I get the great majority of the bucks I have on camera in the daytime too. Less as rifle season opens obviously.

Why wouldn’t you let him bait a foodplot?

^^^^This^^^^^

I put out feeders for the does. I want every doe within a mile on my property when the rut starts. It has zero to do with trying to get bucks to the feeder.

And I wouldn’t base any decision off second hand knowledge of a camera survey on someone else’s property. I know of multiple farms/leases where mature bucks hit feeders at all times of the day. But I’m curious as to your reasoning for not letting others put corn on plots.

Old bucks wont die for corn. They will die for pu**y. You are trying to keep as many does around as many hours a day as you can. Also the trails leading to and from your feeder. They might not use them all year but they are going to follow that trail if a hot doe has been down it.

To argue with you a bit. I cut some trees this week for a fella who owns a deer farm. He said the bucks theyre killing all come to feeders, 100%. Thats where they kill them. He said a three day sit will get every one of them.

I hav had luck w corn and good deer - my cameras seem to spook the really old deer and not the corn - but some of my deer don’t mind camera. Several of my really mature deer hav shown up to corn - get that pick and it like they give me the middle finger and say screw this - not digging that camera. Hav cut several of mine off - will cut on in time and still hav some running - especially my road cameras - they help me some - but they spook some of my good deer

The corn don’t spook em. Pour some on ground - scatter it in the woods - in a month the best deer on your property prob would hav visited it

You also can’t accurately compare a survey and make it be universal to all our properties

I've tracked a bunch of mature bucks for folks that were shot over corn.

Had a friend laid out a nice 4.5 year old 8 point last year, coming to the corn at 8am on a frosty morning. The place is very unpressured and the ladder stand he shot it from was 170 yards away. Make the situation right and they'll come, but it's a lot of effort

Another thing I experienced this year and also last year - I had my oldest deer - at least 7 years old showing up regularly in daylight early Oct to corn in Wilcox county - I had moved my camera up higher and angled it down and it did not seem to bother him as much. I had already counted him as killed - then I stupidly bought in a new feeder - it looked like the other 2 feeders and I put it right by one of the existing feeders. As I was going to check the new feeder and cam for the first time it dawned on me I may hv just screwed up bad because I remembered putting up a new feeder last year in another area right before season and it screwed that field up for 3-4 weeks. Daily bucks disappeared for a while. Anyway - I hav not seen that 7 year old since October - just cause I put a new feeder up in his area - not even a night pic. He will b bac eventually- but prob not daylight

I'm surprised I havent seen more people going to the "Texas sendero" strategy.......Our cutover and young pine understory is not all that different from their brush understory.......Looks like you ought to be able to do about the same thing

They don’t come to anything that you go to every day messing around and out in the open checking cameras and scenting the place up. High fence or not.

Hunting pressure is one thing. High fence operation with a full time employee knocking around plots, stands, and feeders all day everyday is another. There not enough details in the original post to make a true comparison. Pressure and location are important when comes to camera placement and getting mature deer on a camera.

Food sources close to a bedding area that remain undisturbed and hunted correctly in early season will absolutely get a mature deer killed. Food sources with doe groups that have been undisturbed and hunted appropriately will absolutely get a mature deer killed in the rut.

Just because someone is a lease manager doesn’t mean they are knowledgeable about whitetails. If I had someone tell me the information you posted, I would be skeptical of believing they know what they are talking about.

Bingo. I’ve seen nothing as far as deer getting nocturnal. We get daylight pictures of 5 and 6 year old deer every week.

What you will see if those older deer disappear if somebody is driving or walking in 4 to 6 days a week checking a camera. Those older deer will stop coming near the camera until the rut.

Had a 6 year old disappear like that for 2.5 weeks and when he was killed there was ZERO corn in his belly. He wasn’t going anywhere near all the corn and cameras.

I’ve shot them and had em fall face first in a pile of corn and also had pics of em walk up to the feeder and never eat. I reckon it depends on the deer. Like stated above, keep the p***y around and he will be there.

Mature bucks today have been raised on corn piles or feeders. The notion that they don’t come to corn in the daylight has not been my experience.

Must not have been a very good high fence operation. The ones I've been to have had mature deer in greenfields in broad daylight.

And I hav deer on one side of my 250 that act differently than deer on other side of property and respond to things like cameras and feeders differently and that is just 250 acres