Favorite seldom discussed deer food

[Allegheny Tom]

One more...
The very despised Tree of Heaven. Cut it (and treat the stump so it doesn't spread) in late summer and deer will eat the leaves like Hunter Biden smokes crack.
Side note on ToH, it attracts the Spotted Lantern Fly so eliminate that tree! But I like to cut it in late summer when has leaves and it can provide food one time before it's dead.

 

[Loopwing]

Palmetto berries, gall berries, beauty berry, Virginia creeper are some I can think of that I see deer eat a lot but not really talked about but I think they kinda region specific.

There is food all over the place around here and, at least in my experience, find it really difficult to target "food source"....and never had any luck trying.

Mulberry fruits little too early to hunt, same with paw paw....and I know for a fact they like shoots off the orange trees but real rare to find on public in my area up northeast. I've sat on ripe persimmon trees and never seen anything.

Our woods are pretty thick so it's not common to just see deer unless it's some open field or salt Marsh....whenever I see deers out in the open they seem to always be in a spot of grass that's a little different color than the majority of the surrounding grass...so there's that I guess...patches of different color grass on the shady side of the field

So true, besides an ACTIVE oak tree, it is hard to target other "food sources" besides crops and piles of corn in VA. Deer will eat their way through the woods on the way to other places and they will eat all kinds of plants on the way.

 

[Jammintree]

This November the deer in my region were hyper
Focused on periwinkle.

 

[BTaylor]

Palmetto berries, gall berries, beauty berry, Virginia creeper are some I can think of that I see deer eat a lot but not really talked about but I think they kinda region specific.

There is food all over the place around here and, at least in my experience, find it really difficult to target "food source"....and never had any luck trying.

Mulberry fruits little too early to hunt, same with paw paw....and I know for a fact they like shoots off the orange trees but real rare to find on public in my area up northeast. I've sat on ripe persimmon trees and never seen anything.

Our woods are pretty thick so it's not common to just see deer unless it's some open field or salt Marsh....whenever I see deers out in the open they seem to always be in a spot of grass that's a little different color than the majority of the surrounding grass...so there's that I guess...patches of different color grass on the shady side of the field

I havent ever seen any evidence of deer browsing on beautyberry here, though I have heard it is a browse source.

 

[Weldabeast]

I havent ever seen any evidence of deer browsing on beautyberry here, though I have heard it is a browse source.

So I never noticed either....then I watched a utubes from south Florida and it was this wide open area were he could observe deer al long way....multiple deer end up out in this open savannah and they go from bush to bush to bush only targeting the beauty berry....then I started paying more attention to them when I find them and sure enough I notice they would be stripped if leaves up to a certain height on younger bushes

 

[Jammintree]

Pumpkins

 

[BTaylor]

So true, besides an ACTIVE oak tree, it is hard to target other "food sources" besides crops and piles of corn in VA. Deer will eat their way through the woods on the way to other places and they will eat all kinds of plants on the way.

That is the whole point of me posting this question. Not so much to put the focus on killing deer on a particular food source, esp browse types but to identify those plants they do prefer and take advantage of the ones that give us an advantage. Blackberries here are typically found in cut area or along timber edges, here beautyberry generally grows in a sort of linear thicket, dewberry generally grows in linear patches. Might be useful to note these preferred browse plants when they occur between points like say bedding and an ag field or an acorn flat. They may create a travel line or maybe just a pause along a travel corridor that slows deer down enough to hopefully get a shot. And sometimes, like this year when we had a near total mast failure, they may be the primary food source that concentrates deer. A pattern inside the pattern if you will, may significantly up the odds of having a deer put its foot right where you need it too.

 

[Jammintree]

Preferred food is definitely impacted by several factors. I don’t think we can ever say one food is a favorite or preferred - all the time. It’s a matter of what all the available choices are, which of the foods are in their optimal ripeness And also sometimes they choose to target certain foods just beciase they are in secure locations. For example, in my area maple saplings and their buds are generally always available but deer seem to focus on eating the buds when the sugar in the sap is at its highest concentration - right about the same time as the farmers are harvesting maple syrup. The rest of the season deer may munch a maple bud if it’s right under their nose, but they don’t actively seek them out. As for security, I’ve seen deer focus on eating mountain Laurel when they are bedding in the thickets during intense winter storms. I’ve always suspected that they don’t really care for eating the Laurel, but that they’d rather stay in the security cover and have a less than desirable meal.

 

[Plebe]

maple saplings early

rhododendrons late

 

[Jammintree]

Do you guys think that the variability of preferred foods is more prevalent in the north because of the severity of seasonal changes?

 

[Loopwing]

I think it is more happenstance. Kind of like an impulse buy at the grocery store. If a deer walks past a fiddle head it might bite it, but not enough for me to set up on fiddle heads. Deer are creatures of habit and walk the same trails all the time. Set up on those more than a stray greenbrier you saw them nibble on once.

 

[Jammintree]

I think it is more happenstance. Kind of like an impulse buy at the grocery store. If a deer walks past a fiddle head it might bite it, but not enough for me to set up on fiddle heads. Deer are creatures of habit and walk the same trails all the time. Set up on those more than a stray greenbrier you saw them nibble on once.

Maybe where you hunt. Where I live I’ve tracked doe groups in snow that very obviously walk long distances (a half mile or more) to get from a bedding area to a very specific food source, passing by all kinds of potential snacks along the way.

 

[Loopwing]

Maybe where you hunt. Where I live I’ve tracked doe groups in snow that very obviously walk long distances (a half mile or more) to get from a bedding area to a very specific food source, passing by all kinds of potential snacks along the way.

That is awesome, I wish I had that some times. I have big ole open woods and swamps that is a buffet of green that they just browse as they are walking. That is why secondary and thirdary (lol) browse isn't a thing.

 

[Jammintree]

That is awesome, I wish I had that some times. I have big ole open woods and swamps that is a buffet of green that they just browse as they are walking. That is why secondary and thirdary (lol) browse isn't a thing.

They do that here too sometimes.

 

[Nutterbuster]

I concur that it's hard for me to see food sources as useful in terms of "I'm going to sit here and watch this patch of ragweed."

What knowing food sources IS very helpful for is being able to identify which areas hold deer or don't hold deer. Depending on the terrain down here, ragweed, beautyberry, and smilax are 3 highly preferred browse plants that are easy to identify and evaluate for browse activity. If I am walking through an area for the first time and I see lots smilax growing delicious, tender little shoots shoulder high and lower...there ain't enough deer in that tract to be worth hunting. That food should be gone.

I scouted one area 3 years ago that had no dirt that held tracks, and there was no rut sign. But about an hour into walking it clicked to me that the smilax was all eaten down to the woodie bits. I mean ALL of it on a 500 acre tract.

My dad and I killed 8 deer there in 3 days. It was infested with deer.

 

[Plebe]

I had a patch of apple trees I used to hunt that brought the herd twice daily and stragglers throughout the day, from the start of season until the apples were gone in December. Easily the best hunting I've ever experienced. Dang storm killed those trees and basically the spot.

I know there are deer where I hunt from scouting deer. I don't usually specifically hunt food sources, except when it's likely productive. Then, I have no qualms about sitting and watching "a patch of ragweed"

 

[Loopwing]

An apple patch is completely different than a patch of ragweed. I would hunt an apple patch every day and twice on Sundays. That is almost better than the aforementioned pile of corn.

 

[AttackMode]

Pokeweed

 

[Jammintree]

Clover buried under frost killed hay

 

[Jammintree]

Storm damaged hardwood trees that fell during the peak of the growing season. Come November their dried leaves are like cotton candy to a deer.