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Poke berry is a highly desired forage here. My deer love the stuff.
Me too!!
When you have a very wet spring oaks on hills and ridges produce well and Oaks on lower areas like along creeks suffer. When drought conditions occur Oaks by creeks and streams flourish and ones on hills away from creeks and streams suffer.
Oh ok. I see. That makes sence. Thanks for the clarification
White oaks produce a crop every other year and on the third year it's usually a heavy crop. The year after a heavy crop if conditions are right acorns my be scarce. Red oaks flower every year but that doesn't mean that they will produce acorns. I check the oaks in the area I hunt to see what oaks are producing and then make my decision where to hunt from that observation.
Yes, that is a good video.
My understanding is that since red oaks have more tannins and are bitter the deer will leave them on the ground to get rained on for a while and that will leach out some of the tannins. That's why in a lot of places the red oak acorns will be a food source later in the season. The white oaks are more palatable right away so they get eaten first.
Any time I find an abundance of acorns under one tree and not much deer sign I’ll start cracking acorns. They are almost always infested with weevils.
I saw this a lot this season. I had a pair of huge white oaks that were being hit hard last year by the deer. This year those two trees were not active but about 40 yards to the east were two midsized white oaks that had a pile of acorns under them, but the sign said they weren't being touched. I picked up a few, cracked them open, and they each had a worm in them. The deer weren't interested.
Yes, you are right about mast being unpredictable. I hunt mast trees hard as soon as I think deer are hitting them. Acorns are a time sensitive thing. I have trees I check because they produced in the past. If they are not HOT, I move on until I find a tree with great sign. Then I hunt it immediately. Sometimes it is a bump and dump scenario. I literally run deer out from under the tree. If that happens and they didn't smell me. I hunt it immediately. This is usually an afternoon hunt and if I don't connect, I am back there before daylight the next day if possible. Sometimes I run them out in the dark but if they just hear me and don't smell me, they will likely be back before 11 AM. I try to get in a lot of hunts during this window of opportunity when they are on oaks. There may be 30 trees on any given one-acre patch, but they will usually favor one or two over the others at any given time and that is where I want to be. The trick is to catch the tree "on the upswing", when the deer are just starting to hit it hard. Then hunt it out and move on. Don't get attached to any one spot. This is where high mobility really shines.
