Hey guys...I'm new here...and fairly new at hunting. My parents have a 5 acre chunk that is 1 wide and 5 deep. The house/barn, etc is up at the very front. 2/3s of the property was a horse pasture. The horses were gone about 15 years ago now. The fences have fallen and the back chunk of the property has become mostly overgrown. The VERY back along the property line is VERY (100+ year) mature Oak. It's a pretty thick, then gets to the newer growth of Aspen, which is VERY thick, and long grass. It's easily over grown 20 yards over the old fence line, more in some areas. The entire back section of the property is surrounded by at least some sort of tree cover. Basically along all the edges, where the fences were, there is a pretty good tree line. The center of the 2 sections of pastures is still a grassy meadow. Surrounding area; Next door to the south is a Church with a large grass field, and lake front. East and west farm fields. Corn in both fields. To the north is Clover/hay and a farm, east of there is a large 30ish acre wooded area. There is hunting pressure in that wooded area during the gun season. There has never been any real hunting pressure on my parents property. Last year I had what I joked was a super highway through the very back property line area. There was litterally a path 16" wide that forked off to a few areas into the thicker part of the wooded area, and meadow. This year there it's overgrown and shows not evidence that they have even walked through. I set up my deer stand in a LARGE oak in the back last year, and could only hunt Sunday afternoon/evenings. I ranged it and the property is 70 yards wide... which with my stand in the center, put me in good shooting range both directions. I never saw anything other than squirrels. This year I finally got a trail cam. About 2/3s of the way down the property I found a Plum, Crab Apple, and Apple tree all within 15 yards of each other. I set up my trail cam on the Plum tree on the 4th of Sept. On the 11th I checked it and found 100 pics. So I sat down and checked them out. In the pics were a 10pt, 8pt, 6pt, a spike, and from what I can tell only 1 doe. I got VERY excited and bought a license. After that weekend I noticed the Apples, Crab Apples and Plums had pretty much all fallen and were pretty rotten. Since then I've gotten a picture/video of ONE doe. None of the bucks have come through at all. I made a mock scrape a few yards from my trail cam, with no results, but it has only been a week. Here is my worry.... Is that hunting spot near the fruit trees only going to be good for opening weekend, and is that only a maybe? Opening bow was the 17th this year. With a lack of sign since the 11th of Sept, should I be looking for another spot to hunt? I have a ground blind and a stand. The trees near the fruit trees are all WAY to small (largest is maybe 12" across) to put a stand in, so I bought the ground blind. Obviously things change with the Rut... but if there is only one Doe in the area, they probably won't move through this small area. Should I pick up some Doe urine and try to scent heavy in the area to try and draw the Bucks back in? Hopefully using some doe in Estrus may help during the rut as well...but I don't want to try to rely on only that. Especially since the wind typically would not help draw them from the North East. Today the wind is from the west, last year it was either from the south west or north west. Any advise is great guys... Thanks!
Basically I'm in same boat as you. Cameras get tons of pictures from mid April till end of September. Towards the end of September it's like a light switch no bucks and very little deer activity captured on film. One is the available food source up to now was abundant right where the cameras were placed. They browsed on honeysuckle, briers, and other prime plants traveling down the trails heading from water & agriculture crops back to bedding areas. Now with fall this succulent browse that was right in their face is dying back and getting browsed on faster then it can regrow. The deer spread out more from the trails where the plants have not been over browsed yet. I still see deer on my property just not in the same exact spots seen all year up to now.
Same happened to me. The deer here are in the white oak acorns and will stay there until they're gone, so that's where I'm concentrating my hunting time. I did have a nice 8-pointer show up on my camera last week, but only the one time. Once the acorns are gone, I'll go back to hunting my primary stand which I have bait out in front of. They're not touching it right now. The apples are rotting on the ground.
Heavily wooded area is about an acre to acre and a half. I tried to do a screen shot of the property and post it, but I can't get it to work on here. I may take the screen shot on my phone, email it to myself, and then post it. What should I do? My old stand was in mature oaks, but I see no sign of them coming around that area at all.
What kind of oaks? Deer won't touch Chestnut Oak or Red Oak acorns if there is a White Oak anywhere nearby. They won't touch my corn or apples either,until the acorns are gone.
