My grandma's woods is littered with acorns this year. The times I have sat in the tree stand it sounded as if it was raining. I am not 100% sure, but I am fairly positive they are white oaks (rounded leaves when they were still on the trees). I don't see any sign that the deer are eating the acorns. I don't see any droppings and the leaves aren't scuffed up where they've been digging around for the nuts. What gives? From what I've read the acorns from white oaks are like crack and draw the deer in from counties away. There were a couple of corn fields in the area that were out late, but even with that I figured there would still be some deer munching on the acorns. Can I expect them to hit the acorns now that the fields have been cut and on into the late season or do they only target acorns early in the season?
That's weird, usually they eat them up just about as fast as they hit the ground. Around here , when we have a good year for acorns they will be in the oaks and not so much in the fields. Being as its a good year for acorns, my guess would be that they are frequenting another oak lot.
There is probably many food sources nearby. They will stick to a good food source near cover. Which sounds like its not where your hunting.
They will eat them until they start getting soft in the middle and buggy. My area on NY right now has the best acorn and apple crop I ever seen....can't say the deer are beating a path to them as there is so many. Over at our Ohio lease we didn't have a good crop at all, yet the little that fell got eaten as fast a they dropped...go figure. Sent from The People's Republic of New York.
My grandma's property is roughly three acres, which only half of it is woods. I realize that it is more of a pass through spot than anything, but I'd still expect the deer would be on the acorns to an extent. I'm not aware of, outside of the ag fields nearby, any major food sources that they are flocking to and hanging tight. Most of the surrounding area is timber with some undergrowth, so cover isn't much of an issue.
Like the others said the acorn crop was really good this year. Here in Missouri we had the best acorn crop we have had in 7 years. When there are so many acorns the deer don't have to travel as far to find food. When there is such an abundance of food why travel to find different food.
