Acorn crops and early activity

[Bone Collector]

I'm hunting public. Oddly some of my spots are traditional acorn producers. Meaning even in bad mast years these trees have some acorns. What I'm seeing is those trees don't have any this year. Some of my other spots are loaded as are most of the other oaks.

Deer movement has not been good. Simply too many acorns to choose from. I saw 3 this morning but I think they were bumped to me by some squirrel hunters.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

I just posted something similar to this before coming across this post. I think it's going to be an exciting season, as I am seeing the same and I'm seeing very healthy deer compared to last year which has me really excited.

I already have red Oaks unloading their acorns which is rare to be this early. I do think if you don't get on a deer early, not to worry because I believe late season this year is going to be tremendous. I think most of the acorns in our area will be bad by then or eaten because they are dropping way early this year on my main farm.

Our sawtooth Oaks dropped a good 2 to 3 weeks early this year. They have 0 acorns left on the trees or ground. Chestnut Oaks also dropped extremely early and have 0 acorns left on the trees as well.

The only acorns I see holding are white Oaks/chinquapins.

Same here, brother - same thoughts. I see about 1/2 the whites have dropped and 1/2 are still holding. That's early for them - so most may very well be rotten earlier than normal going into the late season. Good observation and something to keep in mind.

I have a scrape on the edge of a field and under a white oak. Acorns EVERYWHERE on the ground. My camera took pics of him every 10 seconds from 12:30am - 3am eating acorns. He didn't move . I didn't hunt any after that. You know our place - rolling ridges and hollows with nothing but acorn trees. Years like this year, you'd have to win the lottery on one and likely do more harm than good. But when they start getting frisky - game on

 

[Dennis]

Agreed. BSK is the bees knees.

I'm not sold on the moon stuff. I've tried & tried & tried to find a patternable correlation between trail cam info and personal sightings with the moon but I haven't yet found a connection. An awful lot of people swear by it so I guess I'm just missing it.

I've seen some extensive multiyear studies on deer conception dates, mostly by measuring fetuses of road-killed does in the spring.

It seems that the peak dates for conception remain the same year after year, regardless of moon phases.

Of course that doesn't mean that daylight vs nighttime activity didn't change due to moon phase. But I am sure you could find a study on that now too using cameras to monitor deer activity by date.

 

[Ski]

Of course that doesn't mean that daylight vs nighttime activity didn't change due to moon phase. But I am sure you could find a study on that now too using cameras to monitor deer activity by date.

I've tried with my own cams and haven't been able to find any correlation. I run dozens of cams on six properties in two states so I've got a decent sample. With so many people swearing there's something to it, I'm inclined to think there is. I just haven't seen it.

 

[Dennis]

I've tried with my own cams and haven't been able to find any correlation. I run dozens of cams on six properties in two states so I've got a decent sample. With so many people swearing there's something to it, I'm inclined to think there is. I just haven't seen it.

My guess is there's no correlation. We hunters always want an angle, so we want to believe in these kinds of things. Then when we hunt and see a decent buck, we fall into the trap of confirmation bias.

I remember one time I was hunting a small parcel of woods (40 acres) in farm country. I saw a lot of does and some bucks but none of the bucks were interested in the does. I could easily have concluded that the rut hadn't ramped up yet. Meanwhile my friend hunting the other side of the woods had bucks chasing does all around his stand. We hunters tend to believe what we want to believe, unfortunately.

 

[Ski]

My guess is there's no correlation. We hunters always want an angle, so we want to believe in these kinds of things. Then when we hunt and see a decent buck, we fall into the trap of confirmation bias.

I remember one time I was hunting a small parcel of woods (40 acres) in farm country. I saw a lot of does and some bucks but none of the bucks were interested in the does. I could easily have concluded that the rut hadn't ramped up yet. Meanwhile my friend hunting the other side of the woods had bucks chasing does all around his stand. We hunters tend to believe what we want to believe, unfortunately.

Horse blinder optimism. Totally agree

 

[BSK]

Just to throw this out, I love the science that BSK brings to this forum. He alone probably caused us to spend umpteen-zillion dollars on trail cams.

That said, what does Moon Phase this year have on early activity if any?

Moon phase has no effect on breeding timing. However, it does seem to have a little effect on daylight movement, but honestly, I think it is the weakest of all the influences (weather and date being the two biggest).

For some strange reason, and I have no idea why, we see a significant drop in daylight buck sightings when the moon is waxing and between 40 and 99% full. But the instant it hits 100% full, the sightings jump back up. In addition, when comparing the exact same percentage of the moon illuminated, waning moons are always better than waxing moons. Again, no idea why.

 

[Ski]

Moon phase has no effect on breeding timing. However, it does seem to have a little effect on daylight movement, but honestly, I think it is the weakest of all the influences (weather and date being the two biggest).

For some strange reason, and I have no idea why, we see a significant drop in daylight buck sightings when the moon is waxing and between 40 and 99% full. But the instant it hits 100% full, the sightings jump back up. In addition, when comparing the exact same percentage of the moon illuminated, waning moons are always better than waxing moons. Again, no idea why.

Never noticed any of that. I'll look a little closer for that. I've cross referenced trail cam archives with moon phase but didn't catch what you see. Either it's too subtle for me to catch on my smaller properties or else I just missed it. Interesting.

 

[yellalinehunter]

I'm hunting public. Oddly some of my spots are traditional acorn producers. Meaning even in bad mast years these trees have some acorns. What I'm seeing is those trees don't have any this year. Some of my other spots are loaded as are most of the other oaks.

Deer movement has not been good. Simply too many acorns to choose from. I saw 3 this morning but I think they were bumped to me by some squirrel hunters.

Same as where I'm hunting. Heavy mix of acorns and bedding. They don't have to move far at all

 

[huntncoach]

Well, I have been in the woods only two weekends (opener and this past weekend) and I think I have seen 2 acorns on the ground and zero in a tree. Kind of disheartening, really. Still, plan on hunting and searching for at least one single tree that holds some.

 

[megalomaniac]

I'll put together the scrape visits graph tomorrow morning, but here's the buck-doe chases caught on camera. Notice the early food plot pestering chases both in 2021 and 2022 (zero acorns, severe draught), but the peak chasing around peak breeding was around 10-15 days late in 2022 compared to 2021 and 2020.

So...

Did this translate to a fawn crop that was 2 to 3 w behind schedule this year?

This is the first year in over a dozen where we are getting enough fawn pics to actually determine when peak fawn drop was.

Deer are super fat this year, but most pics are near summer beans and they were fat even before the acorns started dropping.

 

[Ski]

Well, I have been in the woods only two weekends (opener and this past weekend) and I think I have seen 2 acorns on the ground and zero in a tree. Kind of disheartening, really. Still, plan on hunting and searching for at least one single tree that holds some.

Keep searching. I've been going on two weeks following the deer from tree to tree. I've moved my stand about 6 times so far. There'll be one tree dropping heavy and that's where the deer will be.....for a couple days. When it slows down they start hanging around at the next heavy dropper.

I've been pinning each tree on my Huntstand map with a note of dates. I'll figure out some kind of excel spreadsheet to keep up for a few years to see if it's a repeating pattern. I'm not sure if this year is an anomaly or if maybe I stumbled onto something. Time will tell.

 

[BSK]

So...

Did this translate to a fawn crop that was 2 to 3 w behind schedule this year?

Hard to say. I'm not sure I could visually identify a fawn that is 10 days younger than normal.

 

[DEDDY]

These are the 2 kinds that are dropping like crazy at my house. One from a chinkapin and the other from a traditional white oak. I could fill several 5 gallon buckets with what has fallen already

 

[Falconi]

Food is ridiculously abundant at my little place. Persimmons have dropped about half their fruit, acorns, mulberry leaves, etc. abound.

 

[poorhunter]

Wish I had a couple pigs to feed out…tons of acorns to be had for the sweeping up all over the place.

 

[Popcorn]

Notice how this little oak is weeping

There is one of these every 30 yards in almost every direction for 1200 acres and I'm sure the neighboring 10,000 acres

I am not optimistic about this season. If the weather stays reasonably dry those acorns will last a while. On the same ground the chestnut oaks are a hazard to be around. If they don't knock you out you will turn an ankle or tumble over the hill.
The one repose is that there are zero red oak acorns here this year.
I may just plan to hunt late season, maybe by then some amount of normalcy will have returned

 

[Hawk103161]

Deer have been wearing out the chestnut oak on camera. Another Camera had a nice 8 rubbing 2 different trees mid Sept. two different Days too And it wasn't velvet rub either. In Benton County....Knox County yesterday had a doe come in the Cow pasture with a fawn out of spots..5 minutes later young buck jumps the fence and was pestering the heck out of her.... Time for me to climb a tree in Benton County. More Bucks are starting to wonder around in the daylight

 

[woodsman04]

The interesting thing is, my camera data still shows peak of breeding at the normal time during a bumper acorn crop. But the amount of chasing, pestering and scraping much earlier than normal persists in those big acorn years. Last time we had one in my area, 2021, scraping and chasing actually peaked during the second half of October (even more than in November), yet the peak of breeding at the normal time (mid-November in my area) was still very evident.

This is the first year in three years that we have had any white oak acorns. (By that I mean last year I think there were zero, and the two years before like very little. Also two years ago we had reds, but zero reds last year)

Is there a correlation with big acorn crops and a more intense rut? Or is it the other way around? I'm getting at having more energy to cruise, seek, and chase. Or with more acorns will deer activity be less because more food available?
My rut here is from about December 1-10. White oaks are usually eaten up or rotten or germinated by around November 10th. They'll have red oaks until late December or perhaps later though.

Thoughts?????

 

[BSK]

This is the first year in three years that we have had any white oak acorns. (By that I mean last year I think there were zero, and the two years before like very little. Also two years ago we had reds, but zero reds last year)

Is there a correlation with big acorn crops and a more intense rut? Or is it the other way around? I'm getting at having more energy to cruise, seek, and chase. Or with more acorns will deer activity be less because more food available?
My rut here is from about December 1-10. White oaks are usually eaten up or rotten or germinated by around November 10th. They'll have red oaks until late December or perhaps later though.

Thoughts?????

There is a strong correlation between more intense sign-making and big acorn crops. Basically, expect more rubbing and scraping than usual. However, as you mentioned, big acorn crops tend to reduce movement as 1) food is everywhere, and 2) acorns digest slower than ag crops, hence deer don't feed as often.