In the Stewart Co. areas I'm hunting, interestingly, they do not seem so highly stressed nor needing food. Yet am seeing more early shedding than most years.
One of my largest food plots is normally a good place to kill some late-season does. Hasn't been the case this year. Despite acorns being sparse, the surrounding areas have had thousands of acres clear-cut over the past 3 years. The deer seem to be getting so much food there that they're not doing what they normally do, i.e. travel a few hundred yards to a mile to some big fields. Some are, but the fact it's mostly nocturnal suggests these deer aren't very hungry?
Most years, late season, regardless of acorn crop, I'll see significant numbers of deer in these fields between sundown & dark. But this year, most days, no deer at all during daylight, although a few have just started showing up now in the past few days around dusk.
I'm not sure what all the factors may be contributing to early shedding, but it's been well over a decade since I would describe these particular localized deer herds as being "acorn driven". They seem to be getting enough honeysuckle, blackberry leaves, green briar, and who knows what, that they're not hungry enough to come to these fields & food plots except nocturnally.
In the past week, just driving by some large 1 to 2-yr-old clear cuts, I saw a large number of deer feeding. Yet nearby food plots had few to no deer visiting them during daylight. And the lack of deer does not appear to have much if anything to do with hunting pressure, as there has been weeks of little to none near some of these plots.
What gives?
