Stewart County Mast Crop

[TheLBLman]

I've found more than expected.

Quite a few red oak acorns dropping, and some are good-quality nuts. I also found two loaded persimmon trees yesterday.

The trees are scattered, fewer trees with crop than normal, but certainly not a mast failure. Haven't seen any white oak (nor chesnut) acorns.

Hickorynut production very low, but have found several trees (and good squirrel hunting) at lower elevations, as well as fair beech mast. Yestereday, I drove up to a creek bottom and stepped out of the truck ---- could hear squirrels cutting hickorynuts in three different directions --- all within 75 yards of the truck. Love to hear those sounds, even when I'm too lazy to get them, like in not wanting to clean squirrels.

 

[BSK]

Not surprised to hear that Wes. I talked to a guy that lives near Clarksville, and he has some Swamp Oak that are loaded, and some huge persimmons. We've got nothing down Humphreys County way.

In fact, I just finished rearranging most of our ladder stands to focus our hunting effort on natural browse and food plots.

 

[TheLBLman]

We've got nothing down Humphreys County way.

Are you not finding ANY red oak acorns at all?
Amazingly, this past weekend, I found quite a few pretty loaded red oaks that I had missed seeing any acorns on a week earlier. Had also looked at one of those persimmon trees and not seen the persimmons a week earlier!

 

[BSK]

Only scattered red oaks carry acorns, and each tree found has only a handful of acorns. I found two or three black oaks that "look" loaded, but when you pull down some of the acorns and cut them open there is only a shrivelled little nut inside.

Our local drought was one of the worst in TN. We received no measureable precipitation from July 4 until Sept. 6.

 

[TAS]

Only scattered red oaks carry acorns, and each tree found has only a handful of acorns. I found two or three black oaks that "look" loaded, but when you pull down some of the acorns and cut them open there is only a shrivelled little nut inside.

Our local drought was one of the worst in TN. We received no measureable precipitation from July 4 until Sept. 6.

Same in Hickman.

 

[Excal Thumper]

Wes,
What part of stewart county do you hunt? North or South? I hunt near Cumberland City, on the north side of the river. Haven't had a chance to check the acorns yet. My dad has been planting food plots the last 2 weeks. So if there aren't any acorns to speak of, then we will be hunting over the food plots all this fall. Do you think the oaks along a river or swamp will produce the best?
Thanks

 

[TheLBLman]

Wes,
What part of stewart county do you hunt? Do you think the oaks along a river or swamp will produce the best?

I actually have some places to hunt in Stewart County from north to south, east to west, but have been concentrating looking for EHD and oak mast on about 10 sqare miles just south of Dover and just west (or south) of the Cumberland River (some of this is not far from Cross Creeks).

Not sure about the red oak mast being better at higher or lower elevations, as I've found some producing trees along the top of the Tennessee Ridge as well as in some creek bottoms with year-round water flowing in the streams (some of these couldn't be more than a foot or two above the water level of the Cumberland River). Although of no benefit to deer, the hickory mast seems concentrated at the lower elevations.

I'd speculate the mast production this year is similar on either side of the Cumberland, although you should generally have better soil and larger bucks on the east (or north) side of the river. You probably have a little more row-crop agriculture on your side of the river, too, which will help considerably with the low mast.