White oak crop failure?

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fairchaser

fairchaser

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I've not seen the first white acorn in West TN. I wonder if I'm just too early or if this is an off year. Lots of reds are falling in my area but they usually start after the whites. I'm just starting to wonder about this. Anybody seeing different?
 
I haven't spent any time in the woods since the last weekend of August in middle TN, but I noticed the Chinkipin's were loaded (in the white oak family), but did not see a sig crop of white oaks in the tree at that time.

Here in south MS, the acorn crop is extremely poor (reds, whites, even water oaks). I have no idea why, as we had a pretty wet spring and no late freezes to kill the blooms. Bow season opens Monday, and I have no idea where to even hunt, as the deer are feeding on green browse, and it's everywhere.
 
fairchaser":26yko28i said:
I've not seen the first white acorn in West TN. I wonder if I'm just too early or if this is an off year. Lots of reds are falling in my area but they usually start after the whites. I'm just starting to wonder about this. Anybody seeing different?
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Northern middle tn starting to see some white oaks just starting to fall. I have had better luck with the red oaks looks like the reds are dropping more.Right now anyways.
 
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No crop on our place in Hickman County, I went out half-day last week in search of a good tree in areas that have been loaded since we have had the property for the last 8 years and can't find Red, Pin or White. If you have the food this year likely to draw a lot of deer.
 
Me and my closest hunting buddy have looked under 100s of white oaks in SW TN, and we have found 2-3 that had a handful of acorns on them. Some of the acorns were good, but most were bad. There was little to no deer sign under the trees as well. We checked a lot yesterday after we had some wind and we could not even find any that had been blown out. Our conclusion is there are very few, if any, in the woods we have access to.

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I am seeing persimmon trees loaded, but void of deer sign.

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I am finding red oak acorns here and there, some good on the ground, and some rotten. Most, in these two pics, were very light and rotten on the inside.

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This is the best tree I have found so far.

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megalomaniac":36gt0ryl said:
..........I have no idea where to even hunt, as the deer are feeding on green browse, and it's everywhere.
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This has been my experience thus far as well. I just started finding a few oaks scattered about to maybe focus on in the next few weeks. Fewer food sources may be a benefit once rifle season opens and they have to travel more to find a desirable food.
 
Our lease in Hardeman county has tons of white oak trees and most of them have not produced anything this year. The few red oaks we have are loaded though.
 
Just got back from my Benton County lease in Big Sandy. We have only managed to find two spots on roughly 800 acres that have any white oak acorns. Both spots are getting hammered by deer right now. Lots of acorns, but very concentrated areas. I doubt they last very long at the rate they are hitting them at night.
 
Union Co. Boy":12tufzr4 said:
We have only managed to find two spots on roughly 800 acres that have any white oak acorns. Both spots are getting hammered by deer right now. Lots of acorns, but very concentrated areas. I doubt they last very long at the rate they are hitting them at night.
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If you have the opportunity, and the desire, this could make for some of the most fun and exciting bow hunting there is.
 
I have seen the same for what seems to be everywhere west of the plateau. Everywhere east of there seems to have a descent crop. Travel corridors will be key come November
 
Thanks Andy for confirmation! I know you wear out boots looking and scouting. Once these ag crops are gone, food sources are gonna be the key to finding doe concentrations where bucks will be traveling during the rut. This dearth of mast crop should be good for hunters.
 
Union Co. Boy":2adl930g said:
Just got back from my Benton County lease in Big Sandy. We have only managed to find two spots on roughly 800 acres that have any white oak acorns. Both spots are getting hammered by deer right now. Lots of acorns, but very concentrated areas. I doubt they last very long at the rate they are hitting them at night.
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This is what we're seeing in Carroll Co. The public land I hunt West of there is like finding a needle in a haystack, but when you do you can wack Does off them all day if you wanted. They are just gone as soon as they hit the ground. The Persimmons were getting hammered here the last couple weeks.
 
I generally don't put much pressure on the deer during bow season anymore so I haven't looked much other than the outer field edges and have found some good chinkapin oaks loaded.
 
White oaks for us in Wayne & Hardin are spotty at best & haven't
seen any reds falling yet. Same for us on persimmons, loaded but no deer sign under them.
 
Andy S.":3jb0vpo6 said:
megalomaniac":3jb0vpo6 said:
..........I have no idea where to even hunt, as the deer are feeding on green browse, and it's everywhere.
Click to expand...
This has been my experience thus far as well. I just started finding a few oaks scattered about to maybe focus on in the next few weeks. Fewer food sources may be a benefit once rifle season opens and they have to travel more to find a desirable food.
Click to expand...

This

I setup on a couple whites and a persimmon in Williamson county and the does I saw walked right by them munching on eye level browse, mostly random green and yellow leaves
 
Finding a few reds and very few white oaks if any. Really kinda depressing considering I have areas where the oaks are very concentrated and usually concentrate the deer.
 
Spent another couple hours scouting in south MS and found 1 white oak with a handful of acorns in the canopy and 1 jack oak that is loaded and dropping, but the deer aren't on it. I did find one swamp chestnut with a few in the canopy, but they don't drop till mid Nov down here. Looks like the kids will be hunting corn feeders on juvie weekend down here.
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Just because theres not many white oak acorns. Doesn't mean you have to crap on the ground and take a pic of it. All though i do like your style. Just kidding i know that wasn't you.lol
 
Found very little of any variety in Giles county. I think We had some patchy frost a few mornings in April. I think it burned the blooms.


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DRSJ35":1dd4pcgm said:
Just because theres not many white oak acorns. Doesn't mean you have to crap on the ground and take a pic of it.
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After all the walking I have done, to no avail, I oftentimes felt like doing that. :tu:
 
woodsman04":c3ojvf7y said:
I think We had some patchy frost a few mornings in April. I think it burned the blooms.
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I remember my closest hunting buddy was at Super Chevy Show here in Memphis (April 7-8), and the lows were around 30 both mornings and it spit snow for an hour or two when he was there. This was in SW TN, not sure about the rest of the state. This would have been second weekend of statewide turkey season.
 
I don't remember seeing the huge shift to acorns until after the beans and corn is gone. Which it seems like they are a couple of weeks behind right now.
Out of 10 persimmon trees I found 1 hot one.


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