Hunting Hungry Deer
Filed under: Ask Grant, Hunting Tactics
Grant, Hello and greetings from your neighboring state, Illinois! I have noticed with the early cut corn fields and the wet weather/nice days, the kernels of corn that were left on the dinner table have now sprouted into new young corn stalks. Since most corn is planted around here during green up, I never paid much attention if deer eat those new plants or not. This year is much different! I see LOTS of deer in the cut corn right now. Are they eating the new growth? What affect might the “lack of kernels” have on late winter food sources for the properties without food plots? Knowing when our first frost comes, those new corn plants will die off in a hurry. Only thing left is whole or partial ears with corn still attached. That won’t last long!!! Derrick
Derrick,
That’s a very good observation! I suspect that the deer will concentrate on the few corn fields that were harvested later and have a bit more corn available. When the limited supply of corn is consumed, the deer will probably move to the bean fields. This may make locating the preferred food sources a bit easier this year as the food sources are more limited. However, the trade-off for having limited food and better hunting this winter is that deer will not be in as good of physical condition next spring during antler growth and fawning season.
Hungry deer are much easier to hunt, but they express less of their potential than deer with ample food resources.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
