The man that farms my fields is already taking out the corn. We have stalks but no corn on them! I was out checking stands this week and some acorns were on the ground. Yesterday I did a 5 mile SUP paddle at a local lake and watched the leaves fall into the water. Some already in color! What will early season look like? I am going to have to scout a lot just to figure out how to play my cards. Thoughts??
The Times they are A-Changin'!
Iv been wandering the same :readit: This might be like a High Plains Hunt!!!
Iowa hasnt delt the deer population a blow in some time ( except several years of extreamly high Doe tags ). We might find it easer to find deer without mast crops everywhere? :dunno:
I would guess the leaves are due to stress from lack of water. Our oaks always start dropping now. They seem to shed some acorns early to help the rest mature, I notice the same thing with apples. Since the rut is more determined by day length, I don't think you will see that early. Shifts due to available food sources might be different this year. Especially those of you who hunt farm based food sources. The crop collapse should change your whitetail behavior, imho.
same here. 30 days without rain in June has stressed the majority or the trees here. While it has been raining of late the damage has all ready been done.
The corn is toast for sure but their's still a chance to get some beans if we get rain. Like every one else said water and acorns. I'm in someone's timber most every day (For Work)and their's a decent acorn and hickory crop out their.
We'll have to wait and see what happens.
doug77
Food plot time, lol... or like said earlier, hunt over water if you can find it.
dave
We've got muscadines already raining down 2 to 3 weeks early down here. The deer and hogs are wearing them out. Persimmons will probably be early too. i don't know what you guys have up your way. i've got a lot of cutover that is about 3 to 4 years old now that has a lot of browse that the deer are using pretty heavily and will be until we get a heavy frost.
Got about a 100 acres of soybeans right behind my house that just got planted a couple wks ago. Bout 6" up now.
QuoteOriginally posted by arrowlauncherdj:
Food plot time, lol... or like said earlier, hunt over water if you can find it.
dave
My plot is not that bad. It died off last year. I knew I would have no time to re-plant this Spring so I tossed out some clover during our last frost. Checked it for the first time last week and the clover was up nice. Shocked since I did not spray and disc!
Drought conditions are causing the leaves to turn earlier, and the reason the corn has no ears on it. Every year you are going to have some early droppers on the mast due to the acorns that are just bad. Unless a freak wind/storm knocks them out, the ones on the ground now are not solid, or the meat is bad, going bad, or has/had worms in it.
At least here the mast is pretty good this year but it is spotty. There are scarlet and black oak in pockets and it seems the chestnut oak hit. Some white oak as well. You guys that are having the bad drought probably are not going to have much mast next year on the red oak family unless they start getting some moisture real soon. By the sound of it it might be too late though.
Your Red Oak family takes 2 years for the acorns to reach maturity. white oak only takes one. So when you have years of high levels of stress on the first year of the acorns on the red oaks, next year normally suffers. However, the Scarlet(pin)oak is drought resistant and will usually have them when the true Red and Black oaks do not.
By all means check the Red oak families this year as they could have very well still produced their acorns due to the 2 year maturity they require. Find your oaks in the hollows and wet east and north faces and see if they produced. This is the kind of year when you find the food, better watch our vause the deer are going to be hammering it. Good luck and God Bless
QuoteOriginally posted by AWPForester:
Drought conditions are causing the leaves to turn earlier, and the reason the corn has no ears on it. Every year you are going to have some early droppers on the mast due to the acorns that are just bad. Unless a freak wind/storm knocks them out, the ones on the ground now are not solid, or the meat is bad, going bad, or has/had worms in it.
At least here the mast is pretty good this year but it is spotty. There are scarlet and black oak in pockets and it seems the chestnut oak hit. Some white oak as well. You guys that are having the bad drought probably are not going to have much mast next year on the red oak family unless they start getting some moisture real soon. By the sound of it it might be too late though.
Your Red Oak family takes 2 years for the acorns to reach maturity. white oak only takes one. So when you have years of high levels of stress on the first year of the acorns on the red oaks, next year normally suffers. However, the Scarlet(pin)oak is drought resistant and will usually have them when the true Red and Black oaks do not.
By all means check the Red oak families this year as they could have very well still produced their acorns due to the 2 year maturity they require. Find your oaks in the hollows and wet east and north faces and see if they produced. This is the kind of year when you find the food, better watch our vause the deer are going to be hammering it. Good luck and God Bless
This is why Tradgang rocks! Thanks!!
The lack of the most common food sources will change things but the deer will have to travel more to get a full belly. That equals more opportunity for the guy that keeps his mind open to trying different tactics. The same old stands may not produce so setting up a stand or two to observe from a distance is a tactic that I employ often.
If I have two days to hunt one will probably be spent looking for the place to kill one on day two. One day looking can beat two days wishing.
Chris
It's so dry here, the cactus and sagebrush is dying, no joke. If we have a bad winter, our deer, elk, antelope, ect., will be dying.
I grew up in eastern Nebraska, and loved it when the farmers got the corn out, we always seen way more deer then. I think you would be happy about it also, it gets them deer in the timber where the tree stands are.
A few weeks ago, I drove to Colorado via Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas. I have never seen it as dry as I did in KS and eastern CO. Not one creek I crossed had water in it, the crops were dying then, and I saw ONE antelope fawn that was living in the shade of a full stock tank. I do not believe there has been a drop of water fall out of the sky since all along with record heat. I feel sorrow for every living thing out there.
Drought
our hickory trees are loaded along with locust. The oaks are dry and look gray, a lot of the farmers are choping he corn for silage, and if we don't get some more rain the beans aren't going to do much. All of the brome is dry and crunchy, all the old timers said this is the worst they have seen it since the 50's. Don't really know if the rut will be any earlier, but it might. I'm kind of anxious to see how the season unfolds, I think it will be a decent season.
This all day rain should really help the soybean crop and the Oak trees for next year. One farm I hunt the creek is dry and the farmer told me the last time it was dry was 1988.
doug77
I'm not being a smart a$$, but I wonder how our whitetails, mule deer, elk, pronghorns, ect, have made it without corn, beans, and food plots? :dunno:
I don't have any food plots, but the corn and beans left over on the ground from the combines are a very important winter food sourse for our deer.
doug77
QuoteOriginally posted by Shedrock:
I'm not being a smart a$$, but I wonder how our whitetails, mule deer, elk, pronghorns, ect, have made it without corn, beans, and food plots? :dunno:
Good point. They will survive but many many will die without the extra food that corn, beans, food plots etc. provide.
Every ecosystem has a carrying capacity. The current carrying capacity is falsely inflated because of all the extra support we give the wildlife.
As far as the season, rut, etc.
That is triggered by the decrease in light each day. So I do not think that will change at all.
maples are already getting color here in Northern Mi, ferns are yellow ,looks like Mid-Sept! Squirrels are really cutting acorns on the trees that have them, acorn crop is hit or miss, some Oaks have alot and there are trees that do not have any! Gonna do some roving this weekend if its not 90 degrees! Hot weather has even took its toll up here!
Around here it's the drought pushing things. Won't have any effect on deer rut though, as that' spushed by temperature and length of daylight.
Water sources are definitely looking like prime spots this year.