I planted a summer / late summer food plot and the deer could have cared less. I have peas, sunflowers, sun hemp, millet, clover soybean, and corn. This is the same thing I planted before at another lease, the deer cleared it, looked like hogs had rutted. I can't figure out what could be the issue, great area, good coverage, dead middle of 100+ acres not a single person bothering them. I fed corn in this area last year and had a lot of deer, I figured the food plot was going to be a hit. There are a little over 3k acres and not much of a natural food source left after the hurricane that came through a few years back. Not sure what went wrong
Beautiful Food Plot, Deer Don't Want It.
- Thread starter TGBTG7701
- Start date
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
The first question is "how do you know?" Often times we don't realize how much of our plots are being used until we put up an exclusion cage. If you have deer and they are not using it, they have found something "better". Better is better from a deer's perspective at this specific point in time.
One example in our area is the "September Vanishing". Many years deer are in our plots all summer long (I'm in VA zone 7a). I've got wireless camera with solar panels that run 24/7/365 that have been in the same locations for years that we use for population trending. Suddenly in September sometime, picture counts suddenly drop dramatically. Several weeks later they start using the plots again. What happened?
I finally figured out that we often get storms with high winds in September. When this happens, it knocks down acorns that otherwise would not fall until mid October here. Deer vanish from out plots until they vacuum up that early drop.
One example in our area is the "September Vanishing". Many years deer are in our plots all summer long (I'm in VA zone 7a). I've got wireless camera with solar panels that run 24/7/365 that have been in the same locations for years that we use for population trending. Suddenly in September sometime, picture counts suddenly drop dramatically. Several weeks later they start using the plots again. What happened?
I finally figured out that we often get storms with high winds in September. When this happens, it knocks down acorns that otherwise would not fall until mid October here. Deer vanish from out plots until they vacuum up that early drop.
William Allis
New Member
Our WNY deer are in the oaks and not in the food plots. 8 in our front lawn last night. We have had deer in our clover all summer and now they have moved to the acorns. Wife is sick of stumbling over my spotting scope. IMHO the deer are creatures of getting along the easiest way. Probably means they have enough natural feed. Now if they are eating your brassicas before they freeze your deer are hungry. But is sure is discouraging when you can't grow weeds!
