Acorns

[treewalker1967]

Will deer start eating whiteoak acorns as soon as they hit the ground? I have been hunting a area with several whiteoak trees and acorns on the ground but have yet to see deer eating them. treewalker

[blindset61]

Treewalker, it's been my experience that deer, and squirrels too for that matter, have favorite trees to feed on first.  In other words, there are probably lots of white oak trees dropping acorns right now, and the deer will probably get to all of them before it's all said and done, but if they ain't feeding on the tree(s) your referring to, keep scouting and looking for those tracks, droppings, and rubs.  Their eating them somewhere.  In bottomlands, deer sure like those cow oaks, also persimmons right now.

[DeerWoods26]

yep they are going after those acorns right now. going to be a tough season i'm afraid because everybody i've tgalked to said they have a ton of acorns and the deer always stay hidden in years like this. i've jumped several walking to my stand early in the morning and i know they were standing there eating acorns as i'm setup by two giant white oaks.

[TheHuntinHog]

And make sure your white oak stand isn't wormy.  Some trees get worms during the growing season.  Bust a few open.  If they are brown with worm holes, you won't find any deer browsing under that tree.  If they look good and clean, they are hitting the other (more hidden) hot spots right now.  They won't branch to your spot until they have too.  Deer would stay in a thicket if they could.  The only reason we see them is because they have to eat and they have to mate.  If your stand is relatively open, it will be a last resort.  But they will come... maybe during the day... but maybe at night.  Try to find other locations if they are dropping.  And make sure they are good to eat.

[mtnscapes2004]

Deer love to eat acorns, but they may love to eat the persimmons even more. The persimmons are beginning to change color and should be sweetening up, so the deer may be looking for persimmons more than acorns right now. I have been hunting out of 4 white oak tree shoots all joined together, and everyone of the 4 trees are producing acorns. I have not yet seen a deer stopping by for acorns. I had one small buck run in the other morning, and he was responding to a doe bleat, not the acorns. Try finding you a tree to hunt out of near a loaded persimmon tree. Or, find a persimmon tree, put on some rubber gloves, pick alot of persimmons that have changed color, put them in a zip lock baggie. The next time you go hunting scatter those persimmons in your shot lanes on the ground, step on them, so the juice provides a fresh sweet scent, then climb in your stand, and see what happens. Preferrably on a colder morning.

[Kevin]

Yeah they go ape over persimmons. As far as spreading them out around your stand, I have done the same thing with apples. If you have an orchard close, stop and ask the owners if you can go around and sack up the fallen apples rotting on the ground.

[treewalker1967]

Well I opened my mouth to soon ! This afternoon had deer all around me poping those acorns I was talking about. Even though I did not take one It sure was fun watching them, all doe as far as I could tell. Was a great hunt!! 

[DeerWoods26]

Very nice. Anybody know how long the persimmons last?

[buckaroo]

Deer Woods the only way i know to keep them is to freeze them i gather them in 5 gallon buckets and put them in the freezer you can thaw them out and they will gobble them up and i got 5-5gallon buckets full of acorns for later in the season found a big oak that was raining them down and picked them up in about 30 minutes.