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Frustration

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lol

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Joined
Jul 31, 2024
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578
Location
Monroe County
Bought 50 acres surrounded by forest a year ago. We got a decent start cutting some trails, planting some food and improving cover. There's a lot of early season food but it was logged 20 years ago and I don't have a ton of acorn producing trees. When the acorns started really falling a couple weeks ago, ALL my deer vacated the property. Not so much as a track to be found. Even the hogs left and the turkey are barely showing up. Considering the age of my forest compared to the mature forest that surrounds me, I'm expecting this will be a long term issue. We are planning some patch cuts for cover for next season but I'm not sure what can be done to fix this problem.
 
Ski said:
Chestnuts, apples, and pears. Not cheap and not an immediate return on investment, but within about 5yrs if you plan right you can have some type of fruit and nuts dropping all fall deep into winter for as long as you own the property.
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I have 4 mature chestnuts that didn't produce this year, probably due to drought. I have a ton of crabapple but they were picked clean already. I've got some chestnut and persimmon seedlings I'll be planting soon. I think you're right, though. Wonder if sawtooth oaks or chinquapins might be worth looking at.
 
timberjack86 said:
Hoping it has some thick bedding areas. Sounds like your surrounded by mature national forest?
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Its an in-parcel in Cherokee National Forest. A lot of it is high stem count cover. I've also let one field go fallow. Its not great fawning cover but I imagine they feel secure. The forest also has good cover. There are laurel thickets and a couple of old fields the forest service has decided to use to establish early successional habitat. Interestingly, I had two doe and a small 8pt buck show up this morning between 3-5am. I've not seen this 8 pt since late summer. Not sure if this has anything to do with food or rutting behavior but the camera is an area between what few oaks I have and some Virginia pine stands.
 
Go back in and hinge cut some good sized areas, the bigger areas the better. Once those acorns play out, the deer will come back to the new growth and cover, and you'll have some decent late season hunting. I suffer with the same problem once the acorns drop around us, as our place was brutally cut back in 2015.
 
lol said:
Wonder if sawtooth oaks or chinquapins might be worth looking at.
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For certain they're worth planting. Look into all the different varieties of apples and pears too. Some don't ripen and fall until late season. Some do in early.

Best we can do is plan redundancies, a backup plan for when plots fail, and another backup plan for when the backup plan fails. Just like financial investments, if you are only one layer deep you're eventually going to fail. Got to diversify so there's layers and layers of failsafes. That way when thing get rough you're still OK. But when things are good you're doing amazing. So yeah add some sawtooth and chinquapins, and others.
 
Got to realize one thing brother...the deer densities in Eastern Tennessee aren't great so seeing what others see in other parts of the state will discourage you but being close to CNF you could draw some deer in with food plots . I have hunted a place in Monroe that had a good deer herd but poaching made me not want to lease it anymore .
 
Agree....sawtooths grow and produce quicker than other oak varieties....buddy of mine started sawtooth from acorns and planted three of his best seedlings in his yard and in 7 years they were producing...last two years we have added sawtooth and chestnut on our place...hope to add fruit trees in the future.
Controlled burn units may be another option for you to add tons of natural forage...open canopy and burn if possible...create food and cover that many neighbors wont have.
 
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Snake said:
Got to realize one thing brother...the deer densities in Eastern Tennessee aren't great so seeing what others see in other parts of the state will discourage you but being close to CNF you could draw some deer in with food plots . I have hunted a place in Monroe that had a good deer herd but poaching made me not want to lease it anymore .
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What's discouraging is I've had a decent number of deer consistently on the property for months even with the low densities. With just 50 acres I had 3 nice bucks on camera regularly, a nice 10, a big 7 and a small 10, along with 4 or 5 does, then just nothing for 2 weeks. Even the CNF youth hunt, we struck out because the deer stayed on our side of the line where we had crabapples and plenty of other browse. We went to Fentress for statewide but had deer on camera at our place both days, including daytime bucks. I have a decent plot of winter wheat, winter rye and crimson clover waiting on them when the acorns turn sour, so I have some hope late season, but by then they'll likely be full on nocturnal. Luckily we have some limited access which makes poaching more difficult and CNF opens this weekend so I can stray outside my boundary, but I'd really rather hunt our land. At this point, I wish I could find a lease or hunting club so I could let this place develop a bit more.
 
lol said:
What's discouraging is I've had a decent number of deer consistently on the property for months even with the low densities. With just 50 acres I had 3 nice bucks on camera regularly, a nice 10, a big 7 and a small 10, along with 4 or 5 does, then just nothing for 2 weeks. Even the CNF youth hunt, we struck out because the deer stayed on our side of the line where we had crabapples and plenty of other browse. We went to Fentress for statewide but had deer on camera at our place both days, including daytime bucks. I have a decent plot of winter wheat, winter rye and crimson clover waiting on them when the acorns turn sour, so I have some hope late season, but by then they'll likely be full on nocturnal. Luckily we have some limited access which makes poaching more difficult and CNF opens this weekend so I can stray outside my boundary, but I'd really rather hunt our land. At this point, I wish I could find a lease or hunting club so I could let this place develop a bit more.
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Don't get too discouraged. This has been a weird, very tough season. It goes like that sometimes with ebbs and flows. This season exposed holes in everyone's game.
 
Ski said:
Don't get too discouraged. This has been a weird, very tough season. It goes like that sometimes with ebbs and flows. This season exposed holes in everyone's game.
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I hear you. I'm really just wanting to get my son on some deer. I'm fine not getting anything but I'm really want him to have some more opportunities.
 
This season is by far the oddest one I've ever had. I barely see a single deer whereas last year I would've seen atleast 5 decent bucks by now and probably over 20 does.

Not sure if it was an EHD outbreak combined with a bad acorn drop, or what.
 

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