Stanley wrote:Nelson87 wrote:Stanley wrote:Once the crops are harvested it's a whole new ball game in those smaller timbers.
Can you elaborate a little? Are you meaning because the deer can see you coming from much farther away due to lack of cover, crops coming out change food sources, or are they in some cases moving to bigger blocks of timber?
This is my third season in farm country and I learn more every year. One big struggle for me is how fast things change with the majority of the crops on the farms I hunt coming out within days either way of our Oct. 1 opener. Also some spots I never get to because I worry about messing them up before conditions are perfect then end up never going there. I listened to a podcast on nine fingers about mid Oct. hunting http://www.ninefingerchronicles.com/pod ... tt-bestul/ and I really think I need to do more in season scouting. So that's something I'm going to make a point of trying to do, to get intel for future reference at least.
A small block of timber is much bigger when surrounded by standing corn. When the corn is harvested the small block of timber becomes even smaller. The crops represent food and cover. I have seen small blocks of timber dry up completely when the crops are gone.
I've not had much opportunity yet to hunt around standing corn, but I've noticed the same thing. The property where I killed a doe the earlier this week is a good example. The red line is my access and the green dot is where I had a camera for several months. I checked the camera to see if there had been recent movement along the corn but the batteries had died, so I decided to do an observation sit of the cut bean field outlined in blue. On my way in I noticed tracks along the field edge so I knew deer were using it but did not know when. I'm assuming the doe I shot was bedded in the corn because she popped out of the corn and was feeding on grasses and weeds in the treeline and she had some corn in her stomach. The wind was blowing from the top left to lower right of the picture .
