192 Louisiana Sportsman^ | April 2015
M
any hunters are still lamenting the poor
deer season that just ended. Complaints
about lack of deer sightings and poor deer
activity have hunters crying about too many doe days.
You know : Hunters have killed too many does and
the deer population around the state is low.
I hunted deer from Pearl River northwestward to
northern Bossier Parish, and I saw plenty of deer,
deer sign and deer activity.
It was one of those years when our abundant acorn
crop had deer in the woods eating acorns, and visits
by deer to the food plots and feeders were way down.
It still amazes me that deer hunters do not change
their game plan and continue to hunt the same box
stand, feeder and food plot the entire deer season.
I guess the mind set is that deer have to eat and I
have the food for them.
Never mind the excellent table fare Mother Nature
has given them.
I saw this firsthand on the 1,200-acre tract of land
in Desoto Parish that I manage. The tract is not
hunted, but feeders are set up beginning in August
and operate through February.
In August and September, there are quite a few
quality bucks coming to eat corn and rice bran, but
around Oct. 1 these visits began to taper off — and
as the acorns began falling in mid-October it was
pretty much over.
None of the really good bucks were photographed
in November and December thanks to the abun-
dance of acorns and the Area 2 rut that began in
mid-October.
Even in January, the visits by mature bucks were
limited, with mainly the 1 ½-year-old spikes show-
ing up to eat corn.
This lack of activity is on a
tract of land that is not hunted
and where human disturbanceis minimal. If this happened here, there’s no reason for
it to be any different on an area that is hunted hard.
When acorns are available, deer are going to be
eating acorns.
I also observed this past year the disappearance
of the wild turkeys that roam around on our small
property in East Feliciana Parish.
In September, there was an adult hen with two
poults (about her size) and two more adult hens that
had not produced young. Then one day these five tur-
keys became 11 turkeys that I watched for a few days.
And then all the turkeys disappeared from October
through December. In late January, the turkeys were
back, scratching under a big pine tree eating pine nuts.
Since then, the turkeys have once again become
regular visitors to the property and have even
brought along some of their male companions.
Their disappearance was in response to the
mast crop.Impacts of the 2014 acorn crop
Following the excellent mast crop, do we need to plant food plots in 2015?
ABOVE: Just because
there was an abundance
of mast this fall doesn’t
mean you don’t need to
pay attention to spring
and summer plantings.
RIGHT: Delores McGraw
shot this 8-point on
Nov. 22 in Gardner. The
buck was following two
does and gave McGraw
a broadside shot at 70
yards. The deer had a 19
1/8-inch inside spread and
scored 129 5/8 inches.GruntS & GobbLeS
David Moreland
Dave Moreland is the author of the new book Louisiana Whitetails,
which explains how to grow big deer and where to hunt them.
The book is available at http://www.ShopSportsmanStore.com and at
Amazon.com.