Agriculture can draw plenty of deer, but savvy hunters know all fields aren’t created equal. Here’s how to pick your hot crop spots in the Carolinas.
A common denominator for deer-hunting hot spots in the Carolinas is the presence of agriculture fields. Not all terrain is suited for large-scale crops of soybeans, corn, peanuts, sorghum and cotton, but a lot is utilized for this purpose.
Agriculture provide sensational deer hunting if you know when and how to hunt it.
A slightly twisted popular movie phrase, “If you plant it, they will come” is not an exaggeration. Despite attracting a lot of deer to a localized areas, consistent hunting success around crop fields is not a given. Planning and implementing strategy based on specific circumstances and individual fields are keys to success.
Powell Kemp from Scotland Neck, N.C., runs a 15,000-acre commercial hunting operation, Carolina Woods and Waters, in northeastern North Carolina. A large part of it in agriculture cropland.
“Of our total acres, around 7,000 acres is in various types of agriculture crops, and I’ve learned many interesting things over the 15 years I’ve had the hunting operation,” said Kemp (252-341-9804), who understands above all, that not all crop fields are equal.
“Crops differ in terms of attracting and holding deer in an area, and they are not all productive at the same time,” he said. “Peak and slow times are the norm for different crops. Understand the peak times and move your hunting location when appropriate, and hunters can enjoy crop-field hunting for a long period.”
Kemp, 35, said his favorite crop to hunt over is soybeans, and the early season is ideal for this crop.
“Beans attract and grow our deer, and they provide an excellent food source that’s available for an extended period,” he said. “But as the bean attraction fades, other crops will provide good hunting. The beans in our area are usually great until later in September, maybe early October. As they begin to turn yellow, deer don’t work them as hard. But after it gets colder, after a frost, the deer will get back on them hard, and beans will again be a premier attractant later in the season. This may occur in late October and into November.
“Peanuts are very good, but the prime time for them is a short period, usually late-September and October, when they are harvested and sit on top of the ground,” he said. “It’s like a buffet, and deer love them.”
Another crop Kemp said produces excellent hunting is corn, but it has a short window for prime hunting.
“Before the corn is cut, deer congregate in big numbers but are extremely difficult to see,” he said. “As soon as the corn is cut, that very evening, it becomes one of my favorite areas to target a big buck. Corn harvesters are extremely efficient now, and less corn is left in the field than in the past. The first few days are when I’ll see scads of deer, but that first day is the prime time for a big buck. After that, they get wary.”
Kemp said that peanut fields and corn fields have similar traits after the prime time is over.
“When peanut and corn fields have had their brief time of outstanding hunting, the productivity falls way off,” he said. “You would have about as much luck hunting a paved parking lot during daylight hours for a good buck. But we plant cover crops on all our fields, with oats being my favorite crop. Thus, later in the season, this cover crop will provide the greenery to again attract deer.”
Cotton fields don’t rank high on most hunters’ lists of favorite crops, but Kemp said cotton fields have upsides.
“Deer will eat in cotton fields, but cotton plants are not a highly favored food source,” he said. “Cotton does provide great cover, because it’s typically high enough to hide three-quarters or more of a deer. If food crops such as beans, peanuts or corn are nearby, deer will use cotton fields as travel routes and a food source as they move toward the primary food source.”
Matt Willis of Summerville, S.C., hunts the heavy agricultural region along the coastal plain and in inland counties. Like most experienced hunters, Willis, 48, learned many lessons about hunting fields through experience. That has made him study the dynamics of why and how deer come to fields in numbers.
“One key is to understanding the travel route a deer takes from bedding and water areas to this mecca of feeding grounds,” he said. “I learned early on unless I consider the field and all the surrounding area in an overall assessment of where, and how to prepare stands, I set myself up for failure.”
Willis said that deer will have focal points they prefer based on the overall habitat.
“Considerations include bedding cover, security areas, water and, of course, protective access to the crop field,” he said. “Randomly picking a stand location just because of good visibility is not a high-percentage effort. I’ve learned stand placement, stealthy ingress and egress and playing the wind are just as crucial as any deer-hunting scenario.”
Willis said implementing a specific strategy for a field based on the terrain adjacent to the field is paramount.
“Deer don’t just randomly wander around the woods and decide to walk out to feast on crops with no regard to safety,” he said. “They travel, utilizing available cover such as thickets, funnels and topography changes to reach the agriculture fields. They enter fields from areas that are isolated with good visibility and quick safety access.
“Specifically, deer prefer to enter from isolated pockets and corners,” he said. “With a good map, you can often mark the bedding and water areas and figure a basic route to these places. Even when you’ve done that, scout using binoculars at long ranges to precisely identify places deer routinely enter the field.”
Willis said the next decision is based on whether you bow or gun hunt.
“If you bowhunt, get close to these areas where deer enter the field,” he said. “You have to get in those remote pockets, but select a stand site with wind, sun angle and concealment in mind. Setting up a bow stand requires a stealthy ingress and egress strategy, but it can be very rewarding.”
If using a rifle, the thought process changes totally, Willis said.
“With a rifle, you can get away from the deer entry areas,” he said. “I look for points, wooded islands in fields and corners around the field to place stands. I want to see into the entry pockets as well as a large expanse of the open field. Proper distance is a personal decision, but within reason, longer distances are preferred because issues such as scent are mitigated. For some, that distance may be 100 yards, for others, 200 yards or more. Hunters capable of shooting long range usually have a better chance of seeing big bucks and more deer, but it’s no benefit unless they can place the bullet in the kill zone.”
Robert Johnson of Cherryville, N.C., has hunted deer for 32 years, extensively hunting agriculture fields in both Carolinas. He said the time of day to hunt crop fields will vary as the season progresses.
“Early season agriculture field hunting is almost exclusively an evening-only hunt,” he said. “Trying to hunt a field in the morning during the early season is almost always a mistake, as it is difficult to enter the field without spooking deer. Once disturbed in the morning, I’ve found it will likely mess up the potentially great evening hunting, so it’s not worth the risk.”
Johnson said soybeans are his favorite crop to hunt over, but he will move to different fields as they reach their prime.
“Soybeans are great early, but once that slows, I take inventory of the fields I can hunt and target the ones that offer the best potential for success at that time,” he said. “Soybeans will again become an excellent draw for deer later in the season, once we get cold weather. By then, the corn (field) and peanut field hunting will have declined. Hunting crops that offer the peak food source at any given time is crucial to agriculture field hunting success.”
Johnson said the timing of the peak seasons will change according to where you hunt in the Carolina’s. If you have opportunities to hunt in widely different areas, the opportunity to effectively hunt soybeans longer is one example.
Kemp said the success of his operation depends on a good analysis of the specific crop, the time of the season you’re hunting and quality of habitat in and around the fields. He said deer are attracted in big numbers to these areas, but random hunting will only produce random results.
“Every time we hunt, I want to have specific reasons why a stand is hunted to increase our odds of success,” he said. “Sorghum is a good example. It’s not high on my list until late in the season when the seed heads are full and mature. But then, it can attract plenty of deer.”
And he takes it one step further.
“It’s easy to overhunt an excellent crop field,” Kemp said. “When deer are coming to a spot in big numbers, it’s hard to stay away, but I firmly believe you need to let a spot rest between hunts. It’s especially true for big bucks. I typically give my stands a week between hunts, and that lower pressure seems to make a big productivity difference. If I know a hunter doesn’t shoot but sees a lot of deer, and he get in and out of a stand without spooking deer, that stand can be hunted again sooner. But shooting a deer, or alerting deer going to or from the stand, creates human intrusion, so I let it rest.”
Willis said the tactics for hunting fields will vary with the location, but hunters need to analyze the crops that are available.
“We don’t always have a diverse number of agriculture crops where I hunt, so we adapt,” he said. “One example is I discovered in recent years is that if everything in my area is cotton, deer will eat cotton plants more, but most years, we have a variety, and I consider the crops available to hunt and make my plan accordingly, allowing these large fields of food to attract the deer.”
This season, make a hunting strategy based on the crop fields available, and your success will likely soar.
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