Changes in the landscape will move deer into new places as summer ends, and North Carolina hunters who understand them will take more deer.
Deer hunters know scouting is an important part of success, but many don’t know, like everything in the natural world, changes occur that alter deer patterns.
Some hunters believe scouting means spending a few hours during the preseason in a truck or riding a four-wheeler near fields to observe whitetails filtering out of woods at dusk to feed on crops.
Deer seen; scouting done; checklist completed. A few days before archery season begins, they’ll place stands in trees on trails leading from woods to those fields. But crop availability — and deer movement — may not be the same for long, leaving some hunters to enjoy a few days watching squirrels.
What happened to all those big bucks that hunters were seeing, carrying wide, velvet racks, feeding in those agricultural fields? They changed their habits because of landscape changes that typically occur in late September and early October, when summer gives way to fall.
“Deer do like to eat agricultural crops, such as soybeans and corn,” said Jonathan Shaw, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s top deer biologist. “But in the early spring, fall and winter, they usually eat forbs.”
Forbs are classified as “herbaceous flowering plants” and include clover, sunflowers, milkweed and daylilies. They often grow at field edges and sometimes in open forests with good sunlight penetration.
Summer is when most agricultural crops are young, tender and tasty, which is why hunters see deer in fields. But that pattern changes, and it’s caused not by crops, but a certain acorn variety that begins to drop in September.
“Deer would rather eat white oak acorns than anything,” said Jack Rich of Graham, N.C., a veteran deer hunter with a quite a few trophy bucks under his belt.
Corn — as bait or standing on the stalk — might be attractive, but white oak acorns have protein and apparently are tastier to deer.
In North Carolina’s coastal plain, pin oaks and chinquapin acorns provide the main draw for deer because of low tannin concentrations; tannin is bitter, and many acorn varieties have high amounts of tannin. However, hunters who seek isolated areas of relative higher elevation may find a single white oak or pin oak that draws whitetails like nectar lures bees.
Except for pin oaks, which fall in August, nearly every oak tree that produces acorns drops them in September or early October. Also, some oaks only produce acorns every other year.
Seasoned hunters know why deer seem to disappear from open fields in late September — acorns are beginning to fall — and big acorn crops even can affect total deer harvests.
In 2014, North Carolina’s statewide deer harvest was down 18.3 percent from 2013. The cause: a double-edged sword — a massive acorn fall and epizootic hemorrhagic disease that devastated herds. Acorns kept deer that were untouched by EHD in the woods.
Biologists agreed that, even without EHD, the acorn crop probably would have put a large dent in that year’s harvest.
“Deer will walk a mile to get to a white oak tree that’s dropping acorns,” Rich said.
This one food-supply change often is enough to mean success for hunters who factor it into their stand locations.
Shaw said whitetails, no matter whether they live, eat forbs most of the year.
“But deer will eat crops and that’s probably why the Roanoke River counties always lead the state in harvest,” he said. “But in the late summer, forbs aren’t that palatable. Fortunately for eastern deer, lots of soft mast is available while they make the transition from grains to acorns.”
Shaw said deer in North Carolina’s Piedmont deer go through the same transition — herbs, grains, soft mast, then hard mast.
“They depend on oak species, if it’s white or red oaks,” he said. “One will flower one year and produce acorns the next. White oaks have a more boom-and-bust tendency, especially during drought years.”
In the mountains, notorious few natural food choices and little agricultural land, deer key on what’s available, Shaw noted.
“The issue in the mountains is (lack of) contiguous sunlight on the ground,” he said. “Forbs are limited in the mountains. Deer depend on grasses, soft mast and acorns, plus lawns and planted bushes. But so many people have moved to the mountains, (cleared land) now offers deer many more choices in what’s available to eat and caused a spike in numbers and harvests out there.”
Weather also changes deer locations from summer to fall, Shaw said.
“Deer are like us; they want to be comfortable,” he said. “During hot weather, they certainly look for cooler, shady areas. When it’s cold, they look for warmer spots.”
In summer and early fall, that would include low-lying, shaded areas or north-facing slopes. During late fall and winter, deer spend more time, especially when bedding, on south-facing hillsides that receive more daily sunlight.
Another change most hunters notice is a switch in deer-coat colors. The rust- or reddish-color of southern whitetails’ coats in summer is related to weather, according to biologists.
“That transition starts in summer and ends by early fall,” Shaw said. “They go from rust color to brown or gray. I think the winter color change is related to camouflage.”
Deer have two types of fur, a thin undercoat for summer that presents as a strikingly reddish-rust color. It allows a deer’s body heat to escape and helps keep them cool. But whitetails molt in fall, as a longer, gray or brown coat of hollow hair extends about 2 inches longer than the thin undercoat. This outer coat’s air-filled follicles thicken and hold heat during cold weather.
Early fall is also when the reproductive instinct changes the way deer behave toward each other and alters their movements.
Where bucks, does, yearlings and fawns may spend time together in early summer, when their velvet-covered antlers really begin to grow, bucks will form all-male bachelor groups. When September arrives and testosterone levels increase, older bucks will drive off younger ones.
“The 1½-year-old bucks go through a dispersal process,” Shaw said. “Fifth to 75 percent of 1½-year-old bucks will take off and go several miles and set up camp. The process occurs before the breeding season, so it happens in the fall.
“In most situations, a yearling buck will be put completely out of its comfort zone. They get hit by cars and walk in front of hunters. That’s why a lot of people say 1½-year-old bucks are the dumbest animals alive.”
Does with newborn fawns actually start the process in May or June by forcing out yearling bucks until fawns are weaned. Then the does allow the yearlings to return and stay for a while, until the rut begins.
“(In the fall) the bucks separate into bachelor groups to scrape, rub and mark territory,” Shaw said. “The testosterone drives the antler cycle and causes the antlers to harden, then bucks aren’t tolerant of each other, and they separate to rub and scrape.”
Depending on their age, maturity and presence of other, older bucks, an individual male whitetail of 2 years or older may change locations during the pre-rut. During the pre-rut, rut and post-rut, mature bucks also often expand their home ranges, probably in a search for receptive does.
“There’s a ton of variability by home range, sex, age, habitat and physical ability of individual bucks,” Shaw said. “Their core areas can be a few hundred acres to a few thousand acres. A square mile is a good guess as to the average buck’s range during this time, but then there’s no such thing as an average deer.”
For the most part, summer ranges are smaller than core areas, likely because food is more abundant. Later into fall, the combination of food and sex drives, competition from other bucks and the number of local does are determining factors for core-area dimensions.
“Core areas may expand in the fall because a buck gets on the trail of a hot doe, follows her, leaves his core area for one he likes better because of the presence of does or the lack of a dominant buck that may have died in front of a hunter or got hit by an automobile,” Shaw said. “I also think some bucks just go on excursions to test out surrounding areas.”
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