Spent Thurs. through Sun. opening weekend on the lease btw Gonzales & Waelder just south of I10. Saw very few doe and 5 of us got one buck. Didn't seem they were ready for us yet. Friend who visited in the area last weekend said there was 6in. rain and little activity. He saw more skunks than bucks.

Saw all the other county questions were from west Texas & wondering if anyone has more news of the east of San Antonio area?

Thx, Ben_Franklin
Have a Happy Thanksgiving

3 inches on my place out towards belmont. bucks are not ready yet, neither or the does. acorns are plentiful, but sure to sour in a day or so with all the rain. that's good news, as the corn is just now beginning to be eaten by the deer. hope the weather gets um goin! will be there thru the holiday with the family.........

HAPPY THANKSGIVING and be careful and safe!

Hey your in my backyard!

Yep, we got a Lot of rain the other day. A friend in this same area you and I are in has one of the National Weather Service rain gauges and it measured 6.45" total. At least it washed all the acorns away!

Franklin, I hunt in Smiley,Tx which is in Gonzales Co. Haven't seen many deer either so many acorns on the ground no need for corn hopefully this weather will rot the acorns on the ground. Don't about the rut last year this time it was over where I hunt. I haven't been able to see any deer to tell if there starting or ending the rut! Has anyone seen any signs of the rut?

Good signs on Friday.

Hunted Wed, Thur, Fri. Not much happening until Friday.

Bucks running traps now. Not really chasing, but gearing up! does and buck are WET

I've hunted or guided just about every day of the season through 11/23, in some very good country here in DeWitt county. Deer movement is very low with ample acorns on the ground and abundant cover. We have seen some "legal" deer this week but all my hunters have passed them up. The large bucks have been tending scrape lines.

For the record, acorns need about 45 of moisture to loose their appeal. With the cooler temperatures they can keep a lot longer than that. They are going to be around for a while. In the long run that is good, for the hunting season and the kill, that's bad. I don't know if I ever have seen a crop as good as what we are seeing this year.

I wish I had the energy of my youth. About ten years ago we had a pretty good crop. We collected several hundred pounds of them and they kept very well. Actually used them the following year to our favor!

Rain gets on the acorns, worms, and they sour. Deer lose their appeal to them.

Up until this week, the deer hadn't touched a corn feeder. Once we got the 3 inches last week, acrons gone bad, they are now coming to the feeders regularly. If any corn outside the pen, they eat. They are still hesitant, or NOT hungry enough to jump the fence yet!

So what are the odds of a second crop???
I'm on the Guaudalupe/Wilson line. Also have a place between Bandera and Kerville and a few years ago there
was a second crop and I had corn growing under my feeder
until late December!

Hunted Thurs & Fri wanted to this morning but the rains came last night. Never saw a deer or hog & the corn is piled up under the feeders. Would like to get some opinions on this! I hunt 300acs in Smiley, Tx it hasn't been hunted in 7yrs (this is family land). I hardly ever see deer on the property or while sitting in a stand. It has lots of brush/cover, oaks, water on the property, & is surrounded by other ranches that aren't hunted. To me this should almost be deer paradise. What do ya'll think!

sounds good to me. i think after this rain, you should see whats gonna happen with the corn. if you have tracks around your feeder, they're there! just may have to wait um out!

Thanks for the advice ranch dog I'll try & stick with it. Do you think hunting will get better towards the latter part of the season?

TxBuck, I can only talk about my place but we aren't that far apart.

My ranch experiences three peaks of breeding activity:
• October 15
• November 12
• December 10

These dates are based on some rock solid data, the fawn drop dates backed up a 200 day gestation period. I hunt and record actual drops as they take place in the spring and over the years it gives me some very reliable dates. Weather & temperature, food supply, or whatever isn't going to change it; mother nature dictates it. Those factors might influence what we see but it will go on whether we observe it or not.

The best days to hunt are about 4 days either side of those dates, hunt the does and you will see bucks. I take it further and define some specific times to hunt. The moon rise, transit, and set times are the best in my opinion. Here is an image from Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day...



December 10, will be an excellent day to be out there all day. Moon rise with sunrise and moon set with sunset! It is a very short day and might as well be spent on stand!

The breeding isn't distributed evenly across the does. Herd health and composition decides that. I have a very healthy deer herd and a very balanced buck to doe ratio. 10% of my does will breed in October, 80% in November, and 10% in December. A poor buck to doe ratio might string is out another month (28 day cycle).

Bottom line, I've missed the best opportunity to kill a buck by not shooting in November. The cover and acorn crop prevented me from seeing the activity but it took place never the less.

Ranchdog, Thankyou for sharing some of your personal hunting info. I'am gonna do my best to be hunting that weekend. Thanks again.

TxBuck... There is a little work to be done between now and then and very little time to do it! You need to find a "predictable path of movement" for the deer. It isn't and won't be to or from a deer feeder this year.

I have noticed more and more deer in my food plots about an hour after dark. All does. Over the next couple of days, I'm going to work around the food plots about 400 yards in diameter out to try to see if there is any notable places to intercept a buck monitoring those does heading to the fields. I'm going to guess the southwest side of the plots as me tend to have a northeast breeze. That eliminates a couple of the plots right off the bat but truly identifies one with flat bottom land along that edge. I'm going to be checking out this area and will report back!

You have any terrain features or food sources that may be you have over looked? Don't forget pecans. Deer prefer Live Oak acorns over Post Oaks. This is a years that you must rack you brain for the details

I was out in the Smiley / Pilgrim area the week before Thanksgiving. Saw around 6 does, one spike, one nice 8 point and one 10 point that I shot. Saw a lot more deer last year when it was dry. Lots of food out for the deer to choose.

The week before Thanksgiving, around the 15th (?), is a prime time for rutting behavior in this area. See my post several entries above with the dates.

I'm involved with a big buck contest in this area and a rule of thumb that is verified time and time again is that a winner isn't produced after Thanksgiving.

Your acorn experience and observations pretty well parallel mine. I'm far to the North of you in Montague County and high winds and rain/snow have done nothing to the acorns. We still have a bumper crop on the trees and deer sighting is hit or miss. Hunting is lousy for me but the deer are in beautiful shape. A friend of mine has a place about 20 miles North that is all mesquite. He is seeing huge bucks come to his corn feeders. Even the hogs aren't messing with corn on my place.

I decided to count my acorns today , see my thread

Acorn Count in Southern Post Oak Savannah

Feeders are still out of the picture. I've set up some tripods in the oak flats and I'm seeing some action, just haven't seen anything I want to shoot yet. The young bucks are trying to impress the ladies. I found three new scrapes today and I've started to see bucks out in the food plots checking the ladies out. I'm still calling December 10 (+/- 2 days) as the time to hunt in this area but I'm not planning on hunting feeders.

Here is a spot I really like, this is a flat between two creeks, only about 35 yards wide at this funnel. I'm seeing a lot of critters pass through here.

It was 25° when I walked from the house out into the pasture. Sat on the above tripod and didn't see a thing. Got down and started walking back home. I saw a very large buck cruising a oak flat looking for does. This deer is in the 155" to 160" range with some very notable characteristics (he was hit by a truck in the left shoulder 2 years ago late at night) and is 6 1/2 years old. I didn't see him last year and have only seen him in the past at night. He was about 250-yards out but I made no attempt to move on him as he was about 75-yards from the tripod I set up yesterday. He must be worried about loosing does to the small bucks to be out after sun up!

Ranch Dog,

I appreciate you sharing. I hunt in Cheapside (south Gonzales County) and I plan on being out there Saturday, Sunday, and possibly Monday. I don't get a chance to hunt as much b/c I live in Houston. I have the same acorn problem (depending how one looks at it). I feel like the deer can lay on their back and open their mouth and wait for the acorns to fall. The place is my in-laws and this is the first year I have hunted it, so I am still learning the travel patterns. It has a dry creek with good riparian cover that provides a natural travel corridor. That is where I have seen the most deer. I bow hunted the last weekend of bow season and the bucks I saw were chasing does in this corridor. I plan on setting up where I can watch the edge and a couple of small openings in the riparian area. I will keep everybody updated on what I see over the weekend.

Hunting is still slow. I'm walking to and from my stands in the dark without a light (up to a mile). I'm encountering about two to three times the amount of deer I see while on the stand! Even having some following be for a hundred yards are so!

Deer on my place have gone into hiding now. Seeing some small bucks looking around, but the bigger ones have not been seen in a week.