South Carolina did a study after they legalized baiting and collared some deer and found that it made them more nocturnal and move less other than the rut . It’s easy found online. I don’t care if one baits or not but it’s a interesting study to read . As has been mentioned ppl have been Corning for years but it’s Probably more common now and out in more places .

Big acorn crop showed down deer sightings in my club. Starting to pick up now.

I've been taking in deer for over 30yrs and December is always slow. Every year no exceptions.

I love December. That is when I take all my leave.

Yep. Very large acreages and lots of data in that study. Bottom line is deer in areas with bait were harder to kill and hunters much less satisfied with their deer observations and success than in areas without bait.

Did the study use feed troughs, gravity feeders, or spin feeders?

Easier it is to fill that belly less they gotta move,,,, part of it

Not disagreeing, but what difference does a food plot vs. corn make regarding nocturnality?

They also recorded harvest data from both areas. There were statistically significant differences between the body weights in the areas with feed vs areas without. Also behavioral differences were substantial. Deer in better condition move less, resulting in fewer hunter observations and kills. If you need a good example look at December 2021. Stellar growing season all summer, ridiculous acorn crop, warm weather, feed everywhere, processors taking fewer deer, GC numbers less than last year, etc. Deer are in superb condition right now and they’re not having to move.

The GPS collared deer in the study in areas with no bait moved and browsed throughout the day at a much higher rate than deer in the baited area. Bucks in the baited area moved from one corn pile to the next in search of does almost exclusively at night. Bucks in the other area were on their feet in rut in day light. Take it for what you want. I’ve seen the exact same thing to be true here in some areas. In others not so much.

Interesting. Basically we’re introducing an unnatural food source and changing a deers natural behavior.

Some people have to report to work this yr the past 2 yrs people hunted all the time and shot the piss out of em

Lots of good points in this thread. All of which I think play a part. Deer hunting has been on the decline in this state. Over inflated cost to lease, long seasons and virtually no enforcible bag limits. Who else saw this coming?

I don’t know what the reason is but we are getting fewer deer on cameras seeing fewer deer and less deer showing up at feeders and food plots day and night. Food plots look like we have had an electric fence around them and every other year they would look like a putting green by now.

Bumper acorn crop due to wet summer

Maybe so, been hunting here 12 years or so first time I ever seen it like this.

You absolutely cannot draw ANY statistical conclusion on the limited sample of the first month or so of rifle season. This is no downward trend, period, full stop.

You know your two sentences completely contradict one another, right?


This is just my opinion but this is what I predict will happen......I think we are likely just on the backside of that peak now.

Mostly out of boredom with the rain I looked a little closer at the kill numbers this year compared to last. Since we still have the rut yet to go in many areas I just looked at specifically the doe numbers…..I think their kill rate is less impacted by these other variables than with bucks. In other words, if someone wants to just go shoot a doe then it usually isn’t that hard regardless of the time of year, weather, etc….as long as you have deer around most people could probably go shoot a doe at will…..Right now with roughly 40 days left in the season we are sitting at 50% of last years total amount of does killed….What is more interesting though is that the decrease isn’t evenly spread out across counties. You have some counties like Blount for example….that’s sitting at 72% of last year’s total. That means that they really aren’t too far off of last years rate and it likely that they will come in fairly close before its over. You also have Autuagua at 65%......Lawrence at 73%.......Cleburne at 61%.......The reason I mention that is because you have counties that are on the opposite end of that spectrum and those are the ones that would raise red flags. These are the counties that are lagging behind the most compared to last years doe numbers. I find it a little interesting that several of them are the state’s most populous deer densities……Maybe they will catch up over the next 40 days.....Time will tell.

Bullock 43%
Choctaw 45%
Clarke 43%
Lamar 40%
Mobile 40%
Marion 42%
Houston 41%
Madison 42%
Colbert 41%
Franklin 43%

My doe # is down because I made the decision this year to not shoot a doe . Had opportunities at almost ever sit to kill one just made the choice of not killing one on our land . I will shoot a buck if the right one comes by but I’ve reached the age I don’t have to kill a deer to feel good about myself . Get more enjoyment from watching them than killing. Still have meat from last year and a friend has given me one this year .

We have 1050 acres leased, and have killed 3 doe's and 1 buck. That also includes hunters like me, and several others letting doe's walk because we want to kill a buck, and increase our deer density. My lease is in Shelby County. I have several green fields that look mowed, and then I came back in with a supplemental fertilizer application on a lot of them, which has allowed the mowed ones to catch up. I have some fields that look like nothing has touched them.

As far as I know, there are 5 feeders out on the property. 3 timer spin feeders, a trough and a gravity moultrie. We said no baiting green fields this year to cut down on pressure, and that seems to have helped the doe sightings on green fields. My lease is in Shelby Co, and I think we are on the low side of what they say deer density per square mile is. Range is 30 to 60. So best case I have 120 deer on my lease, roughly, worse, 60. We limed last year, and then I had a few spots I didn't get that I limed this year with pellet lime.

I am feeding triple grip in my feeders, which is corn, soybeans and peanuts. It has higher crude protein than corn alone. Deer seem to like it. I am not 100% convinced corn is the answer. What I am doing with my feeders is putting them on a twice daily broadcast, for about 5 seconds each.

I think one of the main reasons you see lower success with corn is because people camp out on it. That is what saw last year on one of my fields, and it was the main reason we decided to quit letting people bait the green fields. Person puts corn out on the ground, and then hangs a camera on it. Everything under the sun eats it. Deer, coons, rabbits, crows, squirrels, chipmunks, turkeys, etc. Then they constantly check the camera because they want to pattern the deer eating the corn. Then they have to put more and more out as more coons, turkeys and other animals eat it, and it creates so much extra traffic and pressure, people see less deer.


I saw more deer last year in my club, than the prior year, and this year I am approaching what I saw last year already. I saw nearly 30 during bow season in 2020, I saw 6 in 2021, so I have seen way more deer after bow season, and alot of them I have seen on greenfields, which wasn't the case last year.