In our area it's pretty rare to have acorns left by the last day of Jan. It can happen with a bumper crop heavy to Red Oak acorns.
What I've seen is where timber has been cut with hunting in mind, that being a jigsaw pattern, leaving pinch points between cut areas, after breeding starts bucks go from thicket to thicket. Those thickets hold the doe groups and bucks use them like scrapes. I've had good success setting up in uncut pinch points between thickets. An area with hundreds of acres all cut hard, being one huge feeding/bedding area would be tougher to hunt.

The good ones ask what the landowner's management objectives are. That's why I always listen to what the landowner wants and manage accordingly. The landowners I deal with need to manage their timber to be able to afford to achieve their goals.

The problem is, very, very, very few foresters understand how to manage hardwoods SPECIFICALLY to maximum benefit for deer AND for hunters. I can count the number I know of that do on just a couple of fingers.

We've still got many, many whites under the leaves in late January, but they've gone to root and deer aren't eating them anymore. Now, reds, if we have them, the deer are still eating them until spring.

I think a lot of hunters assume "all the acorns are eaten up" because they don't see them on the ground. But blow or rake away the leaves, and they are there. Another thing to look at is deer stomach contents. Time and again, I've heard hunters claim all the acorns are gone, but deer stomach contents are still 95% acorns. They're finding them somewhere!

So, how do you manage your hardwoods?

True, just because you don't have any in your favorite hunting area, doesn't mean there aren't some on the next ridge. Stomach contents can tell a lot.

We would have no way to accurately identify the type of tree/acorn without seeing what you are seeing. Got a pic to post?

White Oak subgenus are bluff, bur, chapman, chestnut, chinquapin, live, over cup, post, sand live, sand post, swamp and white.
Red Oak subgenus are black, blackjack, bluejack, diamond leaf, laurel, live, myrtle, northern red, pin, runner scrub, shumard, southern red, swamp red, turkey, water, willow
Acorn production and oak tree genetics are not sure fire positive. Only the tree and Momma Nature (God) really know the hows and whys of mast production on a given year. But one thing is known for sure - there has to be sufficient pollination to produce healthy mast crops.
The biggest acorns I have ever seen is from the American Chestnut - they were HUGE!!! I wish I had a picture to share.

Here is some info I ran across a couple of years ago on acorns;
PROTEIN: Reds have more than whites
FAT : Reds have more than whites
CALORIES: Reds have more than whites
FIBER: Reds have more than whites
MOISTURE: Whites have more than reds
TANNINS (bitter taste): Whites have less than reds
Production: White=Annual Red=Biennial (this does not mean all trees in a specific area are on the same-year-cycle)
Term of Availability: White are short term, Reds are prolonged

Doing a GOOGLE image search will help you identify which type of acorn tree you are seeing.

Very true. That's one thing we always do. It used to be helpful to know if the neighbors were using corn feeders - back when it mattered.

If the landowner's top (or only) priority is deer, I design timber plans to specifically maximize habitat quality for deer, and to provide the best distribution of high-odds hunting situations.

And just because you don't see them laying on top of the leaves doesn't mean they aren't there.

Yep, always get a kick out of watching them run their nose under the leaves. Good time to shoulder your gun or draw your bow.

You don't know any foresters that can do that?

Just a very, very few. Most do not understand the art of habitat design to maximize hunting situations in a hardwood environment. How many foresters truly understand how combinations of terrain and habitat drive deer movement patterns, especially older buck movement patterns? A know maybe two or three.

Manipulating ground cover with the topo seems easy enough. Although nothing is 100%, but I would say that I know several.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? It's definitely not, especially maintaining the right type of habitat in the right locations as habitat grows, producing the right amount of sanctuary in the best place, interconnecting those sanctuaries through huntable locations, maximizing habitat diversity, creating the right habitat edges in the perfect locations, etc.

I'll bet those two or three understand how bucks move in relation to the terrain and are good hunters themselves .

I'd like to see some of the examples that you have. I always like to learn new techniques.

That would cost you a pretty penny!

Many, many years of research into how bucks use terrain and habitat, as well as hunter success-based analysis by stand situation have gone into my designs.

This is a interesting conversation. I have been concerned about the lack of acorns since this spring. The way my house is built, I literally live up the the tree tops, so I have a pretty good view when it comes to looking for acorns. What I have observed in NW AL is that there are very few acorns to be had this year. The white oak acorns were tee tiny and fell off prematurely. The red oak acorns that have fell so far look normal on the outside, but every single one that I have cut open was rotten inside.
So, I'm curious to see how it turns out. If you can find a good acorn tree, it could be the only one for miles around?
I always thought that acorn production was related to the amount of rainfall from the previous fall?

Not really. So many factors are involved with acorn production that picking out the most important one is virtually impossible.

And the really crazy thing is I've observed vast differences in acorn production between the same species of tree within a few miles of each other.