Ani-Logics Outdoors

No matter where you are in the country, chances are high that the deer in your area have been hunted to the point that daytime activity has greatly decreased compared to earlier in the year.  Even if you have been careful not to over-hunt your property, the surrounding land owners might not have been so careful, leaving you with deer that seem nocturnal.  My thought is that even in the heaviest hunted areas, deer are not actually nocturnal, they just appear that way.  They hold close to bedding cover and only venture out into the open at night, so they are nocturnal on your food plot, but not nocturnal in the literal sense of the word.

So if you are experiencing decreased daylight activity on your hunting location, what should you do?  My suggestion (if it’s legal in your state) is to buy an automatic feeder and program it to feed an hour after sun-rise and two hours before sunset.  We have a SPIN version of Supplement Gold that is designed to work great with automatic spin feeders.  It’s the same formula as our original Supplement Gold, but the fines have been pelletized so you don’t lose anything to the wind if you use an automatic spin feeder.

As daylight length decreases, you may have to adjust feeding times every couple weeks in order to stay ahead of the game.  This time of year, natural food sources have dwindled to the point that deer will venture to find a secure source of food.  In areas of the Midwest that typically receive heavy snow and long winters, the deer will congregate around food sources.  Before the snow piles up, deer will expand their home range looking for viable late season food sources.  That is why you see bucks on late season food sources that you haven’t seen before.  If you wait until January to start feeding your deer for the winter, you may miss deer that cruised through in early December when they were scouting food options.  If you are in an area that deer shy away from traditional feeders, try using feeders that blend into the woods such as this automatic stump feeder.

If you don’t want to use a feeder, you can still pour feed directly on the ground, but you will have to do every day in order for this strategy to work.  What I mean is that you have to put just enough food out so that it’s completely gone by nighttime.  I suggest less than ten pounds.  Your objective is to make the feed seem like if they don’t hurry to get it, then there won’t be any left.  If you are in a state where you can’t feed during hunting season, try finding scrapes to put your camera on.

On my hunting lease in Nebraska, we have a spin feeder located on a hedgerow.  The woods are only 20 yards wide so it isn’t great bedding cover, but deer move through there on their way to and from large agricultural fields surrounding the property.

The rules in Nebraska are that you can hunt using a feeder as long as your tree stand is at least 200 yards from the feeding site.  What I have done, is place my stand between the bedding area and the feeder, so any deer heading to the feeder will have to pass by my stand.   We will see how the strategy works after this weekend.  There is a snow storm that will hit the upper Midwest from Tuesday through Thursday, so I’m looking forward to hunting with colder temps after the front moves through.

-Tim Neuman, Wildlife Biologist