"Hey Honey, can you stop and pick up dinner?"

In our area, it seems like there has been a low amount of mast-tree production, such as acorns and pecans. I'm not a botanist, but I'm told this could be because of heavy (yet early) rains, and subsequent periods of little-to-no rain. This can be both good and bad as we pursue whitetails.

On the downside, obviously this means that there is less abundance of nutrition available to deer and other wildlife. However, I've seen some nice-sized deer this year, both on camera and in person. So maybe it hasn't affected their overall health.

On the positive side, if you're willing to bring dinner to the deer, they'll be more willing to come to the table! When deer can pick and choose where and what they eat, hunters are at a disadvantage because the deer are not motivated to seek out food. It's all around them. During low-producing years though, when deer find a good food source, they are more likely to keep checking that area ... Especially when the food keeps magically appearing!

Some ideas:

Well, the first option of course, is setting up a feeder loaded with corn. By setting the feeder times to coincide with shooting hours, you create a situation where deer learn when food is available. Be sure to set these times in line with sunrise and sunset. Morning feed should typically be set to disperse at sun up, so that deer don't show up for breakfast before you have enough light to shoot. Evening times can vary from an hour or two before sunset or as late as 30 minutes prior, depending upon game movement in your area. The key is to not set the time too late, or else it will be too dark to shoot by the time the deer show up.

You don't have to use a feeder to broadcast corn. A strategy I've had success with is carrying corn to the desired location in a coffee can or five-gallon bucket. You can also carry molasses or dark corn syrup and drizzle it over the corn and on a few tree trunks nearby. I've heard of folks creating a mixture of corn and molasses, but this seems pretty labor-intensive regarding transport and distribution.

If you have pecan or oak trees in your yard, or have neighbors or friends who do, you're in luck. Many times these valuable nuts are bagged and set to the curb during Fall. Ask around. Deer don't care whether the acorns actually came from a tree in their neighborhood, and this is a lot cheaper than buying deer corn. To use this tactic, you can either spread the acorns and/or pecans around to create a forage scenario, or just put them in a large pile within a shooting lane.

There are many other inventive and successful feeding strategies, but these are some I've been working with this year. Feel free to leave a comment with anything that has been working for you!