More than any other factor, the presence of hard and soft mast on our hunting properties influences deer movement during the fall. (Photo courtesy of Shutterstock)
September 17, 2024
By Bruce Ingram
Whether you hunt whitetails, bears or turkeys in the fall, talk in hunting camp will inevitably turn to the status of the season’s mast crop. Every year around late summer, I receive the hard- and soft-mast reports from the Virginia DWR and the West Virginia DNR. Game biologists with those agencies provide excellent overviews of the mast situation each year. But just like the saying “all politics is local,” all mast situations are too.
Each year, a month or so prior to the season, before hanging stands, cutting shooting lanes or checking on my ladder stands, I do a boots-on-the-ground assessment of both the hard- and soft-mast situations to make sure all my prep work is not wasted.
High-tech gear, cell phone apps and trail cams are all helpful, but the only way you can accurately determine the hard-mast and soft-mast situations (and both are important) is to venture into your hunting areas and utilize some old-fashioned woodsmanship to identify individual species of hard- and soft-mast producers by their bark, leaves and nuts or fruits. The fact that your home state may have rated the current mast crop as “spotty” doesn’t mean a thing if, for example, a late killing frost slammed your oaks in the spring. That can easily result in a failed mast crop and a dearth of deer activity.
GET BOOK SMART Two of my most important low-tech gear items are the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Trees: Eastern Region and Peterson’s Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs. Armed with these two tomes, I ramble over the Old Dominion and Mountain State properties I have permission to hunt prior to hunting season. What I learn on those late-summer days largely determines whether I will be successful come the various bow and gun seasons.
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Being able to identify specific acorn species, like these red oaks, can mean greater hunting success. (Photo courtesy of Shutterstock) For example, individual properties—even ones near each other—can have various species of acorns that ripen and drop at different times. One Virginia property where I hunt every September features several scarlet oak trees that, among all the property’s oaks, are typically the first to drop acorns every autumn.
From studying field guides and simply being afield, I know that the scarlet oak’s acorns are about a half inch to an inch long, egg shaped and about half-enclosed by a deep cup. I also know that the mature tree itself has dark, grayish bark with plates and about 6-inch-long leaves that are deeply cut with lobes with bristles. As you might guess given the tree’s name, those leaves turn scarlet red come fall. On that property, I expect to arrow a doe or two every September because of that knowledge.
White oaks can influence deer patterns more than any other hard-mast species. If you find them, sit on them. (Photo courtesy of Shutterstock) I own a 94-acre mountainous parcel in West Virginia where, 15 years ago, I took a different approach to ensure that the acorn crop almost always meshes with my hunting success. I hired a logger to aggressively thin a section of hardwoods on a flat between a creek bottom and a regenerating clearcut, creating a situation where the property now has a number of different species of white and red oaks (northern red, black, scarlet, white and chinquapin oaks) all growing and all daylighted so that their crowns can expand and produce more hard mast—and more deer traffic.
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Different species of oaks flower and set their nuts at different times, which is why a killing frost can do such damage if a particular oak species happens to be in a blooming stage when the weather turns foul. But by manipulating the forest’s oak tree composition, I am largely immune from that “spotty mast” situation. In any given year, no matter what the spring weather is, at least a few species of my property’s oaks will produce nuts. And many years all or most of the oaks will prove bountiful, and for several months the deer will file through the flat.
DON’T FORGET SOFT MAST Eastern hunters are understandably obsessed with what the acorn situation will be every autumn, but we should be knowledgeable about the common species of soft-mast producers in our home states, too. For instance, the three species of grapes that are most common in our region are the summer, fox and frost. The summer and fox are more common in the East’s southerly states, while the frost dominates in New England.
In Virginia and West Virginia, the persimmons ripen around the third week of November. (Photo courtesy of Shutterstock) Yes, the presence (or lack) of acorns will almost always heavily influence deer movement, but when grapes are ripe and available, you can bet that deer will check them out. An ideal stand could be one where the grapes are ripe and one or more oak species are dropping their nuts. Deer are browsers and consume a large variety of wild foods. Think of acorns as the main course and soft-mast menu items such as grapes, pawpaws, cherries, sumacs, haws, hackberries, viburnums, plums and persimmons as deer desserts.
For instance, in Virginia and West Virginia, the persimmons ripen around the third week of November. When these sweet, orange, golf-ball-size globes begin to plummet to the forest floor, deer traffic can be intense no matter what the acorn crop is like.
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN Make note of the mast forecasts for your state this fall, and if your state doesn’t issue a mast report, pick up the phone or email your game agency and ask. Better still, bring along some field guides to every property you plan to hunt, and learn just what the hard- and soft-mast situations are down to the individual trees and shrubs.
This article was featured in the September 2024 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe .
