throw something entirely different.

How many acorns around? Which side of Comanche?

I live in Comanche and hunt in Mills & Hamilton counties. In some places, the deer aren’t touching corn due to acorns. In other places, the deer are mowing down the corn as soon as it hits the ground.

A flicker of hope.

So, I am wondering how much of an area (what size) does your pen cover. Deer do not normally like to jump into small enclosures. They will, but not unless they have no other options. Sounds like they have better options from what you are mentioning, in your thread. Does and fawns prefer to slip under and or through a fence, when they can. Mostly, it seems that the deer don’t like your setup, or they like stuff meone else’s better.

Also, it Sounds like you don’t like feeding the hogs...if that is the case, just thin them out. Many years ago, I quit messing with feeders, as I got tired of the cattle breaking down my pens, tearing the feeders up. (Hogs can do the same thing, just to a lesser extent.) So I just started throwing out a couple bags of feed at several different locations, each time I arrived at deer camp..nothing for the cattle to tear up, and they can’t really get at the corn, if you spread it out enough. Then the hogs showed up, en masse...so I thinned them out (which mostly scared them off to adjoining properties) and I got lots of good hog meat to eat, and left the boars to the coyotes (which I also would shoot for the furs)...because the bait stations were large, usually an acre insize, the deer would show up in groups of 8 to 10 does/yearlings/fawns (instead of ones, twos)...Also the bucks would come in to scent check the does, when they were feeding at my bait stations. Basically, the bucks started coming in more regular than before. So once I started, the feeding stations, I began to put out doe in estrus scent, when I fed out, and even dripped it from my truck on the side of the road as I was leaving the feeding stations. What happened, is that the bucks would temporarily take up residence on my territory, and go into Rut Mode, while I was there...while the results will take a couple days or more to work...a long trip to hunting camp will prove productive...As with anything, the deer will take time to condition themselves to any new strategy. It took me a year to get the deer accustomed to my bait stations, but I encountered many mature bucks, that I had seldom seen previously. Anyway, this method is much less expensive and once successfully adopted, can increase your mature buck sightings. Hope this insight helps!