What would be considered too late to plant oats in the San Saba area, thanks.

Heavens no, plant it.

In fact, deer prefer oats that are just emerging and haven't achieved 'grown height'.

Most of your deer will be on the Mast Crop (acorns) right now anyway, so a good time to plant (if for the rifle season).

If for archery season, yeah....too late.

We planted today in Mills, op. Do it!

Definitely not too late.

Anything that was planted in most of our viewing area prior to now has had very little rain to germinate anything, so now is as good a time as several weeks back.

I think of food plots as nutrition and not bait. Anytime you can increase winter nutrition is a good thing, so for me i planted last weekend and am glad to be getting rain this week. The plots will come up
In due time and feed my deer for months.

It’s a great time to plant. Army works are going away, the weather is cooling and a little moisture is on the way. The deer love the tender young growth as well.

still plenty of time to plant. I grew up hunting in Burnet, Lampasas, Llano, Mason & San Saba counties, we used to plant early, mid and late Oct. with good success. We planted in the dust and waited for the rain ...

Ground temps are still plenty warm. Plant it and pray for rain.

hope you got your seed in. The rain sure is coming down!!

Depending on the area, food plot hunting may not heat up until the last few weeks of the season once natural browse has become far more limited. Killing frosts usually translates into more shooting opportunities at food plots.

Dan I would tend to agree with you but we got rain on ours and it is already up real good. I pulled up to the 80 ac wheat field yesterday and 4 and there were deer all over it. I was surprised it came up so good so fast. Deer were bedded down in the field. Numerous bucks but one mature buck I hadnt seen before that scored enough for most of the guys. Pretty exciting.

And it will only get better.

I agree with that also, depending on what acorns do.

I should have been more specific with my earlier post. My experience has been that short of the early season rut when a doe might drag an older buck into a food plot at just about any time, it's often late in the season when sheer hunger can bring them back into plots during the day. I remember taking a nice buck over the Christmas holidays in East Texas after photos showed he was only entering the plot at night during the post rut period. It would be the effects of several killing frosts that would later put him in my sights on one cold, Thursday morning right before Christmas.

Knowing natural browse was far more limited so late in the season, I would be remiss if I didn't add that I had sweetened the plot with some scattered corn the day before.

No, it's definitely not too late to get some seed in the ground.

If the question is when is it too late... then I would say the answer is when its too late to draw deer at the end of the season. Oats are durable in cold weather.

If the question is when is it too late... then I would say the answer is when its too late to draw deer at the end of the season. Oats are durable in cold weather.

Not late to get seeds in the ground for rifle season and I would mix in some greens and brassicas which are sweetened by frost. Once deer figure them out late season they can be a great attractant with your oats.

Dan, throwing corn in the plot just sweetens the feed as well to deer.

Also, IMHO, older bucks that have been pressured all season are not as wary of scattered corn as they are they a feeder.

Also, IMHO, older bucks that have been pressured all season are not as wary of scattered corn as they are a feeder.

Running a chain saw among other things all morning at this spot. Stopped to have a sandwich an hit the road feeder an she came in to have corn and wheat for lunch with me.

Really? I guess the deer on my old place did not get the memo then. I have 1000's of pics of mature bucks eating under or around a corn feeder or protein feeder in the daylight hours in late season.