This tree?

Looks like a persimmon to me. Eat one and see if your face scrunches up

^ ^ ^ ^ yes ^ ^ ^ ^

Besides nuts and mast, one of the best natural deer attractants
besides honeysuckle that God put in the woods

Wild persimmon deer love them.
If they have froze they are sweet and you can eat them.

I know eating one to early will cause extreme bitter beer face.

They are very late this year due to the drought. Our deer love them but they are usually gone before hunting season get here. We had lots of them still on the trees as of last week.

Yep, persimmon. Deer love him. Hogs love them. Coyotes love them. Raccoons love them.

Planting these can be a good, long term hunting strategy, just sayin'.

Cut one open and see if it has a knife or a fork inside, the old timers used this as their weather predictor.

Just a heads up but that’s a very valuable tree, everything that lives in the woods will eat those. We planted thousands of them as a kid all across my grandparents property and now it’s like hunting in the parking lot of a grocery store between these, the oaks and all the fruit trees that were planted. It’s a very under utilized tree for wildlife IMO. I’ve watched coyotes literally climb a tree to get to them and deer beat the snot out of each other over them.

Persimmon tree! pigs love them here in texas..... crappy wood, scrap wood makes good smoke and different
flavors if your into smoking meats/fish.

Going to have to try my less-than-green thumb on a few around my already successful
new tank/pond. Thanks to all for the input to convince me the effort will improve my success.

I picked a bunch last week and was eating them at work. No one else knew what they were. I was surprised.

Not to hijack but are there any trees that make fruit/mast in January? I'd like to plant something on my property in NM that would bring deer in during the late archery season. That may be a pipe dream but I figure it doesn't hurt to ask.

Some oaks will hold their acorns into the winter. Its not unusual for us to find blackjack acorns that late that are not rotten but that is the minority case, most of our blackjacks will drop well before then. Tasajillo cactus will have tunas into January consistently

Some oaks will drop early but the deer don't tend to touch them until January. LIve oaks are one. Red oaks tend to get left alone on my place until the white oaks are gone. The theory is they wait until the tannins are washed out of them but I don't know if deer are that smart. Maybe.

How big is tree? That is not what native persimmons in south texas look like at all.

Japanese persimmon

I would not expect that it would be the same, totally different environments and geographically many hundreds of miles of separation. The OP says he hunts in Arkansas. You have the Diospyros texana variety. Arkansas has the Diospyros virginiana variety, plus both have whatever imports.

Well that makes complete sense. I usually just let my mind run thinking everyone on the Thf is from texas lol

Good to know. Thanks.

They make fantastic jelly; all ours out west are barren this year

I have 3 trees I planted, 2 are natives and the other is some kind of hybrid. The natives haven't made fruit yet, but the hybrid has for 3 years. I wish I would have taken a photo of the deer tracks around that tree, looked like they lined up for a buffet! I think I got 2.

I got my natives from Womack nursery, will get more as they sure draw attention in the woods

At least 15 foot tall. It goes straight up. There are several in a little grove that is next to my stand. Only two
have fruit on them.

probably oats be your best bet for cool-season.

try looking here:
https://wildlife.tamu.edu/files/2010/05/Deer-Range-Appraisal-for-East-Texas-Forests.pdf

I put out oats, wheat, and ryegrass in the fall behind my house for the deer. We have lots of activity….