Nocturnal deer

Anyway to help this? This property I manage is just weird, i say that because 2 miles down the road the deer are the exact opposite.
I have 1000 acres with a 3 food plots, a 2, 3, and a 4. I have a couple of half acre plots too. Property is a pine plantation with hardwood bottoms. The deer are 98% nocturnal, even the does. I occasionally get a picture during the day, but it's the middle of the day and random too. The deer show up about 30 minutes after dark to whenever. I've had feeders and cameras out all year and it hasn't changed. It was this way last year too.
Anybody got any advice. They're hardly touching my food plots too, a mix of wheat, oats, clover, peas, etc.

Where are you setting up your cameras at now?

On feeders and active trails. I got one on an open area that has mature oaks in the open area. Still nocturnal.

I even opened up feed pens to allow pigs to get to corn to allow for competition, pigs were nocturnal, deer quit showing up. Closed pens off, and pigs have since left.

Is there to much water to put one or more on a water source? Any active scrapes or rub-lines that you could put some on? IME deer that are nocturnal on my place do not live on my place and are traveling to far to get here before dark until the rut starts. I am only getting daytime photos this fall when the day temps are below 60 or cooler with all the acorns and fresh green growth. I am not getting any TC pics in my feed pens at all right now since I am road feeding. I had to turn my corn feeders back down again this past weekend. I know I have the deer since I got them at night all summer and into Sept. Had a huge persimmon crop, then acorns started in Sept and rained 18"+ in Sept/Oct. I am not even seeing deer moving from the blind where I can see 3/4 mile in one direction and then 200-500 yards in a couple of other directions. Not even eating road corn up the first night and make take them till the 3rd night right now also sometimes. Cold weather next week will change that again I bet with rut about to kick in.

I'm in deep east TX, got more water than we know what to do with.
I've put cameras on field edge scrapes and all night pics, except one daytime.
I've been walking this place for the past two days and haven't found any rubs, or other scrapes.
The deer are coming to the feeders for the most part right now, just never during the day.
Since the end of September I've gotten more bucks showing up too that weren't around when they were in velvet.

My scrapes are dead right now and bucks are locking down does. It does sound like they’re traveling a ways to come see you. Sometimes the contrast between thick woods and open plots are more than deer want to deal with during daylight hours. Then again, I saw 14 bucks Sat morning and not the first dang one were caught by any of the 4 cameras on that stand.

Where do you think your bedding areas are at on the place? Is the hardwood bottom a travel corridor? I would move cameras back off the feeders on trails to see if they are using them and what time they are using them.

Can you explain this a little more?

Some of the place is thick young pines and some of it was more mature stuff that was thinned last year. I definitely have more movement(more deer I guess) in the area that it is thinned.

I honestly can't answer that. I think the hardwoods are used for everything. They have the water there in the creeks, acorns, thick cover. I've yet to bust a deer anywhere while walking through the woods. I take cameras with me while walking for that reason too. I'll find an active trail and get no pics.

I know it all sounds weird, but this place is not like any other I've ever seen.

Do you know what the deer density is for that area of the county? My area of my county is supposed to be a deer to 17 acres but I have more deer than that. But like you I am not seeing much at all on cams the last 6 weeks. This year is much different than any of the past 6 seasons for deer movement with all the rainfall and mast crops than in the past in my area. I see deer tracks after the rains but not seeing them on particular trails like in the past. I see a lot of rubs, rub-lines and scrapes now. They are scattered all over my place. I shredded roads and fencelines and saw them without having to look for them. There is very little rub/scrape activity around the feeders this year like in years past. I know the buck numbers are high and still here but just not seeing any signs of them in daytime. Saturday morning I saw a buck and doe in a food plot(that was not up yet) and then nothing at all till this morning when I saw 2 bucks. I picked up TC and there was not a deer in two feed pens for two days and then only one buck along with one doe in the other feed pen.

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Finally got pics to work. One spot is half an acre with plot and oak trees.

Other one is the 2 acre plot. You can see on the left the hardwoods and right the pines. All of the big plots have it where there is hardwoods next to the plot, along with the pine plantation.

Are all your pens that small? If the camera is only covering a small portion of the throwing area you may be missing some deer. The reason I ask I watched mature buck jump in a feed pen one morning and stay inside it for 45 minutes with a couple of other younger bucks and does. I never got one photo of him in front of the camera. Same for other deer I watched jump into pens before and never got a photo of them. Some deer just can avoid being in front of a camera. With pens that small they can eat corn outside the fence. I would put a bait pile outside the pens with a camera over it only. That way you will know if your deer are avoiding the camera.

That one pen is small, but it's open on both ends. The other spots have larger pens and have the feeders slightly off center with the camera slightly facing the more open area.

Wow, that is beautiful!

As in they just aren’t going to want to walk out in the broad open when they don’t have to.

Isn't it? The deer need to come see it in the daytime though lol. Hopefully in the next month or two things change once it cools off, I guess only time will tell, but apparently it's been weirdly nocturnal for a few years at least, I've only been here since February of this year, so it's a new place to me. Last manager didn't care about hunting and knew nothing, so there's poor records.



On a side note, I did just go through pics again. Unfortunately we live in an area closish to a small ghetto and there's a few stray dogs around, witnessed by trail cams. I never get to see them in person, but you think the dogs are enough to make them nocturnal?
Might need to do some coyote calling and see what pokes its head out.

Both pics are cell phone pics too, sorry I didn't mention that.

that's what I figured you meant, just wanted the clarification.

Thanks

Randomly place alarm clocks throughout the pasture, set to go off at various times throughout the day. The deer will have to sleep at night and return to feeders in the daytime. Also, disable the snooze buttons.

I'd look for an area with plenty of oak trees and hang a camera along a trail. Personally I think deer eat multiple times a day but if all they have to do is hang around an oak flat then they're not about to show themselves in broad daylight in a food plot or feeder pen. JMO but that's the way it is on my place.

That's a great food plot! Come late December when other food sources run out, you should be seeing a lot of deer! You might even draw some bucks that you have never seen before.

I'm hoping you're right. I'm not necessarily worried about bucks, I've just got to shoot 8 does, and I have to work in the middle of the day, so I can't afford to sit in a stand all day except on weekends. And on weekends I would like to do something besides hunt!


I appreciate everyone's help though. I'll try to pop back in from time to time and update.

I've found that if I have my feeders slinging allot corn each feeding, the deer seem to come in later in the evening or after dark. When I cut my feeding time back I started seeing more deer at the feeders during daylight.
If there's plenty of food on the ground it seems the deer are in no hurry to get there and compete for the corn.

I completely understand. Corn is building up with 2 second throws twice a day. That's why I tried to introduce competition with the pigs and the deer completely disappeared from those areas.

May be that the herd is not bedding on your place and it may take some time to get to the feeding areas..

With over 1000 acres, some have got to bed on the place.

It's a slight guestimate that 6-10 years ago the guy that used to manage the place had a free shoot etc. He wasn't deer savvy either. It might of pushed the deer to not show in plots during the day and it's been passed on the line.