I live in Mass and I huntaround a lot of crabb apples and I got to tell you the deer really tear them up. I find that you don't have to wait until the first frost for them to really start comming to them. But the trick is they have to really be airomatic in other words starting to rot. For early season what I found works great for me is I take a bunch home and put them in the micro wave oven till they turn and then take them back out to my stand area and spread them about 25 yards from my stand. I tell ya they start working right away. I shot 3 deer like this last year by Nov. 1. And not a deer was using these apples until I put out the micro waved apples. Give it a try I hope it works for you and good luck.