Quantico kid
When I gun hunted, I would see 10 deer on my first visit to a good spot and 3 deer on the second visit and 1 deer 50% of the time on my 3rd visit. Some spots are very sensitive and others are not. As a general rule deer sighting decrease after each visit. I have a three visit rule and this includes scouting, but you really can get away with 5 visits most of the time.
You can not get it right all of the time in choosing a good spot. Deer sightings carry a lot of weight. I found a very good gun spot because I saw deer on a hill top 3 times over several years while doing deer drives. I would have never known that it was good spot to look at it. This is not the norm for me to find spots. The norm for me that makes me successful is my skill to read the sign and pick the spots.
Lack of acorns: that is a tough one. In earlier posts I hinted that I do not do well when there are not acorns. This is one of my weak areas. Yes, looking for a different food source should be the key. The field hunters like it when there are no acorns. Field would be the best, but I can not relate to having a skill that gives me an advantage to finding trophies in the fields. Hunting without acorns is not my area of expertise so I may be wrong. As the leaves disappear look for anything green. Try creek bottoms where the deer can eat freshly fallen maple leaves and there is other green stuff to eat there. I have seen deer eat freshly fallen yellow/brown tulip popular leaves and I have seen these yellow ½ brown tulip popular leaver in the stomach of deer. Clear cuts have some good brows. Old home sites can be good as they offer a different food supply. One of the 17’s has more late season green stuff on the ground than any other area on the base. Honey suckle, autumn olive and even pine can be good food. Deer will not eat some of the pines. Pine is not there favorite and is only eaten when there is little food around. They will eat white pine and a pine that I call yellow pine. I do not know if it is really called yellow pine. There are mushrooms under the leaves in the hard woods and mushrooms grow in the pines.
To find acorns you need to search out differences in the trees. I spend almost as much time looking up at the canopy. Walk over to any exceptionally large tree. As these are the best, but sometimes it is a sick tree or a small tree that is producing. Look at the ridge tops and on the bottoms and even hill sides. Check out trees that are out of the norm. Sunlight has a big effect on acorn production so try looking where the canopy opens up. This includes the edge of fields. When you get a few acorns (5 acorns) under some trees then that is a hint that there may be a producer close by. Sometimes for no reason there will be a stand of 10-20 trees producing when no others are. Know the species of oaks that you are looking for. Do not go for chestnut oaks. Deer do not like chestnut oaks. Whites of course are good. Northern red is good and easy to identify. Pin oaks produce almost every year. Pin oaks are normally in swamp bottoms. The only large stands of pins that I know of are in the 17’s and east of 95. In all of 6C I have only found one pin oak and it is on my GPS. I GPS most of the pin oaks that I find. Do not be fooled by last tears acorns. Verify that the acorns are good. Listen for the sound of dropping acorns.
Expect the rut to be late if there are not acorns and if there are no fields.
Some average hunters have taken big bucks off of that lone producing oak tree. You need no special skills if you find that gold mind as it will pull in all of the deer. Trophies are not that much smarter. It’s just that they are nocturnal and stay near good cover and stay away from where man stomps around.