Check those oaks. They might have grown more acorns than you thought. Photo by Ron Sinfelt.
Back during Easter weekend, what had to that point been an early spring suddenly took a nasty turn. A strong cold front bulldozed its way across much of North America, sending temperatures into the mid-20s or even lower in many places east of the Mississippi River. Overnight, spring blooms were transformed into withered clumps of brown. As we deer hunters surveyed the damage, it wasn’t hard for us to imagine that, high overhead, this late freeze was wreaking havoc on 2007’s developing acorn crop.
Soon after the weather improved, I asked several forestry experts their opinions of the impact the hard freeze had had. None offered a definitive view; all opined that it would take a while to see how hard a hit the oaks had taken. But everyone feared the worst.
While there’s no doubt some oaks lost at least part of their flowers as a result of the cold — evidence of that was all too clear here in North Georgia — oaks in many areas have proved amazingly resilient. Not only did they endure that hard, late freeze, in many places they’ve put on acorns despite one of the driest summers and early falls in recent memory. In fact, Ohio officials are proclaiming this to be a bumper acorn crop, even though some oaks in the state oaks have withered from drought. It just goes to show that not all correlations in nature are as clear as we might think.
One concern expressed by hunters is that many acorns now dropping are of poor quality, with little or no sound "meat" inside. I've heard that from at least one guy in Georgia and another in Ohio. Of course, there always are some bad acorns, but it wouldn't surprise me if this year's crop has a higher percentage than usual. Common sense says the major drought we've seen in parts of the East has resulted in difficult growing conditions. Then again, if some oaks are dropping more good acorns than others, it should concentrate the feeding activity of all wildlife, from squirrels and turkeys to whitetails, around those trees with better mast. It also should mean critters will be feeding longer each day, as they'll have to search through more acorns to find enough good ones. We'll see.
With cooler temperatures and the first decent rain in several weeks now sweeping across parts of the Southern Plains, Southeast and Ohio Valley, and with a full moon looming on Oct. 26, the stage appears to be set for a strong flurry of whitetail activity heading into Halloween. Big bucks have been shot trailing does in a number of locations thus far, and I’m thinking we’ll see a strong wave of late pre-rut activity between now and month’s end. Everything seems to be happening a bit earlier than usual.
North American Whitetail Television cameraman Mike Clerkin and I currently are in Georgia, for a short hunt with my good friends, Keith and Marilyn Shannon. Keith is a hardcore whitetail hunter and inventor of the well-known line of Bug Tamer apparel (www.bugtamer.com). He says the last week of so of October is always “magical” for big bucks in his area, so we’re heading down there to check it out. After that, I return to the office here in the Atlanta area, while Mike flies over to Texas to meet Dr. James Kroll (“Dr. Deer”) for a hunt with Chris Boscamp of Encino Outdoor Services (www.huntencino.com).
In the midst of all this, NAW magazine editor Duncan Dobie and cameraman Brian Rusk are in Adams County, Ohio, bowhunting with NAW contributor Tom Cross. They’ll be in the same area that produced a couple of outrageously big bucks featured in NAW last year, and we’re all hoping history repeats itself.
Stay tuned for the results of these early-season TV hunts. In the meantime, good luck taking an October trophy of your own . . . and watch for falling acorns!
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