A lease without corn feeders?

[WillowCity2506]

You couldn’t hunt our place without a feeder. Well, unless you were there every 2-3 days. We have killed 1 deer over 170,” a few deer over 150” and many 140” or over. I know that’s not that much compared to South Texas, but it is where we are. Feeders are a great tool on our place for killing a trophy.

I dont use blinds or feeders. I setup on natural runs and trails. No cameras. I like not knowing what's there. I just enjoy the challenge and the chase.

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I agree with both posts

The challenge of setting up on a natural trail and finding a way to blend in, and then seal the deal on a great animal is a completely different game.

That's not to say setting up a blind or hanging in a tree near a feeder isn't a challenge all its own. They are just different. I think we all get into bow hunting for different reasons. Mine was to get out of a box stand and drop the rifle for a while. It's been an eye opener and I Love It.

My bow hunting style has changed every year and I've become a better hunter. I'll hunt over feeders or find good natural browse. Whatever gets me in the woods and away from work.

[Txhuntr2]

That’s a lot of road corn. Do you see a big difference in quality bucks on the road corn verses on the feeder that is there next to it?

I haven’t really done it much here recent but I used to tailgate feed heavy around my corn feeder at my bow blind. You’ll definitely have a lot more deer show up because of the extra 50lbs of corn on the ground vs what ever the corn amount the feeder throws. My feeder throws 7 times a day and the deer clean that up in minutes.

If you are talking about rifle hunting then no, you don’t need a feeder. Road Corning your senderos is very effective.

I have seen some good bucks that did not go to the feeder and who I don't have any pictures of. But I have also seen older, fully mature deer at the feeder, just no good shooters yet. The main takeaway for me is that there are a lot more deer out there than the ones who I get on camera at my feeder. And this didn't seem to be the case in San Saba or NW Kinney County, or Jacksboro on prior leases. There are always deer who don't go to feeders everywhere but it seems to be more the rule than the exception here. We felt like we could do a pretty good inventory based on feeder pictures on prior leases but not here. It was just surprising the first few hunts. Deer come out of the woodwork to feed in the senderos.

[KactusKiller]

Not like running feeders year-round but as far as hunting if I had my preference I would never hunt over a feeder again. My only problem is trying to keep and corn consistent when you don’t live close to the lease. The deer are way more calm and move about more freely on hand corner or road but you must refresh it at least once a week. If you do not have Cales you can put out 50 to 100 pounds at a time and it will last a couple weeks typically but if you do have livestock they will get on it and take it over quickly.Pigs will do the same. But like I said if I had my preference in my lease is close by I would never hunt a corn feeder again.

[justletmein]

I don't do the lease game anymore, but grew up (basically) on a ranch in Zavala county. I can't say I ever saw a mature buck taken at a feeder, but plenty were killed in corned roads and chasing doe in the area. Keep the feeders active to hold doe in the area, when they come into season that scent will be like gold.

[SwampBuck]

We have big older bucks (5 years plus) that will and do regularly come to feeder. Are they there all the time? Nah, but they don’t have a problem coming to them. But that’s not ALL the bigger deer, I can think of a few cases that once a buck hit maturity or post maturity he went ghost. You may see them slip by a feeder but it was random. They definitely have their own personalities on our place.

Back home, I can only think of one old buck that I shot under a feeder and he showed up at nearly 10 am. All the rest from home were on a doe or in food plots/corned scendero

[Bone Thug]

I have seen some good bucks that did not go to the feeder and who I don't have any pictures of. But I have also seen older, fully mature deer at the feeder, just no good shooters yet. The main takeaway for me is that there are a lot more deer out there than the ones who I get on camera at my feeder. And this didn't seem to be the case in San Saba or NW Kinney County, or Jacksboro on prior leases. There are always deer who don't go to feeders everywhere but it seems to be more the rule than the exception here. We felt like we could do a pretty good inventory based on feeder pictures on prior leases but not here. It was just surprising the first few hunts. Deer come out of the woodwork to feed in the senderos.

Gotcha. I agree. There are definitely more deer than the feeder or camera will ever show. If it’s a new lease it may just take some time to get that spot/lease established for the way y’all are feeding. I’d keep Corning around your feeder like you are doing. In time it should start showing itself unless the place was abused before y’all got it.

[sharpstick35]

I don't archery hunt the feeders. I will set up on the trails between the feeders and see deer i didn't know i had.

[Greenheadless]

I turned off feeders one year and E Texas and started hand corning only.

The amount of deer traffic increase and quality was quite surprising. We even were headed on a path to remove all corn feeders and do away with them at our spots.

We decided to fence all the feeder areas out and this was a game changer. It kept the hogs at bay, which in turn were previously running all the deer off.

We still have a bunch of deer that absolutely avoid the feeders, but also have some feeder gluttons as well. We have gone to hand corning right aways in conjunction of feeding soybean/corn mix in the feeders.

I still hunt other areas as well away from the feeders, and years like we are having now, I am seeing WAY more deer feeding on natural browse than anyone is overlooking their feeders.

[Txhuntr2]

I don't archery hunt the feeders. I will set up on the trails between the feeders and see deer i didn't know i had.

Not much bow for me these days. Having a 6yo hunting buddy who is sometimes even too loud for rifle hunting keeps the rifle in my hands. Haha

[RifleBowPistol]

When we hunted south Texas for many years we never used a feeder, we also never heard of a feeder for most of the years we hunted down there. The way we did things, was someone, usually me got to sit on the tail gate and pour corn out of the bag, as someone else drove down the roads, on either side of the blind.

For years afterwards, I read stories about hogs scaring off deer from the feeders. When we hunted and corned up the roads, we could have a group or two of hogs out in the roads and multiple deer scattered along the roads, at the same time.

The deer and the hogs knew the game. They would hear us corning up the road, and start pouring out of the brush, often right behind the truck. I forgot, when we hunted in Tilden and outside of Encinal, those two places had javelina. We would always have plenty of javelina out in the roads, a lot more on the place outside of Encinal. We hunted there, we would often have quite a few deer, a lot of javelina, then some times some hogs out eating at the same time. Then the quail would show up, the place near Encinal, we would have both blues and bobwhites.

With all that activity, you would not get bored, then the place outside of Encinal, had a lot of big bucks, some just flat huge. By far the best place I have ever been on, it was nothing but an old cattle ranch surrounded by two large cattle ranches. No high fences, no protein, no game biologists.

Likely the place you are hunting has been corned up by trucks for years, that's what the deer know.

[ByronB]

I could go either way hunting in South Texas. When I did hunt in So TX we had plenty of feeders and a fair amount of tailgate feeder spots to choose from. I cannot say that I saw a huge difference in the maturity of deer that showed up to feeders or hand-feed spots. I was Bow Hunting only so there could be a difference feeding hundreds of yards of senderos versus a small area for bow hunting. I had fun either way.

[Chompers]

Similar to others above I also see deer away from feeders on road corn or hand corn (depending on location)that won’t come to the feeders. The deer seem more relaxed and will come out to these spots earlier in the evening and stick around later in the morning. One stand at our place has been the same setup with a box and a feeder for 9 years now. You can see down the road both to the left and right for 300 yards or so and started corning the road a few years back and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve hunted there and had 20 or so deer on the road corn and not one go to the feeder, even with no pen around it.

[BarBBar]

If I had a place with no hogs, I would find my buck travel corridors/rubs on the edge of thick brush, set up a good blind in summer for a north wind, and two days before a cold front in early November before gun season, dump 50 pounds of corn twenty-five yards from the blind in my shooting lane. The next day after the front first blows through, get in the blind an hour before first light and hunt until 10 am.

[huntandfishguy6]

This is my second year experimenting in Liberty county. I have two stands on my lease. In one location i use a timed corn feeder, on the other i pour 100 lbs of corn every two weeks. I'm the only one on the lease using the heavy corn hand corn method. I see more game , and get better pictures than other members. So is it a better location, or the hand corn. I think it's the hand corn the deer are more relaxed, and less skittish.

[TheHammer]

I have also noticed that if you attempt to go the hand corn route, you better be able to do it regularly, because deer eventually figure out that you’re only Corning in a random spot it will throw up red flags when they’re spooking or constant shots. This is my experience anyway. If I can’t do it once a week, I’m just going corn feeder. Seems like every time I just hand corn once a month of every other month, deer get spooky. Mature deer hot feeders on our place, though. In fact almost every buck I can think of hit a feeder at some point regularly on our place.