Deer hunting near corn vrs beans
Wisconsin
Contributors to this thread:
One of my best deer hunting spots is a cattle water pond in a wooded pasture. The pond is about 150 yards from a field that is always corn or beans. Early season while the cattle are around I see the cattle on a regular basis and hear then all around. Yesterday I had one walk past and one stop for a drink but mostly she seemed to be eating the green stuff that totally covered the water surface.
Anyway more to the subject. I do not keep statistics that includes what the crops were on the field that the deer head to after getting a drink, or vice versa. During the rut I don't think it matters as much because the crops themselves are out and bucks often cross that large crop field to get to another string of wooded parcels.
So, your opinions. Would you prefer to hunt near beans, corn, or other crops? Considering rut, pre rut, post rut, and what the crops are before versus after harvest.
Early season green leafed beans are good as a food source. Alfalfa even better and standing corn is cover. Now late season, I'll take a picked cornfield over all others. This is looking at it as a food source.
Pre rut I like open field edges where bucks are on their feet, scent checking their scrapes.
Rut I like to be where the does are....typically between bedding and feeding areas focussing on bottlenecks in a tree 22 feet in the air, hunting all day!
Post rut.....boooooo! Back to food sources.
All of the opinions you will get are at best subjective. What works for us may not work for you. Can't kill deer where they're not at. You can't kill deer sitting at home. Time spent in the field is a good start to being successful. Getting aggressive with decoying or rattling etc., can really increase your odds. Most successful hunters are not doing what everyone else is doing.
Good luck!
Bean's are limited to certain time's of the season . Corn they'll hit all the time . If there's a corn or bean field next to an alfalfa field they'll feed in the alfalfa first before moving into the bean's or corn . Also your first year alfalfa field with have a lot more deer going to it than a second or third year crop . They only like the best . LOL
Beans corn milo turnips, Wouldn't matter whatever Lee and Tiffany plant I'd be good with it!
Whatever Lee and Tiffany plant, ya. Now if I cold get an Iowa any sex license every year and figure out a way to hunt over 'what they planted' that's right where I would be. ;-)
The opinions above are kind of what I expected. My honey hole pond may still pan out this year but it will be the water and rut that helps me, not so much the bean field. Leafs are brown, only about 20% of the stalks still have some green color left. Some beans around here are already picked.
Depends what's standing. I will take beans if left up throughout the entire season (including late.) If getting cut, probably corn because beans are harvested first more often than not.
So much rain in our area, ponds are not pulling what they normally do in the early season according to camera action. Not that I am going to abandon them period, but lately no need to look for water. I find years with beans to have the best hunting and most killing accompanied by deer with larger racks in every age class. The beans tend to hit the acorn drop though by us on the four year cycle in recent memory, so that might have more to do with it. I do think the that fewer deer are poached out of corn then beans for visibility sake. Seems like few years of corn grow them out and soy kills the crowd and resets the cycle.
Give me beans the first week of the season and then on the day they are harvested, otherwise corn for me.