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Acorn Crop in SD?

Just curious if anybody can give an update on how the acorn crop is this year in Central SD?

I don't know about SD but here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland the acorns are starting to fall. Right in front of my ground blind are some oak trees and the acorns started falling a couple days ago. i set up a trail camera and the deer are on the acorns night and day. I mean at all hours of the day. Does fawns and a couple really nice bucks. A couple small bucks also.

Thanks Shuteye. Hope you get an arrow in one of those good bucks!

I am in eastern South Dakota and my acorns dropped in early sept and are all gone now. Having a drought might have something to do with that. The damn crab apple sure pooped a lot of apples this year. Amazing for a drought.

I have found that with acorns (at least here in Illinois) a lot what kind of mast year it will be is based initially on how the acorn producing conditions were the PAST year. In other words, if this year was a really dry, then the mast crop for next year will be down.

But even with that, I've also found that the severity and date of the last spring frost/hard freeze for the CURRENT year also has a large local effect on mast. The place I hunt has ridges and bottoms, and I've found that in years with a late frost/freeze, sometimes the oaks that are in lower elevation areas will have little mast, while the ones on the ridgetops have a lot more as the oak blossoms in the lower ones were freeze damaged.

Oh well....just another reason to go wandering in the woods in late summer to check the coming mast crop!

We just had a three day Buck Muzzle loading season. Today it is over and then archery season is open for bucks and does. I didn't even load my muzzle loading pistol that I normally use. I plan on using my crossbow instead. I will soon be 80 years old so forgive me for using a crossbow and do my dragging with my Gator. I am waiting for frost and leaves changing color and falling. I can just walk out my back door into my woods so I have plenty of time. I just love this time of the year. I have a new ground blind with mesh covered windows that I can shoot a bolt through. I do more watching than shooting.

Best of luck Lex! Have a great season!

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