Well I went scouting a big swamp yesterday and found a nice grove of shag bark hickory trees. Anyone actually hunt over those for deer? I read deer do not really eat them but there was 2 heavy trails going under them. There is no oaks in there just those. I’m gonna sit there and try it but not to encouraging from what I read.

Seems bear, turkey, ducks and squirrels and chipmunks like them but like I said the “expert's” say deer don’t.

Don't try to hang a stand on one, please.

I don’t think Turkey or Ducks can eat a hard hickory nut either, too hard for deer to crunch up.

I have only seen squirrels eating them

Squirrels, bears and hogs eat them. The bears and hogs crunch them up whole into slightly smaller chunks and swallow. Always made me wonder if they scratch on the way out. The last big boar I shot with one of my longbows, I could hear it coming as it popped and crunched hickory nuts. I have watched numerous bears eating them, never in season LOL

Deer do have to travel, so try and see how it works out. Do not use a climber LOL!

I climbed a shagbark hickory with an old climber one afternoon near a deer trail that led to a giant oak tree. Peeled the bigger sheets of bark off so the band wouldn't get hung up on them on my way up. The stand held just fine and I shot a nice buck there that evening. Sure was noisy going up though.

Yes I will not be in them. But just off them

The duck and turkey thing had me confused. Can’t trust everything on internet so thought I’d ask here.

I see a lot if deer trails by the hickory trees here. Not around the shagbark hickory trees though. A guy I knew put his stand 8’- 10’ up on the same hickory tree every year and killed a deer from the trail beside it most years…I still call it Stews stand.

I wished i could find a shag bark hickory tree. I would make some bows out of it lol

We have shagbarks on the farm. Never saw a deer hang out and eat them. Now it may be possible they eat immature nuts this time of year, but I repeat, I never saw deer eat them in the fall.

I own a 40 acre woodlot that I have hunted for over 35 years. It is roughly 75% shag Bark Hickory and the rest a mix of Red and White Oaks. The number of Squirrel that we have would not be believed by most. Seeing 15 to 20 squirrels at the same time is routine. The squirrels, turkeys and Deer hit the Oaks as soon as the first Acorn drops. Trees dropping Acorns have the activity under them until every acorn is gone which can be as soon as a day or at the most a few weeks depending on the weather and how the drop comes. Never seen a deer eat a Hickory nut. Here they are all Squirrel food, we don't have any Hogs in this area and the Turkeys don't seem interested in them. We shoot a majority of our deer traveling through the Hickory's on well established routes from years of traveling from Oak to Oak looking for the Hot Oak tree of the day. Good Day

We have alot of shag bark hickory around here... I've asked many hunters the "do deer eat hickory nuts" question...no one has stated yes...a few have stated maybe...most have stated no .

I’ve seen lots of stuff but never saw deer eat hickory. Why would you hang a stand on it? Where are they going, where they coming from? Will that pattern stay active especially since the season ain’t even here yet and things will change. Water levels could change in a swamp, preferred food sources change completely, fawns are introduced to the herd changing for travel routes and it could be a night trail. Point is it’s not great info right now. I personally see zero reason to waste any effort there hanging a stand and even less making a decision to sit there. Mentally log the location and check to see if there is current activity nearer season. This is one area many newer hunters struggle. Tracks/trails show where they were. Not where they’ll be in a couple months when season is open. Scout ahead in the summer

Tim put up a good tree stand or a good ground blind, if it’s a good crossing or pinch point with a HH Bow and make memories

Great bow wood !

We had many shagbarks on our old property in MA. The constant dropping of branches and the crazy amount of nuts were constant work but never saw any deer feeding on the nuts. The dozen or so of gray squirrels loved the nuts though.

Great firewood!

I've got shag bark, shell bark, pig nut, mocker nut and probably some others. I eat the first two, but never saw that deer ate them.

All make good bows. Pig nut is the best for bows.

It is good self bow wood. When you fire harden it is a real good self bow wood.

Yeah Jim Davis me too have a bunch of hickories in my yard (house was built within a hardwoods grove) and have over a dozen in my yard, 2 Pignuts, and the rest are Shagbark, and Shellbark... 2 are of the one species, the rest (the most) are the other species, but can't remember which is which...

I also have about a dozen or so Pignut Hickory staves with the ends Shellaced that's been air drying in my shed for close to 15 years... I've been in this house 15 years and wasn't here long before splitting the Pignut staves...

The township cut the Pignut tree down along side the road on my property and a couple days later my Dad and I cut the straight trunk into 6' logs then split the logs into wide staves by hand with maul and sledge, then painted the ends with Shillac... Talk about a hard job, it was brutal... Took us a couple day or so to complete... I still ache thinking about it...

In my 60 years of hunting deer I have seen one doe eating hickory nuts, only one.

Squirrels will pick them off the tree and separate the hulls from the nut in the tree, but deer won't seem to eat them on the ground with the hulls tight, but after a while the hulls will split and loosen and the deer can separate and will crunch on the nuts if they can get them before the squirrels...

I looked up those two look-a-like hickories:

"The large leaves of Shagbark Hickory are alternate, pinnately compound, up to fifteen inches long, and almost always have five wide leaflets (rarely seven or nine), with fine serrations on the leaflet margins.

Leaves of Shellbark Hickory are alternate and pinnately compound, one to two feet long, and almost always display seven wide leaflets (rarely five or nine), with fine serrations on their margins."

Jeff Durnell lol...been there done that because it was the only tree i could get in. It is a real adventure getting up and down a shag bark tree with a climber...probably won't do it again, not only does the climber get hooked, but "noisy" is an understatement.

but hey?....we put meat in the freezer.

I have never seen it happen. I guess I could be wrong, but I don't believe they could or would eat a hickory nut. I will say they love some type of acorns, some type of acorns they won't eat, and they love chestnuts when they are out of the thorny shells.

Same here Steve. Yep, meat is meat. Glad I didn't listen to the naysayers. That hickory was the best of my options. The buck tracked me down a dry cobble stone creek bed because I sprayed coon pee on my boots as a cover scent... figured a deer would ignore the coon pee and no deer would stumble down that creek bed. I was wrong on both counts. On his death run, he ran head first into the trunk of an apple tree hard enough to break an antler off and it went flying so far that I never found it.

Deer will eat pignut and mockernut hickories. They're smaller with thinner shells than shag and shellbarks. Seen em do it. Them old does do it quick and easy.

Thank you all for the input. Could just be a travel route for them more so than a food source destination I’m sure. It was in between bedding and private field crops so might still be a good area to try imo.

If you have already registered, please

sign in now

For new registrations

Click Here