In midsummer, when Arkansas was so moist and green, I thought this would be an excellent fall for wildlife forage, but not now.
An extended drought has made the woods in the southern half of the state dry and brittle. It has rained only five times in our little corner of Hot Spring County since late July, and those were showers of short duration and small volume.
Some large creeks in Hot Spring and Grant counties aren't flowing, and large sections are dry with only small pools remaining.
Drought limits the amount and quality of forage for wildlife, but its greater influence is on distribution of wildlife.
For example, I saw plenty of fawns during the summer and am still seeing them this fall. All of the deer I've seen in person and on game cameras appear to be fat and healthy.
Abundant lush forage during the summer might have brought them to fall in good condition, but even now, with the woods as dry as year-old tinder, I still see a fair amount of greenery. It is surprisingly abundant in pine plantations that were thinned in 2014, but there is also a surprising amount in cutovers.
Cutovers look brown from a distance, but if you walk through the cutovers you'll notice a virtual salad bar of greenery.
This is also a good year that would have been a lot better if not for drought. Oaks started dropping acorns a couple of weeks early this year. Many acorns are hollow, and there are a lot fewer squirrels in our areas than usual for this time of year.
They, like whitetailed deer, are likely concentrated in areas near abundant water with the best quality food.
We've seen this before, notably in 1997, when conditions were so bad in the Ouachitas that hunters in south Sebastian County wondered if the Game and Fish Commission would suspend modern gun deer season. Deer are adaptable and hardy. They are fine, and they will be fine.
One of my game cameras tells an anecdotal tale of distribution. I was so excited last week when that camera's counter showed 175 photos. Checking a camera card is almost like opening presents on Christmas morning. I can't wait to see what I have.
The camera is stationed at a mineral drip which consists of a bag of minerals suspended from a low bush. When it rains, water soaks the bag and drips minerals to the ground. Deer and other critters have pawed and eaten a big crater under the bag.
This is interesting because two other mineral drips are nearby, but animals have largely ignored them. They were covered with pine needles last Saturday. Deer like that one mineral drip for reasons unknown, but not as much as I expected.
Of the 175 photos, most were taken when leaves or grass blowing in the wind triggered the motion detector and snapped the shutter.
However, deer visited the drip regularly from late August to Sept. 24, about every other day. They appeared between 2-4 a.m., 6-7 a.m., 11 a.m.-noon and 7-8 p.m. Most of the photos showed solitary does, but a cluster of photos in mid-September showed a doe and two yearlings.
I got photos of a few legal bucks and one tall spike in velvet with one twisted antler that looked almost like the horn of an oryx.
The one that really got my attention was a mature 10-point in velvet whose outside spread appeared to stretch 2-3 inches beyond both ears. His tines weren't very tall, and while velvet inflates the appearance of mass, it was still a very impressive buck for Grant County.
I have just that one photo of that buck, and I do not anticipate seeing him again.
The camera did not photograph any deer from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1. I suspect that deer might have consumed most of the mineral, and that the lick was not as attractive without rain to replenish it.
I also got a closeup of a healthy looking coyote. Not far from that camera are the fairly fresh remains of a fawn that was probably killed by coyotes.
New photos Oct. 6 and Oct. 8 showed a mature doe, a raccoon and a rabbit.
I checked another camera in a different area. Its waterproof housing was open, and I quickly discovered why. A big colony of fire ants occupied it. It took some doing to get them all out, and to my surprise the camera still works.
I have stationed it in hopefully a more productive spot.
Sports on 10/15/2015