Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Deer Season '26/'27 Thread

Deer season preparations are now underway.

I always learn new information from our best deer management experts on the forum.

Please add any comments about what worked well on your property in previous years. (Or what turned out to be failed ideas or practices.)

Good luck to everyone this season!

Buried a water tank last winter. Critters (everything) started using it immediately. A few days ago a deer crawled into it and stayed for about 30 minutes.

My foodplots are crispy at the moment. Need some rain and cooler temps for the clover to bounce back. Also need better weather before I start thinking about planting fall seed.

Several bucks have been regulars this summer, but a few days ago a buck shed his velvet and newcomers started roaming through. Hormones are starting to change.

Here's over from 2026:

I'm sliding a little off the pond stuff right now. My hatchery and big pond are both dropping fast, but I did set up my ASF feeder. I like it because I don't have to set up raccoon traps anymore.

So, anybody feeding deer cotton seeds? 50# bags are just showing up in mass around here, and the deer are gorging on them. I've got no clue why they like the fuzzy seeds, but they are disappearing every time I add them. The cotton seeds cost a little over twice as much as corn, but I think the controlled protein will help. Also, fawns are showing up in mass numbers this year. Several deer with twins, and sometimes 7-8 show up in the evening.

Rod's last page on 2026

Personally, I have never heard of feeding cotton seeds.

Might be interesting to set up one feeder with cotton seeds and one with corn in the same area and set up cameras to observe the deer behavior with two food sources? Evaluate time-of-day, male versus female, seasonal food preference moving to late fall, etc.

Cotton seed showed up strongly last year, and now ASF and Texas Hunter are selling tall square cubes that will hold up to 300 pounds of cotton seed. I'm just starting with my morning deer hand feed out of corn and cotton seed beside the house. I'll free drop corn, then cotton seed, then corn, etc. By doing that, all the deer get to eat both, and the spread out helps deer from fights in a single pile. 16 to 20 deer is normally what I handle in early mornings. 7-8 of those deer will be fawns, and 2 bucks usually get run off by the adult does.

I've fed CS at night, but fire ants ruin it, so hand feeding is my only thing to do right now. Cotton seed runs from $16 to $23 dollars for 40 pound bags.

I'M not pushing either of these companies, but it lets you know what's in the cotton seed from fortifiedcottonseed , and Texas Hunter shows one of the cotton seed feeder.

Add on: Rod, I just checked that Kansas has tons of available cotton seeds, and have been selling it for a while. IIRC, most of it was going to cows.

Catscratch, those are really nice this soon.

Be careful when you feed that to deer it will sterilize bucks

I think this is the same buck that is standing in catscratch's water tank.

Info source?

Gossypol found in cottonseed is a poison (natural insecticide) that can sterilize male ruminents in high concentrations.

Pat, I just dropped everything, so I'll send this out the short and yes it's a gossypol conundrum for me. The cottonseed bag here just showed up, and has the Go Texan stamp which means the Texas Department of Agriculture fully approves it. Gary Holcomb nutritionist since 1990 with his B.S. Animal Science-NMSU & M.S. Ruminant Nutrition-NMSU is also on the sack and has approval. Cows have been eating cotonseeds that have gossypol for over 100 years, and it takes 2-3 weeks before gossypol leaves the cow. Deer take 4-5 weeks to clear to leave as well.

So Pat, and like I said, it's confusing for me. And no, I won't be buying anymore cottonseed for the cost, and I'm already light feeding corn for our deer. I wouldn't be surprised though if high fence hunting ranches used cottonseed by working does and bucks with controlled seasons. And corn for deer, which most of us use, can cause serious health issues as well. So corn should be controlled as well.

This is it, no back and forth. Maybe when things become rock solid, deer food might become agreeable to all of us.

Corn won’t hurt deer if they are used to eating it, from what I’ve read if you dump a pile of it in winter and they haven’t been eating it then it can cause problems or even death

Most accurate answer in the pond threads, "It depends."

I was looking for common wisdom in the Deer Thread, turns out the answer is still "It depends."

It is almost like biological science is a complex topic or something!

We feed corn and protein year round and since the deer at used to eating it we have not seen any problems doing so.does need the corn for milk production after they have their fawns. Bucks require the protein feed for antlers growth in spring and summer, that’s the time to feed cotton seeds then stop in August

I like it when one of our bowhunters brings out 200-300 pounds of corn and dumps it in the cornfield for the deer.