Identify preferred whitetail 'browse' in your region

Browse: That ambiguous six-letter word that strikes a feeling of intimidation into the hearts of bow hunters.  Even some of the most seasoned bow hunters would agree that the word should be shortened to four letters. 

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “browse” (pronounced brouz) as, “young twigs, leaves, and tender shoots of plants or shrubs that are fit for animals to eat.”  This definition of the word applies well to whitetail deer.  Learning not just where certain naturally occurring browse-type plant species occur in your favorite hunting areas, but where preferred browse-type plant species occur, can be an arduous task for the beginning bow hunter.  In the Southeast, deer virtually live in one giant salad bar of natural browse.  Knowing where to begin can be challenging.

For many bow hunters around the country, preferred, native browse shouldn’t be a food source that is considered worth hunting near until late in the season.  Like any rule, there are exceptions, and in some geographic locations, browse is virtually the only year-round food source available. 

In the Southeast, where I pursue my quarry, whitetails feed heavily on browse during the spring and summer months. I refer to these periods as the off-season.  It’s during the off-season that deer must make a living by feeding on browse, simply because there’s little else to eat, aside from agricultural crops. 

When native plants sprout and emerge in the spring, the fresh growth is both tender and palatable.  Additionally, and more importantly, this fresh new growth is more nutritious than more mature or woody portions of the plant. 

As summer progresses into fall, the cell walls in many browse type plants mature and begin to deposit lignin. Basically, the browse turns from a succulent to a more woody type plant.  Lignin, a component of cellulose (i.e. wood), is considered an anti-quality component in browse type forage because of its negative impact on the nutritional availability of plant fiber. 

Lignin interferes with digestion and acts as a physical barrier to microbial enzymes contained in whitetails’ stomachs.  As plants mature, the concentrations of lignin increase; this has a direct impact on the digestible energy available to whitetails.  Typically, the younger the plant or plant component, the more digestible it is.

Fortunately, Mother Nature steps in near the time, early bow hunting season opens around the country.  Just prior to the season opener, soft-mast type food sources become available.  Whitetails will virtually switch or greatly supplement their diet with soft mast as it becomes available.  Soft mast -- wild berries, crabapples, persimmons, wild grapes, honey locust seedpods and wild plums -- are all sought out by whitetails and devoured.  Knowing this, bow hunters would be foolish not to seek out soft-mast food sources for the opener. 

Around the time the soft-mast food sources begin to dwindle, Mother Nature again steps in and provides whitetails with hard mast in the form of nuts and acorns.  In the extreme Southeast, beech tree nuts and hickory nuts are the first to become available to deer.  Soon after, several species of red oak trees begin to drop acorns followed by the prized white oak species.

Being intimately aware of the different browse type plants that occur in your favorite hunting areas becomes increasingly important as the season progresses.  As fall turns to winter, soft-mast food sources that were once available are nothing more than a distant memory.  Knowing where that small patch of red oaks that are dropping a late crop of acorns is worth its weight in gold.

Acorns become scarce as the season progresses. This is the time to consider switching to remaining agricultural crops. But what if there are no agricultural crops or planted food plots in your area?  Let’s face it: We all don’t have access to the most ideal hunting grounds.  That’s right; we now have to consider switching to native browse.  It’s no coincidence that the population of hunters in the woods drops as the season progresses.  The rut is now over and all the acorns are gone. 

Hunting native browse effectively takes some work in the scouting department, and obtaining specific geographical knowledge on the subject is often hard to come by.  Native browse-type plants occur everywhere with variance in specie diversity and quantity, so we must narrow down our search. 

Like hunting over soft and hard mast, one approach is to seek out areas with the most concentration of food.  Additionally, with regards to browse in particular, it’s a good idea to seek out areas that exhibit a diverse selection of plant.  Diversity is a big piece of the puzzle when evaluating browse locations.  The logic here is that while some plants are producing nutritious and palatable components, others are not.  However, as the season progresses, some of the plants that were not as desirable, soon become preferred over others, which may loose their attractiveness. 

Would you rather eat a bowl of plain lettuce or would you rather go to the salad bar and prepare a bowl of mixed greens with all the fancy toppings?  If you don’t like tomatoes, no problem, don’t eat them.  There are plenty of other choices here at the salad bar.  Get the picture?  So where do you start looking in an effort to find that salad bar with so many choices? 

Ecologists term areas where two or more habitat types converge as ecotones.  We hunters call these areas “edge.”  An ecotone typically poses a large diversity of plant species.  A good example is where an edge of a pine tree plantation meets a field or pasture.  Step a few feet into a pine tree plantation containing trees that are rather closely spaced and you will notice there is little in the way of vegetation on the ground.  This is a very common sight in the Southeast.  In fact, you may notice nothing except bare ground covered with pine needles.  Step a few feet out of the pines, climb over the barbed wire fence and enter the open field and you may notice nothing except a single species of grass planted for cattle. 

If you look close to the “edge” of the two habitat types, however, you may notice a thin line of vegetation, between the pine trees and the barbed wire fence.  This zone of vegetation contains five or more different species of plants.  This is your ecotone.  This is the whitetail’s salad bar. 

Now throw a third habitat type into the equation …  let’s say a swamp. 

You will notice that there is even more plant diversity at the intersection of these three habitat types as compared to just two types.  When a wetland is added to the equation you tend to find a plethora of vegetation diversity. 

Why is so much plant diversity contained in these ecotones? 

The difference in the availability of sunlight is why, and the changes in soil moisture and composition as you merge from one habitat type to another.  You’ll notice if you look closely that the individual species of plants occur in a general stratified or layered configuration in ecotones. 

As you step out of the swamp and walk toward the pine plantation, you’ll notice certain types of plants occur close to the swamp but do not occur close to the pine trees and vice versa.  It’s Nature’s way of building a delicious triple-decker turkey sandwich.  First you start off with the bread, lay down a piece of turkey, a piece of lettuce and then a tomato. Get the picture?

Hopefully the information provided so far has helped you to form an image in your mind of certain areas within your happy hunting grounds that qualify as good ecotone or edge candidates. Utilizing aerial photographs can help you pinpoint possible locations.  Some ecotones are more obvious than others but with a little practice you will learn to identify areas where abrupt habitat changes occur and where plant diversity is significant. 

The occurrence of an ecotone is often the result of an elevation change in the topography, sometimes substantial and sometimes subtle.  Areas that I like to refer to as artificial ecotones or man-made edge, often attract whitetails.  Places that come to mind are power line easements, roadside right of ways, the edge of ditches, storm water management ponds and swales, edges of farm ponds and small openings in a forest where cell phone or radio towers are situated.  These places often contain a large diversity of succulent plants.

Admittedly, there are areas around the country that have a surplus of ecotonal habitats and in those areas, it will be a much more difficult task to consistently harvest whitetails by simply trying to hunt them through their stomach.  To be successful, you’ll have to scout much more than you hunt.  However, there are several places that come to mind where this is not the case. 

Edge is a real commodity to deer in certain locations where it is rare.  Every year I travel to Lincoln County, W.V., in pursuit of big bucks.  On the surface and to the untrained eye, the whitetail habitat there looks positively gorgeous.  However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  As far as whitetail habitat is concerned, many parts of West Virginia are sub par.  Much of the state has acres and acres of rolling hills filled with wall-to-wall mature hardwoods. 

The property I hunt has huge blocks of giant, mature white oaks.  So what is the problem, you ask?

When you put on your ecologist thinking cap, you quickly realize that too much of a good thing is bad.  There is very little edge.  Once the rut is over and the deer consume the acorn crop, many hunters are left scratching their head.  Mature hardwood forests allow little sunlight through to the ground.  The woods have very little under story (i.e. succulent browse type plants) and the deer devour what little is available. 

In the county I hunt in West Virginia, agriculture is not real prominent.  Many homesteaders have their little gardens here and there but other than that, the countryside is nothing but wall-to-wall lumber.  Edge does exist, though, you just have to develop a sharp eye for it.  The most prominent edge available occurs along narrow road side right of ways.  As winter approaches and all the hard mast is consumed by deer, they switch to feeding along these narrow roadways. 

Deer sightings along roadways increase dramatically especially at night.  Roadway edges are noisy and exposed, so deer feed there primarily at night.  Hunting along the roadways is therefore not a productive tactic.  The trick is to identify bedding areas adjacent to the roadways where deer sightings are common.  Once the bedding areas are located you can hunt the whitetails as they travel to and from the roadside edge food source.  This is a perfect example of hunting a food source and knowing how it relates to deer movement, but not necessarily hunting right on top of it.

When you scout your ecotone type habitats on your favorite hunting grounds, there are certain plants in particular that you should look for.  Based on where you hunt geographically, you will start to become familiar with the specific plants that deer tend to favor and which ones they tend to avoid all together. 

One can tell what types of plants deer like to browse on based on the sign they leave.  The existence of tracks and droppings is always a good sign.  Also, the terminal ends of succulent plants that deer prefer to eat will be nipped off.  With a little practice you will be able to discern between old browsing sign and sign that is new.  Browsing sign that is rather new will appear moist and still fresh, where as old browsing sign will have a dried out, sometimes black appearance.

When it comes to browse-type plants, forbs (herbaceous plants other than grasses) are preferred over grasses and woody type plants.  Legumes, referred to as the beans, are a family of plants that deer tend to favor more over others. Cultivated beans and peas are a favorite food-plot planting. Varieties such as clay peas are considered as ice cream to deer. 

Wild legumes are relished almost equally.  Plants like wild bean, partridge pea, butterfly pea, milk pea, sensitive briar, and sometimes kudzu are wild legumes that deer seek out over many other plant varieties that occur in ecotones.

Generally, legumes are quite palatable, digestible and are high in protein content.  Protein is something that is hard to come by with regards to a whitetail’s diet, so plants that contain protein are often favored. 

Many wild legumes die off and become harder to find as winter progresses.  In late winter, deer will often switch to the old stand-by browse, greenbrier.  Greenbrier is a common name for the genus of plants called smilax. 

Smilax is a group of thorny vines that exhibit an evergreen like quality.  Wild Sarsaparilla is a common smilax vine.  Greenbrier tends to persist year around, hence, provide deer with a year-round food source. 

I like to call greenbrier the “least preferred,” preferred food source.  Baloney sandwiches probably aren’t your first choice for a meal but when you are hungry, they’ll get you by.  That’s what greenbrier is. As preferred food sources come in and go out deer will often feed heavily, in these interim periods, on greenbrier.

There are about ten different species of smilax vines that occur in northern Florida, where I predominantly hunt. All of them look quite similar.

Carolina yellow jasmine is not a smilax vine, but it too is a vine that exhibits an evergreen quality and deer will feed on it intermittently.  This vine grows along the ground and on trees and bushes and is commonly found growing right on the edge of pine plantations.   It’s often confused with wild honey-suckle, both of which do not have thorns, unlike greenbrier. Wild honey-suckle also exhibits an evergreen quality and is favored by whitetails intermittently throughout the year. 

American Beauty Berry is an erect plant or shrub that whitetails will browse on periodically.  This plant occurs commonly along country roads and at the edges of fields and pastures.  When the plant is fruiting, it is quite easy to identify.  The clusters of purple colored berries produced by this plant are hard to miss.  Deer will eat both the berries and the succulent new growth produced by this weedy plant. 

Cedar trees provide a favorite late winter food source for whitetails.  Cedars trees (both Red and White) produce persistent evergreen type leaves and when most other food sources are scarce, deer will turn to cedar tree leaves for sustenance.  Stands of cedar trees also provide dense cover for whitetails to escape the elements.  This marriage of food and shelter will often concentrate deer in areas where these trees are not extremely common.  Small stands of cedar trees can hold lots of deer especially during severe weather events.  

Depending on your geographic location, there are countless numbers of plants, other than those mentioned here, that deer seek out.  Go to your local bookstore and purchase a plant identification field guide that contains lots of color photos and/or line drawings. Take this book with you whenever you are out putting the scouting miles on your boots, so you can identify and make note of which plants whitetails are feeding on.  You will start to become familiar with specific browse-type plants that whitetails in your area prefer and when they utilize them as a food source.