Grapes could be your key to early season success

When bow season arrives this year, turn your attention to natural preferred food sources for increased chances for success in your region.  Soft mast food sources in particular should be available for deer when bow season arrives.  If you scout a week or two before the season, you should be able to locate ripe wild grapes on the ground with some still on the vine.

There are over 50 species of grapes in the northern hemisphere, with many found in the temperate regions of the United States. Certain species of wild grapes can be found in Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana Texas, Missouri, Virginia and West Virginia and many states in between.  In Texas alone, there are more than 12 species of wild grapes. 

I spend much of my time chasing whitetails in the southeast, which is where the majority of wild grape species occur.  Wild muscadine grapes, or Vitis rotundifolia in botanical terms, is a common species that I look for. Various species of wild grape vines including wild muscadines can be found almost anywhere and are common along roadways. Vines can often be found infesting entire canopies of trees or growing over small shrubs.  I have found entire hillsides that were blanketed with these wild grape vines. 

Wild muscadine grapes, which are technically berries, have a thick, almost leather like skin.  The grapes are dark purple to a bronze color when ripe.  Muscadine fruit occurs in small groups of 10 to 12 berries. 

By the time mid September to early October rolls around, whitetails are eager to move from browsing on a salad-based diet to one that includes fruit.  Traditional browse-type plants no longer exhibit tasty succulent growth like they did in the spring and early summer, and are now loaded with more indigestible cellulose. 

Succulent soft mast such as wild grapes, persimmons, wild plumbs, crabapples and wild blue berries are a welcome addition to a whitetail’s diet.  This fact, coupled with common knowledge that deer have a sweet tooth, should push you to seek out these soft mast food sources in order to increase your chances of success this season. 

Scouting for wild grape vines can be accomplished in the off season, but I have found it to be more productive to do so just prior to or during the early season bow opener.

Some species of wild grapes are either male or female.  In botanical terms, this is termed  “dioecious.”  Simply put, some vines may be male; therefore, only produce male flowers while female vines produce female flowers and the actual fruit. You could determine if a vine is male or female by climbing a tree and examining the morphology of the flowers while they are in bloom.  However, the task of doing so can be daunting when the subject vine reaches more than 50 feet up in the canopy of a tree.  I prefer to just look for the ripened fruit on the ground once it falls from the vine. 

By scouting a week or two before the season, you should be able to determine rather quickly if deer in your area are keying in on wild grapes, by examining their droppings.  Fresh deer droppings will often have a slight grape-like odor and will contain undigested skins and seeds from the fruit.  When deer and raccoons feed on wild muscadine grapes in my area, the droppings from both animals often exhibit a purple color.  Once you have located a nice patch of grape vines, whether growing in trees or along the ground, simply look for deer sign in the form of tracks and droppings. 

Because this food source is rather short lived, I like to set up right on top of it.  I have several wild grape patches identified in my hunting area, so I can afford to burn them out quickly. By the time deer wise up, I am usually switching to hunt over crabapples or persimmons anyway.

Hunting over a wild grape patch is effective but don’t forget about farmer Joe’s little grape vineyard.  Many seasoned bow hunters know to look for cultivated apple and pear tree orchards on private property where permission can be obtained. The same success can be achieved by hunting over cultivated grapes. 

Homegrown grapes have become a common gardening forte in rural residential areas.  There are many tasty varieties of cultivated grapes and deer will often rob homeowners.

Gaining permission from homeowners or farmers to hunt the back ten acres, where the little grape vineyard is can be an easy task.  Little residential cultivated grape gardens are pretty easy to spot.  They look like short parallel segments of fence, infested with vines and the area between each fencerow is generally well mowed. Look for an entrance trail at the edge of the woods leading to the grape garden and hang a stand.  Hunt this location in the evening on a favorable wind and see what happens just before dark.

If you know whitetails are feeding heavily on wild grapes, but didn’t have the time to locate the food source, try picking some fruit from a known roadside location or even purchase some cultivated grapes from the store and make a scent lure to use in a travel corridor or staging area. 

Here is a great way to create a wild grape scent lure:  Place your harvested or store bought grapes in a blender and purée them well.  Place your grape concoction into jars and then leave the jars outside in the sun for a day or two.  Your canned grapes will ferment just a bit and yield a pungent grape odor.  Store your canned grapes in a refrigerator until you’re ready to use them.  Take a can of your home made grape soup in the woods with you and set it 10 or 15 yards from your stand location with the lid off.