The Management Trapper: Save Your Corn Crops

 

By Steve Bartylla

It’s no secret that growing corn in bear country or near a huge raccoon population can be downright tough.

At the same time, although often the most expensive crop one can grow for deer food, almost all serious habitat managers understand that field corn can be a powerful draw for whitetails, and be good for the deer to fatten them up for the rigors of the rut and then survive winter.

Here’s what we can do to help make corn a more viable deer feeding option.

The Bear Issue

By far the easiest solution in areas with truly healthy bear populations is to simply not plant corn. Even a single black bear can do a ridiculous amount of damage to a 10-acre cornfield, all by themselves.

Making matters worse, not only do they destroy all of that food planted specifically for deer, they also repel the deer. No, bears aren’t as bad as wolves, since deer reactions to a wolf pack moving in indicate they fear wolves way more than bears. Bears rarely cause deer to massively shift their patterns, as wolves often do. The deer mostly just try to avoid the bears.

Although not as severe, that’s still not desirable when planting corn specifically to benefit deer. Allowing bears to drive them off every day or two goes against the ultimate goal.

I’m afraid I’m only aware of two legitimate potential solutions. One is simply to plant crops that the bears won’t hammer, such as cereal rye. That’s a way cheaper option and does wonders for providing critical nutrition for deer, as well.

The other is erecting a bear-proof fence that can be taken down after the corn has fully matured and hardened. Bears can still do some damage, but it’s really the milky stage they’re drawn to most often.

The Raccoon Issue

Unlike the bear issue, hunting and trapping can be very effective means of controlling raccoon numbers. Frankly, shooting one or two bears almost never turns a crop-damage problem around, and most would be lucky to come up with that many bear hunters and/or tags. Yes, it is needed and should be done, but you’ll still likely have bear-flattened corn.

Raccoons can be taken in bunches, though, and that’s the trick to getting their numbers down to the point that they won’t level 10-acre fields.

Although one often doesn’t want to run dogs on ground managed for deer, letting the ‘coon hunters go in, in force, for a night or two can be a good tradeoff.

At the same time, this situation is ripe for a thorough trapping strategy. Remember, dropping numbers to a healthy, more sustainable level is the goal.

In order to correct this problem, don’t mess around with a set or two. That approach will only educate an awful lot of raccoons that see others in your sets.

Instead, when traps are set, go hard from day one. The goal is to catch as many as you can in as short of a window as possible. The longer it drags out, the more trap-wise the remaining raccoons become.

Don’t just make one set at a prime location. Make three or more and vary the sets.

Conclusion

Corn is a very expensive crop to grow for deer, but many do just that because of the benefits that it provides. Unfortunately, many of those corn crops are also destroyed. Although fencing is the only real solution I’m aware of in bear country, trapping is the best solution for raccoons. Just go hard from day one or the job will be made much more challenging.

— Steve Bartylla is one of the country’s most respected experts on land and habitat management for whitetails and turkeys. He has been a land-management consultant and outdoor writer for more than 20 years, and grew up trapping in Northern Wisconsin throughout his youth and on after his college years. He is also host of “Grow ‘em Big” and “Hunt ‘em Big” shows on Pursuit Channel and YouTube.

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