Standing corn fields are tuff! What I usually do is just wait until the corn is harvested. If not, I will set up in between the standing corn and a water source. Look for trails that enter and exit from the corn to the woodlot. Hopefully there is no water within the standing corn, but deer do need to consume water. Shot my last years buck off of a recently cut corn field. Didn't see many while the corn was still standing, but did see some moving from a bedding area to the corn.

Goodluck to ya

 

What I usually do is just wait until the corn is harvested.

Goodluck to ya

Thanks, what stinks is it seems they dont take it down til late October or early November. Kills early season!

 

Best when lite wind for the noise, move slow.

 

Your problem will be in the morning when they're already on the corn....Like said before, you need to find a spot to setup that's in between the bedroom and food.

 

Sounds alot like here.

Often times, the bedroom and food are the same place.

Like was said, hunt obvious travel points theyll use if they leave the corn.

Its tough, you just gotta stick it out till the crop comes off. Thats one of the best days to be in the woods. If you can be in the stand the day the combines are running, LOOK OUT! Youll have deer all over the place and temporarily confused.

 

Like you, I have more experience in one type of hunting, but for me it's all famrland....with corn, beans, alfalfa, etc. I have dealt with the corn in several ways. What is right for you depends on your situation.

1. I ALWAYS keep one stand ready to be set up (or a climber, if you are inclined). I use ladder stands, but always have one bolted together ready to be thrown up on a moments notice. Many times you'll get into your location and notice a key insight that clues you in to a better ambush site (like seeing deer take a path fifty or sixty yards away). Some will move that stand, but I prefer to add the ready-to-go one for time saving, less scent intrusion, and I can return to it for a lilttle scouting if need be to better educate myself.

2. Edges...obvious key. No real need to explain.

3. Look for partial cuts. Deer will follow the cut corn. I almost always see the highest deer count on stand during the season when I set up on the edge of a fresh partial-cut section of corn (Ie a corner of a field when the farmer ran out of daylight, etc.). Sometimes the farmer will cut an inside section that allows deer to feed out of view from roads and other open areas. I had one last year not 50 yards from my house that the farmer went in and cut a 30' x 80 or 90' section for whatever reason. You wouldn't know it was there unless you explore the tractor's swath (path). It was there for about a week and you couldn't see it from the house. I had a daily average of 29 deer (some were repeats) sighted on evening sits.

4. No cuts...look for hedgerows or thin strips of timeber connecting fields. While deer will be fat and happy in the corn, they'll freely use the hedgerows for travel, and sometimes you can find a path being taken from field to field. It won't give you much notice as to when they arrive, pass, and disappear into the next field, but you will have a good amount of activity. Oftentimes, these trails crossing a hedgerow will have a scrape or rub. While I do not hunt scrapes too often (too much nighttime activity), scrapes found at these crossings are good indicators and often have a higher daytime usage by bucks since they generally feel more protected and less vulnerable due to the standing corn. They're usually on the outside edge of the hedge row and in a section where the corn is a few feet from the hedge row (like where the tractor goes around a puddle or muddy spot and it spaces a few feet between the hedge row and corn). I also prefer this to an evening stand often due to increased activity and easier to enter/leave.

5. Stalks can work, although I prefer to no do this except on windy days where I do not want to be in a stand. In this case, I often set up a blind in the corn itself, or stalk lightly. Very interesting hunt style and can be worth the gamble at times. I usually get to the wind-right side or corner of a field and work my way up the rows.

6. Try to find open areas to glass from afar before the season. I'd go there and sit for three nights in a row to find movement. Use that as a starting point for scouting...Once you locate some movement (doe or buck) and nail their entry/exit points down from the open area...I'd risk a one-time scent controlled scouting mission. You'd be surprised what you can get nailed down in this manner. Do it about 10 days before the season...find your stand spots, get them set, and get out. you should find that path will lead at some point into or out of the corn. There's your starting spot. They're using it for a reason. You may find that spot is perfect for a stand. Or, you may put one up and quickly find out why they're using that path. Whatever the case, they're using it for a reason, because they'll be patternable on a semi-regulr basis during the early season. I once found a doe trail from afar, went in, set up a stand on a hedge row...sat the first night and found the bucks were using a trail about twenty yards up (no shots available from the stand). I set up my ready-to-go stand the next midday. Hunted it the following afternoon and tagged on a nice buck. Like I said, you'll find your keys this way.

 

I wouldnt consider my self a bowhunter yet. However I trapped for years. I found a lot of those bucks in cornfieelds and noticed one thing. On windy days walking up on a deer is a piece of cake..
20 years back a buddy was hunting a buck hard,.. and it just wasnt happening,.. I told him to walk the end-rows and look down them,.. He spotted his buck ,.. walked right up to it and actully had to take a step back to take the shot
Windy days and walk slow up wind,.. maybe the easiest deer you will ever get

 

A few questions and some solutions.

Live in the corn belt of Minnesota, early season can be very productive around standing corn.

Do the fields you hunt have any water ways going through them? If so, set up somwhere along the water way, in the center of the area, two rows in and be patient. Bachelor herds usually will walk out in these water ways during evening hours.

Are there any fence lines on the backsides of the fields or seperating two corn fields? Check these for hair on the wire, downed strands of wire, or any other signs of travel between the fields. I usually sit against a fence post on a stool, at a high point along the fence line where I can see both ways.............be prepared to get suprised, those buggers can show up without warning right next to you.

Lastly, is there any shelter belts seperating two fields in your area? Put a stand in the center, usually the deer will travel through these stands of trees.

Hunting standing corn fields are a challenge, but can be rewarding if one is patient. I mostly hunt these field in the evenings, since going out in the dark morning hours will get you busted most of the time.

I have only had sucess in one spot on morning hunts, it is in the center of an area that has corn-CRP-corn............with a row of single trees along the fence line where corn touches the CRP. I sit on a stool midway down the field right against a tree and can sneak in down the edge of the CRP (grass field) since in the morning most of the deer are in the corn.

Good hunting, hope these tips help.

Rick

 

Live in the corn belt of Minnesota, early season can be very productive around standing corn.

Do the fields you hunt have any water ways going through them? If so, set up somwhere along the water way, in the center of the area, two rows in and be patient. Bachelor herds usually will walk out in these water ways during evening hours.

There is a creek that separates 2 fields that goes through a 20 acre swampy woodlot that I had success with in prior years with short crops
Are there any fence lines on the backsides of the fields or seperating two corn fields? Check these for hair on the wire, downed strands of wire, or any other signs of travel between the fields. I usually sit against a fence post on a stool, at a high point along the fence line where I can see both ways.............be prepared to get suprised, those buggers can show up without warning right next to you.

No fence lines but hedge rows separating and 20 and 25 acre swampy wood lots separating them

Lastly, is there any shelter belts seperating two fields in your area? Put a stand in the center, usually the deer will travel through these stands of trees.
The hedgerows and the 20 and 25 acre swampy woodlots

Hunting standing corn fields are a challenge, but can be rewarding if one is patient. I mostly hunt these field in the evenings, since going out in the dark morning hours will get you busted most of the time.

I have only had sucess in one spot on morning hunts, it is in the center of an area that has corn-CRP-corn............with a row of single trees along the fence line where corn touches the CRP. I sit on a stool midway down the field right against a tree and can sneak in down the edge of the CRP (grass field) since in the morning most of the deer are in the corn.

Good hunting, hope these tips help.

Rick

Thanks for the help Rick

 

I'm in the same boat as the OP. This is only my 2nd year bowhunting and the woods I have permission to hunt is surrounded with corn. This stuff came up quick this year too. I got out before it started growing but didn't see much in the way of trails/sign. I could see where the deer would walk when the fields were muddy but even then I only saw about 5 different sets of tracks and none of them were on top of each other so it definately was not a heavily used entry/exit point from the woods. Not sure what do now that the corn is almost up to my shoulders. The farmer is going to try and let me know when he is going to take the corn off but I have no idea where to sit because there just isn't enough solid evidence of movement.

 

Very cool.... I alwasy wondered how you midwest guys hunted the standing corn. Seems like it would be a fun challenge.

-ZA

 

4. No cuts...look for hedgerows or thin strips of timeber connecting fields. While deer will be fat and happy in the corn, they'll freely use the hedgerows for travel, and sometimes you can find a path being taken from field to field. It won't give you much notice as to when they arrive, pass, and disappear into the next field, but you will have a good amount of activity. Oftentimes, these trails crossing a hedgerow will have a scrape or rub. While I do not hunt scrapes too often (too much nighttime activity), scrapes found at these crossings are good indicators and often have a higher daytime usage by bucks since they generally feel more protected and less vulnerable due to the standing corn. They're usually on the outside edge of the hedge row and in a section where the corn is a few feet from the hedge row (like where the tractor goes around a puddle or muddy spot and it spaces a few feet between the hedge row and corn). I also prefer this to an evening stand often due to increased activity and easier to enter/leave.


good advice

 

Last year i set up on the edge of the corn field in a small area of timber. I looked for a scrape line and a good trail that intersected the scrape and i set just off that. If you can find something like this you are in good shape. Bucks will visit and revisit the scrape line and does and bucks will use the trail intersecting the scrape line heading straight into/out of the corn. Biggest mistake you can make is setting up too close to the scrape line or the trail. Stand placement is crtitcal. Again this is from my own experiences huntin corn fields in Southern Michigan.

 

good stuff thanks guys!

 

i usually walk them when they are wet... which sucks... or on windy days... like said just move slow and just peak your head in, not your whole body! seems like it takes forever though! i have snuck up on a lot of does this way and only 1 buck and the buck saw me before i saw him.. so that sucked... it helps being able to judge yardage well too not just for the shot but so you can go to where you think you could last see in the corn so when you walk down a row to cover the ground that you already looked down, you pace out that many yards and walk back through it....

last year i actually found a nice swale within the corn field that had water in it... that was a dynamite spot but i just kept getting very unlucky!!! could have shot tons of does and the biggest doe i had ever seen but there was the biggets buck i had ever seen in michigan in there also! i saw a few different bucks from that stand and missed one aslo... but most nights the bucks would come through where my stand was when it was too dark to shoot all i could see was white horns coming through!

and if they pick just some of the corn one day and it storms or whatever... hunt that.. because the deer will come out and pick up the left over corn... they picked half the corn on me last time and i was like screw it im not sitting there.. i stalked through my woods and poped up over the hill and there was a 140 class buck and 2 120s feeding under my stand ukey: that sucked...

good luck!