White tailed deer canold or corn?
 

I’ve had bow hunting friends tell me canola is where they usually see mulies and moose white tail in the corn what’s your early season experience?

As a Bowhunter you must have made some observations. What were they?

I am looking to hear other people’s experiences is why I am posting this thread

Whitetails
 

Neither, they don’t typically hit the corn until a real hard freeze. They might go into the canola once it’s swathed and they can get at the green shoots coming up under it. My 2 cents.

We see mule and white tail deer and moose in Canola on a regular basis when it is in bloom in Athabasca and Wandering river
Cat

I don't typically see whitetail in canola. Mostly mule deer and the odd moose. Generally when it is green or flowered and I don't remember ever seeing anything feeding once it's flowered.

Corn fields are few and far between in my travels but the only field that I've hunted that had corn was a waste of time imo.

Mule and moose like the green canola for feed.
Great cover for mule deer and good for spot and stock on a windy day.
White tail are occasional habitants.
Moose somewhat in the corn later on, WT and MD not so much any more than other feed.
Bears like the corn but 5 feet in and they disappear so a lot tougher to hunt them there as opposed to oats.

I can do "spot and stalk" on several properties I permission on in and around Edmonton for Mulies in Canola. Problem is, I was about 30 minutes into my first stalk when it dawn on me if I do shoot this mulie I will need to drag it through 200 yards of crop. With respect for the land owner and his livelihood I decided against ever stalking a mulie in standing canola.

Split in two and make two trips on a pack frame.
Less damage then the deer that's making their trails through the crop over and over.

That is great information, thanks and I will definitely consider it.

Canola For Moose :)

no experience with corn. Canola, mules but rarely whitetails.

How about peas? for the first time ever I will have the chance to hunt a pea field. Whats the tendencies of deer and peas?

We see Moose and white tails in the same pea field at the same time where I hunt
Cat

Do the animals like peas throughout growth cycle of the plant? What would be a rough timeline when they would harvest a pea crop?

I wonder if in different areas they'd feed different. Seems to me I've never seen any animals in a pea field. I always thought there should be. I chalked it up to the herbicides that are sprayed.

Around here central Ab. peas are usually taken off around the 20-30 August. Usually always a pea field combined for the Waterfowl opener on September 1.

We have roughly 5 quarters of corn this year and 3 last year and so far the most I see for animals going in and out of it has actually been coyotes. Not much for deer or moose. Lots of mulies in the canola though. Last year I counted 43 in one field(cut)

Not so much for seeing whitetails in canola, but the Mulies, and the Elk absolutely love the canola.

I see moose and muley's in both corn and canola quite often, whitetails seem to prefer alfalfa.

Thank you, Most of my hunting is done west of Calgary and peas dont do well out there I would assume. I am quite interested in seeing how the animals use a pea field. I always enjoy learning new animal behaviors and how I can use them to advance my hunting knowledge.

For crop land hunting of any kind I've found the best fields are a oat or barley crop that has been underseeded to hay. These kinda fields have been very successful for me. I've also had good success for elk in a fescue field. I used to hunt on a power line and pipeline row that was usually held good numbers but atco sprayed the sapling trees and for what ever reason the animals seemed to vacate, especially the elk. I'm curious to know if others have observed this and what your thoughts are about the pesticides and herbicides that are sprayed and how the wildlife react?

Mostly whitetails is our area and they love canola, and will feed through the hay field on their way to get to the canola.
Obviously its all relevant to the quality of other feed in the area.

Flowering Canola good for Mules, okay for elk.

Corn is everyones party when it gets colder. Just my experience.

Contrary to the consensus here,I see lots of WTs in the canola around my area.
Maybe it varies from region to region depending upon what variety of crops are available locally....I dunno,i just know I see lotsa WTs in canola regularily.In fact,this time last year I seen the largest bachelor group of WT bucks that Ive ever seen at one time in a canola field,there was antlers popping up from yellow flowers everywhere in a 200m radius from forkhorns to 6x6 and everything in between,I counted 13 bucks.

Whitetail are in the canola when it is in bloom and after it is harvested around here. Not much corn around here but I hear there is a difference between cattle corn and corn for human consumption, don’t really know though.

My guess it is a learned habit for each type of crop. Thus with very limited amount of corn in Alberta, the wt, mulies, elk and moose probably have not developed a taste for that type of feed.

After canola's harvested and the shattered seed pods start regrowing Ive seen whitetail feeding on the new growth. Dont see alot of whitetail in the ripening canola but mulies like it. Havent ran into many pea fields in my area of Alberta but when I lived in Manitoba in Neepawa and Rivers area lots of peas and the whitetail loved them. It was a go to magnet for them ( and geese)

Canola, peas and alfalpha hay fields for the early bow season here in northern Alberta. I'm actually quite surprised to see the amount of responses with lack of whitetail sightings in canola. Up here canola is a big draw for them.

I've seen all the species listed bed down in standing canola in the early season. I've never observed it being a major food source for any of them though.

Logically corn should be good cover and food, but in the areas I've hunted around corn it seemed like game used it for neither. It did serve to create funnels though, game travel was highly concentrated around the fence rows and edges of the corn... until you shoot something, can be a bugger finding a downed animal in corn.