Big bucks like cornfields. When the urge to hunting hits unpicked corn often harbors incredible numbers of whitetails. Corn left standing during deer season is excellent hiding for deer. Here they have shelter from the overhead-stand hunters shooting at them since there are seldom any trees in the fields. They have plenty of corn to eat. They can usually find water in a nearby drainage ditch without exposing themselves excessively. They can hear most advancing hunters as they rustle through the stalks. Indeed, few hunters will venture into the scratchy stalks. Here the deer nose can work well, their ears can work well, and their sight, the least developed sense, is adequate. Escape routes are uncluttered and available in all directions.

Deer are becoming more agricultural every year in their living habits.

Hunters who choose cornfields should hunt them on windy days when the corn is noisy already. Stalk into the wind or across wind for shots at unsuspecting animals while peering through the rows. Hunt cross-row slowly, carefully peering down the lanes. When you really feel you may be getting near a deer you might get down on your knees to slowly scan the distance for deer where the foliage is sparse.

Deer can be quite destructive to a sweet corn patch. With their sweet tooth, in sweet corn, deer are a true problem. In early bow season sweet corn plots might be good hunting locations. In field corn, they are not generally considered nuisances. Raccoons, squirrels, and woodchucks do more corn harvesting than the deer. It is not unusual for a stand hunter positioned next to a corn field to see a fox squirrel hauling an ear of corn as big as he is from the field.

The greatest reason for deer inhabiting cornfields is the cover the corn stalks provide. The corn itself just makes the patch more inhabitable. Deer come out of the corn fields at night to do most of their feeding on natural browse in the woodlands.

Deer munch hard-kernelled field corn kernel by kernel like a snack food. They gluttonously scarf down sweet corn like we do corn on the cob. Deer will travel considerable distance to visit a sweet-corn planting.

Circle the perimeter of standing corn in search of deer sign. Hoof prints should be clearly visible in the cultivated earth. If rubs and scrapes are found you have located a good spot.

Cornfield-hunting with bow and arrow is safest. Various methods of stalking or still-hunting deer in standing corn rows are employed. Driving deer from such areas to waiting hunters is the most logical. Some hunters work out systems whereby two or more hunters work a corn field in search of deer. These are close and quick shots. The situation is very dangerous when more than one hunter is involved.

The best guns for standing-corn hunts are shotguns with buckshot or slugs, 30/30 lever actions, or even 458 magnums, or any other gun with quick sighting and shorter range capabilities.

The hunter can get turned around easily in large cornfields. It is suggested that anyone planning to enter a big field with corn higher than their heads devise a system of row walking by counting rows and use a compass or a high landmark which is always going to be visible. It can get very frustrating to be lost in a cornfield.

Corn is usually used by game management biologists who are live-trapping deer as a lure into the cage.

Plowing under corn stalks to clean fields and compost the stalks is detrimental to the wildlife that feed on the missed ears of corn over winter. This modem farming technique is good for the earth and makes the farmer's job easier but is injurious to wildlife.

Farmers should compromise by leaving some of the crops around the edges of their fields standing for wildlife. Some states offer farmers incentives for such practices.

Farmers agree to leave a percentage of their crops for wildlife in exchange for being allowed to grow their crop on government lands.