Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Pecan predators

So how is a fella to ever get a pecan to eat when the depredating blue jays and fox squirrels the size of beavers get a 120' vertical head start? Any that hit the ground that aren't wormy rejects by the arial crews get worked over by the night shift of raccoons and armadillos and deer?

Some of you rednecks musta figured out a way or they wouldn't be for sale in stores. I spent hours to get half a coffee can of the tasty buggers, but the hackberry coon [bleep] was 4" deep at the base of those trees and I was showered with cracked hulls from the jays above. One fox squirrel with 3 in his chops growled at me from 6' away telling me to go find my own tree that one was his. He is destined for the crock pot but I have no good blue jay recipes.

What is the secret to having a harvestable surplus of pecans?

Around here it is the minorities stealing pecans. During pecan season anytime I go to the farm Co-op they are there selling their bags of pecans. They don't own any trees.

.177 pcp.

Yep you pretty much, described my fight to save some apricots
The last 3 years. I ended up buying some land with 75’ tall Apricot trees that never got topped or trimmed. Either you get to showcase those death defying balance tricks on top of big ladder with a 40’ pole. Or get the round file out to sharpen up the saw so you can make way for some new saplings. Then again I passed a lot of time with an air rifle in a chair.

If you have a varmint depredation problem of any
kind and want to solve it, you have to permanently
eliminate the offending varmints.
You have to look at it as if those pecans that you
lose were your meal and now you don't have anything
to eat. Same with a vegetable garden, with livestock,
with deer feeders, anything that a varmint can steal
or ruin for you. Throw any guilt out the window that
you might have for killing varmints

There is a fertilizer you can broadcast by hand that will keep the rodents/deer away called Melonite.

Wrap a 12" piece of Al around the tree to keep the squirrels from getting up in the trees, available at building supply stores.

Blue Jays, you could put up bird feeders, give them an easier to attain food....they go for it.

Call Clemson University and find the right fertilizer to put at the drip line on the trees to double the tree's output.

Crows, we kill them.

Squirrels, you can put out "live traps" and re locate the squirrels 10 miles down the road.

Have some fun with your problem, but there is no solution without a plan, then work the plan.

You have to pick up the pecans every day, especially after a storm.

The Aluminum band on the tree trunk really works...easy peasy!

We used to use chicken necks as crab bait... Jays would work too...

Don't know about the jays, but for the squirrels get a 36" wide piece of sheetmetal flashing and wrap around the tree about 4' off the ground. Squirrels can't get past that.

Also, remove lower branches to a height the squirrels can't jump to.

My dad does this and works.

The armadillos and deer aren’t eating your pecans, armadillos don’t even have teeth. I’ve never seen a coon eat a pecan, they love hackberries as you’ve seen. Squirrels get shot. Jays I don’t know about, we don’t have them here but the crows wreak havoc on pecans. I don’t know if any good way to keep crows away, you shoot one and the whole flock is educated and they’re smarter than most people.

Take care of your trees and on a good year there’ll be so many pecans you and all the varmints won’t be able to eat them all. Not every year is a good year for pecans, sometimes they just don’t make.

"STR" Shoot, trowel, and re-load.

Sounds like great practice.

My old college roomate from central Georgia made money, believe it or not, from shooting crows in the pecan orchards. He actually took paying clients out on shoots, and they paid well. They might shoot 95 crows in a single morning.

Here you can buy Jerry's dvd and you can become an expert at pest eradication in pecan orchards.


http://www.gamecalls.net/huntingproducts/jerry_tomlin_eating_crow_dvd_videos.html

I've not seen many animals that wouldn't eat pecans.

Turkeys, deer, coyotes... Just about everything.

One of my favorite coyote honey holes was close to a pecan orchard.

Interesting take on the armadillos, they sure do spend a lot of time rooting in the leaves under the pecan trees, must be after some other by-product. Always get a lot of info from the gallery here, worth every penny too...

My trees are gigantic, some over 48" diameter and probably 110'-120' tall, it is not an "orchard" setting so cross travel from trees and bushes is problematic for the fox squirrels. Crows were far less of a problem than the jays this year. (this is my first year of owning the property) An accurate .22 is on my wish list but I really enjoy the blue jays while on stand for deer, tough choices are in my future.

I can already see that clearing under the trees and raking would really help find them upon them their falling out of the husks. Their mottled shell is superb camouflage.

Pellet gun takes care of both. Actually Blue Jays are very smart, if you shoot at them for a few days they will find somewhere else to go.

Pecan orchards around where I used to live use 4" PVC pipe cannon with LP Gas. they have them spread out and ignite them automatically periodically. Keeps crows away tool

Get you a couple of these.
https://www.gardenweasel.com/garden...Bisr69QIVQhbUAR3NXQNvEAAYASAAEgKK-_D_BwE

I can promise you that raccoon will eat pecans. Pears also.

Since the Hollywood campaign against the wearing of fur varmints have taken over I wonder how a turkey or any other ground nesting bird or baby rabbits can survive even a few days.

Pecans are a common tree in San Antonio, and the locals collect them under all the trees in the parks, especially along the river. No shortage of squirrels, Jay’s etc around here.

As previously stated, every few years pecans have an “off” year with little production. Maybe this is this year for that tree.

What this does is knock back the population of pecan weevils and other insects, these pests emerge in the summer and with no pecans most of them starve. You can tell the pecans that have been weeviled, that have a hole in them where the weevil emerged. See.....

https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/library/farming/controlling-the-pecan-weevil/

Don’t stop that armadillo from rooting around that tree, among other things it’ll be digging up and eating weevil pupae.

Agree, it's amazing how many outdoorsman have no clue about why someone would shoot a crow or trap nest predators such as coons/skunks/possum/squirrels just to name a few. I shoot the flying type every chance I get, they all look like a starling to me.

Jays are the jumpy they rarely sit still, one of the Garden Guns 22 smoothbore would be nice to have for Jays.