Overlook the Obvious for Successful Deer Hunting
Identify Other Hunter’s Locations
Editor’s
Note: You can scout out the perfect spot for taking
deer, put up your stand and camp out to wait for deer
to come along, but all your work will do you no good
if you’ve picked an obvious place that other hunters
also will choose. The trick to bagging big bucks is
to think like other hunters don’t. Here are some
tricks I’ve learned through years of deer hunting
that have helped me overlook the obvious and take more
bucks.
Fly the Area:
Tournament bass fishermen discover hot spots for big
bass by flying over the region they want to fish a day
or two before a major tournament. From the air, they
can spot underwater stumps, brush, subtle water changes,
underwater drop offs and ledges where bass tend to hold
that they probably won't see from a bass boat when they
travel down the lake. Using a hand held GPS receiver,
successful bass anglers will mark the places from an
airplane that look like they'll hold bass as waypoints.
They'll also make notes using the waypoint numbers they
have given these hot spots on their GPS receivers. Then
they can return later and read about what they've seen
at certain points as they’ve flown over the lake.
This same tactic will produce big bucks for deer hunters.
By flying over an area that you hunt while looking at
a map of it, you can locate obvious deer hunting sites
that you may not spot from the ground. Follow this checklist
of what to watch for when you fly over the land you
plan to hunt. Look for:
• obvious funnels where two different types of
habitat come together creating a wooded bottleneck;
• edges of habitat where deer often travel;
• dry land surrounded by water;
• openings in thick cover that you can't see from
the outer edges of that cover;
• thick cover bedding areas close to food sources
like agricultural crops, clear cut regions near acorn
producing hardwoods or thickets on the edges of railroad
tracks;
• low places or saddles in mountains where deer
can cross the mountains;
• thick cover spots beside campsites, homes, check
in stations, roads and hardwoods;
• drainage ditches or small creeks that run through
dense cover;
• obscure trails well away from access roads and
the backsides of property where no one ever hunts; and
• other hunters. To learn where everyone else
hunts, fly over your hunting property on a day when
most hunters hunt, generally opening weekend, the last
weekend of the season or a holiday during deer season.
Since hunters wear blaze orange, you can spot them easily.
Then you can avoid the obvious high hunter pressure
spots.
Locate Other Hunters:
If you belong to a hunting lease or have hunted the
same public lands for three or four years, get a map
of the area. Mark all the places where you've seen other
hunters to pattern the hunters just like you pattern
deer. Most hunters hunt the same places every year
and take the 1 1/2 to 2 year old bucks that they've
always harvested from these sites. If you eliminate
these spots from your hunting plan before you ever begin
to scout, you can scout the areas where no one else
hunts and locate bigger and better bucks faster.
Look for Heavy Traffic Areas:
The Bible in Isaiah 11:6 says, "The wolf also shall
dwell with the lamb," and here's another key to
successful deer hunting. The lamb only lies down beside
the wolf without fleeing because the wolf doesn't pose
a threat to the lamb. In certain areas where humans
come in close contact with deer often and pose no threat
to the deer, the animals won't spook if they see or
hear humans. Classic examples of heavy human traffic
regions often overlooked by hunters include a briar
patch behind a clubhouse, the thicket next to a farmer's
garden or a dense-cover thicket close to the campground.
Also search the tall grass not 50 yards from the check
out station, the little thicket about 25 yards from
the gate that unlocks the hunting property and the area
within 100 yards of where everyone parks their vehicles.
Too, don't forget the edges of the road everyone drives
on to come into the hunting property.
Tomorrow: Forget the Feeding Site
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