Thick-Cover Hunts

EDITOR'S NOTE: Often the lands containing the most deer sign won't produce a buck. Any hunter who continues to hunt where he sees deer sign but no deer may never take the deer making the sign.

"During the early part of deer season one year, I found a spot where deer were feeding heavily on water oak acorns," Larry Norton of Pennington, Alabama, an avid deer hunter and guide, said. "I knew that in our part of the country, deer didn't usually start feeding on white oak acorns until November. The deer seemed to be feeding heaviest on two water oak trees close to a thicket." Norton assumed that if he took a stand near the trees the deer would come out of the thicket during daylight hours and feed under the trees. However, after three days of hunting this area and seeing no bucks, Norton examined his hunting log to study notes he'd made on this property in years past.

"You can take more deer each season if you keep detailed notes about the places you hunt every year," Norton commented. "Many times the history of an area will tell you where you'll locate deer at the time you plan to hunt a certain section of land." From his notes, Norton learned that the landowner had clearcut this region about six years earlier. He noticed some hardwood strips remained along the edge of a small creek running out into the thicket. Because the clear cut had grown into a young pine plantation, Norton couldn't spot the hardwoods in the young pines. "I found where this small creek came out of the pine plantation," Norton explained. "I waded the creek into the pines. After I'd gone about 100 yards, I located a spot where the loggers had left eight or 10 water oak trees. Since I discovered plenty of deer sign around these water oaks inside the thicket, I set up my tree stand there. The next day I took a nice-sized 6 point and saw eight other deer in the thicket just before dark."

Apparently the deer would remain in the thicket and feed on the water oaks until dark and then move down the creek and into the open woods to feed on the water oaks after dark where Norton first had set up his stand. "If you find sign that lies about where deer should appear during daylight hours, follow them from their feeding sites and back to their bedding areas," Norton recommended. "If you can locate any sign between the feeding and the bedding region where deer may eat before they come to their primary feeding area, more than likely you'll take a buck there."

TOMORROW: Greenfield Hunts