Any tips? Methods? etc


I'm curious about how to pin down where mature bucks hang out.

I wait to see where the neighbors encroach with their stands.

Then I tell them to move it or lose it, and hunt that spot.

I'm not the best at it by a long shot. In northern MN, I look for food first. Then I look for sign, then I get onto the nastiest areas in the sign. I'm mean nasty. Some shots are at 5-10 yards. I think of the two trully mature bucks I've shot, there was some luck. However, it was the rut, I was in their bedroom, and they both came to a bleat call.

Food and does are what you need to find, then search the "outskirts" for rubs, scrapes, big tracks/beds, and pinch points, is what I do.

Do you have a particular season or hunting method in mind?

What Type of deer? I could give a long answer on Muledeer. A short over view: I use other tags to learn an area, Then use that info to hunt. For example I will draw an easy to get Elk tag in a hard to draw muledeer tag area. Then As I hunt Elk I mark my deer scouting map with hunt plans, Starting spots, Hunt tactics. Mark all the water and learn how the deer use it. Try to determine travel paths and choke points. I'll mark bedding areas and why/when they are using it. I'll view the area on Google earth and Bing birdseye view for hidden basins etc.

Find the thickest, nastiest stuff on the property and hunt the edge of it

YEP, this ^^^

**Normally** in southern Ark by the time the rut gets going the acorns are gone and the deer are back to browse.

I don't USE feeders or bait.

I ALWAYS hunt the does and the bucks WILL COME !

Pre scout via google earth

Check out possible area on foot

Check for sign

Find food and water source

Find bedding areas, or likely bedding areas

Find travel routes

Look for thick cover nearby

Find an area to overlook where prevalent wind will be in your favor

Plot out collected data via google earth. Sort of a double check process, plus seeing everything you find in one viewpoint is valuable data.

Hopefully this works

tall Muck boots and take off walking mid day into where you suspect
deer might be

dont touch a damn thing, dont smoke, dont leave a trail of poptart crumbs,
etc

check likely food sources, then check for scat in and amongst those same
areas

check for nipped off vegetation, crushed-split acorn hulls,

thick overgrown always doesnt always belie a
default bedding area.(that may change with increased hunt pressure). I've got
multiple deer beds under white oaks,
they are just quartering there, eating acorns, makin dooky and sleepin all in the same place

terrain in conjuction with all above items is important. Unstressed whitetails are lazy, they will maintain daily trail traffic at the same contour. They dont like crossing contour elevation intervals in a perpendicular pattern. Except for escape routes

otherwise they will cross ridgelines at passes, breaks, saddles or lesser sloped approaches. additionally check for geographical or manmade features the exclude easy passage, narrow routes or constrictive passages like bluffs or open areas. tree lined fence rows between two fields with thick harborages on either end like what i call an hour-glass funnel are great. look for trails in these areas, preferrably a well beaten path

dont let lack of sign now in likely deer habitat discourage you, signs and traffic may switch on overdrive in simply two weeks time as day get shorter and deer be gettin their nite time freak on

I like bing maps for somewhat open areas but I'm finding that the pics I get in my area are with leaf cover on the trees or I'm in pine country and you can't see the pinch points as well.

dont scout with a 4wheeler, souped up golf cart, razor,
mule, gaytor, etc

this will just telegraph your intentions to deer for several acres. and
if its a ranch and you ride all day anyway to fondle your
bovine vulvas, blah blah blah

then by all means just top off your automatic deer/impala feeder and GFY



just walk,
it's good for you

Unless it is a brand new area to me I only scout on my way in to hunt or on my way out from hunting. I do my best to only be in the woods when I can hunt.

Pine thickets, find where oaks and pine meet. Find scrapes near thickets and hunt them in the afternoon til dark and right after rain stops. They 'll stick their nose out...

From everyone's input I think you are on the right path. With the work you've put in via the maps and the legwork we did last Saturday I am feeling very good about what we found.

Looking forward to going back in, finishing those areas up and checking out the other, larger valley.

I have a tip for y'all based on years of hunting whitetails in the Trans-Bluegrass of Kentucky
Briar Archeology

Some son-of-a-gun has been riding his 4-wheeler past the locked Forest Service gate into what's been a walk-in only hunting area for years. Tracks all over the place, and yesterday I saw the machine parked high up on the mountain way above me. I've been walking in there to hunt mulies for years. Didn't see a single deer yesterday, not even a doe. Doggone it!

Now maybe I shouldn't blame the guy who illegally rode in there on his 4-wheeler, but I think I will anyway.

Guy

I'm hunting public land again this year, so I look for the land that is not easily accessible and people pass up. I found a corn field that is shape like a square. 1 side is private/posted land. The rest joins up to a public shooting range. I plan on sitting on the corner near the private land, looking into the standing corn. There is a small creek that follows closely to the road so water, food, and thick cover.

Well, that really sounds pretty accessible to me.

Topo maps are your friend. When I did the public land thing, I usually had a REALLY good idea of where I wanted to go before I got within 100 miles of the land.

Now, it is more of a "check to make sure the deer highways didn't get moved during the summer" kind of thing. Don't touch anything, and find the scrapes/rubs.

Now, with where I hunt, I spend more time figuring out where to put my stand than anything else. I want somewhere I can get to in the dark, quietly, without going across any of the deer "highways" on the property.

Food and water sources. We use several trail cameras to check things out and then move them over active scrapes as the season gets closer

Pretty much year round I look at a ton of maps. I like the program Maptech makes and it offers 3D views and a variety of other options. Programs like these really help to narrow down the geography before you strap the boots on.

November here is all about bucks cruising to locate hot does. I mostly focus on travel corridors this time of year and I also scout areas likely to hold doe populations.

Sometimes people also get too much into the boat fisherman mentality. Launch the boat and motor at warp speed 20 miles from the launch for those special spots.

I've seen more than my fair share of nice bucks close to the 'boat launch' and in little pockets of woods.

Case in point, I've seen some dandy bucks on the neighbors property within 75 yards of the road and frequently during the season. I've never seen anyone hunt near that area as they are always headed a 'mile' back in.

No matter how bad you sometimes want critters to be in the 'right spot', they ain't always there. Deer are where you find them.

What Scott mentioned is true. Don't overlook good places just because they aren't what's expected...

If you're scouting on public land, especially WMA's with set hunting days/dates, one thing that can't be (or is at least hard to) factor in is the change that an influx of hunters makes for a Fri/Sat/Sun hunt. When I was growing up in AL all I hunted with my Dad were the WMA's. We would bow hunt then rotate between 3 WMA's on the dates that they held hunts. It's a whole new ball game when 400 gun hunters start hunting an area that on a normal weekend would have 20 bow hunters. ...it's not all bad, you'll see a lot of deer that you might not have seen otherwise...but maybe not the one you were trying to pattern.

With the nice buck George jumped this morning I believe we are on the right track. I'll let him tell the story.

Indeed; Matt and I went through a spiritual experience putting up a 20ft ladder stand. Once we brought the stand back a mile or so, we decided to scout about to see where the stand would have the best impact. Matt went one way, I another. Moving westward from the area he and I had scouted previously I jumped up a really nice buck. I caught a glimpse of of his rack, dark colored with great mass. The straight out, then up type, rather than the basket shaped.

Really affirmed that our spot was a good one, or as they say in Alabama, a goot' one.


Tons of new sign since our last outing, and gigantic turkey tracks! Check em' This wasn't even the biggest. John Holmes was strutting his stuff in the back nine; this one is Justin Beiber




Here is a video from the stand:

Scout? Um, walk along, "theres one!" BOOM!

Thats about it...

Yeah, If I had a rifle with me it it would have been a different write-up

Scouting is like foreplay; the act is extended. Plus it helps you find horns, big ol' gnarly horns.

"Scouting is like foreplay"


love it

I have my moments

I dont mess around with foreplay... I get right to the point. Going bang!

Well I don't scout my property at all, its to small a piece of land. What I do know is that, the Bucks that get past 4 years old, tend to go nocturnal. And in the State of CT, we can hunt till dark like we use to, we have to be out of the woods at sunset. We lost the best half hour of the day. And the yearly harvest numbers show it. The best thing you can do is set your self up were they bed, and hope you catch him going to water or food. That is what I do, If I see a buck, during the season, I am most certain that it will only be once. The bucks in my area then to move after dark, and go to the bedding area, well before sun rise. So for me to even catch one during shooting hours, means I get to spend every day of the season on my stands. I have a 60 day rifle season. I will fill my tags, but I also put in a lot of time out in the woods too. Last year I put in some 360 hours worth for the two I shot.

If you know where the beds are, why not just stalk your way in there and shoot one on the ground? We hunt like that all over around here. Very effective.

I scout about 250 days a year, because I love getting lost in the mountains.

Sort of a hobby of mine.

To get to bedding areas here in most places would require kevlar chaps and a full on attack mode to get 5 feet thru it and sound like a sherman tank rolling thru the woods. About the most effective way to get in there is a skidder and that's not really an effective hunting tool lol.

The closest I hunt to the bedding areas is to get ont he edge of a cutover before season and cut a lane about 40 yards long, 4-5ft wide and 4-5 feet tall and sit on one end and watch for the deer to cross out of the thick cover where they are bedding into a more open area.

Except for when the acorns are falling, the rut, and to water there's really no reason for a big buck to get out of that thick stuff here. It provides cover and food, he'll get up and water about every 4 hours and that's it if the pressure is high.

When I did radio collar work there were lots of bucks that were holed up tight in the thick stuff I never could find even with a receiver in my hand. You literally just couldn't get into it even wearing chaps and heavy shirts or leather sleeves. I could work around the outside of a block of thick stuff/cutover and know they were in there but they wouldn't budge even if they knew you were there and I couldn't get in there to get a visual on the deer.

The reason they don't is because you are the poster child for provincialism.

My favorite way to scout is to go squirrel hunting.

Found some of my best deer hunting spots while chasing squirrels from oak tree to oak tree.

I saw your pics from your 'campfire deer hunt' (congrats again btw) lets just say the terrain is vastly different down here. Someone else already hit a pretty good visual description of how thick it can be making stalking pretty hard. Not that it can't be done, we just have a lot less area that can be stalked through without making way to much noise.

The area George and I are hunting for the most part is best hunted by catching them moving from cover to food/water. We have a 2.5 month season, of which the rutt is going on only 1.5-2 weeks if you are lucky. (they are slowly shifting our season start/end dates to allow better line up with their rutt) Those 1.5-2 weeks are the only real time you can catch a buck doing stupid things, other than that they spend 90% of their time bedded down.

Mess with a bedding area and you better kill him, if you don't generally it will just push his bedding area back further into hell holes.

Here are a few pictures for a visual reference.


This is after the leaves have fallen opening it up a little more:






The few places where stalking is a bit easier is along the smaller creeks we have. The running water covers your sound very well. Walking on our dry oak hickory and other hardwood leaves is unbelievably noisy.




Here is a view from one of my favorite spots, the bottom of this valley is a well worn travel route where I've taken a few bucks.




This is one of my favorites from that area.