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Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 35,293
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 35,293 |
I think the biggest thing you will learn your first year out in a new public land area is where the other hunters are. It may look wide open, you may have a great plan in place but suddenly on opening morning you learn that you are not the only one with the same plan.
Something clever here.
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Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 35,293
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 35,293 |
Last edited by northern_dave; 10/23/19.
Something clever here.
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 46,745
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 46,745 |
Camp is where you make it.
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Joined: Feb 2017
Posts: 217
Campfire Member
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Campfire Member
Joined: Feb 2017
Posts: 217 |
week or older snow, in, or out, of season... Go for a walk with map and marker Look for corridors that have all ages of tracks as one group can move thru and make it look like a hot spot but in reality it was just one good sized group. Once you mark travel figure out what is at both ends.
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Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 66,972
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 66,972 |
I hunted the family hunting camp property and was the top dog in terms of taking game...
BUT Grandpa taught me where to sit based on game patterns they learned 40 years earlier.
Then I joined the Military and started hunting public land...
It took me 5+ years to figure it out - mostly I got my head right when I wasn’t seeing deer and game and wanted to get back to where I was on my own land.
Here is what I learned...
SCOUT, SCOUT, SCOUT,....
1) Walk the edge of every field edge, and Creek and look for deer runs, then walk the runs end to end to find out where they are coming from.
Lacking fields, walk the transition areas between hardwoods (acorns) to find the runs.
2). Understand when you are on a heavy run and it disappears in the hardwoods you have hit a foreage area and the deer spread out to eat acorns... (excellent ambush site)
3). Corners and Fingers - walk them to see where those runs go in them - you should have already found them via walking the fields / transition areas.
IF you miss hitting one - go investigate it.
4). Mast (acorns) - the good ones follow the place the water was right ... lots of water look high on the ridge, little water the runs shift to the bottoms.
5). Does = runs, bucks use a path 15-20 yards off the run.
6) Figure out the food vs. bedding area... Go out in the morning - they are walking into the bedding area... in the evening they are heading to the food...
7). White oak / Burr Oaks —. If you see one mark it - Deer will go a half mile out of thier way to check for fallen bur oak year, after year...
8). Open hardwood runs vs. thick stuff... if they can’t smell due to wind they take open woods so they can see... no / low wind = thick
9). Very few people hunt more than a half mile in, so deer density there picks up... I use a cart, wear light gear, and put heavy gear in a bag and put it on before I get into my stand.
10). Scrubby cut downs - deer LOVE them...
11). Light rain - Go stalking, walk really slow and you’ll kick up things that “see or smell you” they can not hear year.
12). Spitting - (especially sunflower seeds) - If you want to enjoy the deer less woods (or screw up someone’s stand) just leave a bunch of spit smell...
I took a guy hunting with me 4 years and I would shoot deer, he’d never see one, even when swapping stands.... So I asked him if I could walk with him to the stand and see how he sets up... he was spitting seeds... Next day I said leave them at home and use my stand... Boom.. his first deer.
13). DO NOT touch anything with your hands - use your elbows to push brush out of the way
14)... watch for LOTs of fat squirrels - that’s a food area, go check those out.... same with turkey scrapes.
Excellent reply. All great points. I would add: Skip the so called "deer camp" avoid smelling like campfire smoke, 3 day body odor, john madden beer farts and aqua velva. Skip the utv, atv. It only conditions deer to associate it with hunters. Adds more unwanted fuel odors too.
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Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 1,785
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 1,785 |
Slumlord: When I was in my teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s I would have wholeheartedly agreed with your post above. In my 50s I saw a gradual shifting of priorities. Now in my 60s, I see Deer Camp at least as much about who is there and the human interaction, as the deer killing part...probably more about the camaraderie than killing deer. And the thing is, despite the wood smoke and fart aftermath and food odor and body odor, there is still good success on deer. So I think you can have both if you pay attention to the wind. 
Last edited by Tarbe; 10/26/19.
USMC 0351
We know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 6,166
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 6,166 |
I agree 100% I'm not quite 40 but deer camp for me is a chance to get together with the guys for a week and catch up/recharge batteries. Deer are icing on the cake for us.
You've got to hand it to a blind prostitute
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Joined: May 2004
Posts: 5,194
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 5,194 |
I'm surprised at the posters that talk about other hunters. Where I hunt, there are almost no hunters at all anymore. It is truly amazing how much I have walked and not seen another hunter, even down logging roads . At the end of the season, I still see my own tracks in the snow and noone else's tracks at all in some areas and not even far off the road. About 30 yrs ago there were 9 of us and all were related. The last person to hunt there was in 2012 except for my son and I. It is a real bummer when we both come back to camp and both can't wait to ask " did you see anything" ? Then both of us almost always sais no. We were up there for 2 days and put out some corn by the cabin. Only 2 came into the yard in 2 days. Was a time 10 would be there in the middle of the week and see nice bucks. Now, nothing , hardly a rub or scrape. I 've never seen a place so low on deer numbers.
Last edited by ihookem; 10/31/19.
But the fruits of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,faithfulness, Gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law. Galations 5: 22&23
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Joined: Sep 2017
Posts: 4,371
Campfire Tracker
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OP
Campfire Tracker
Joined: Sep 2017
Posts: 4,371 |
You and I have pm'ed about this before, but while I too have seen the decline in north woods hunter numbers and a change to solo baiting instead of group hunting, some of us like the tranquility of having a bigger woods pretty much to ourselves. I do think that maybe some adaptation to maybe tracking or still hunting in a more mature woods with better visibility could be productive if we have fresh snow with this years later opener. When I did that years ago, I'd just spook the deer into someone else. Now maybe not so much. The trouble being that lots of us die hards are getting a little gray around the muzzle and less apt to take off on a deer track for miles much less haul one out from way back in there.
My other auto is a .45
The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has faded from memory
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