Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Who moves around...

IMO/IME, the very best and biggest bucks do stay holed up most of the daylight hours, unless it's a female that causes their downfall. Even then, catching the biggest bucks making a mistake is a rare occurrence. Most of the greatest TV hunters are a joke.

The one your buddy pushed to you is a hellova deer!

As one of the hunting camp kids at the young age of 52, pushing deer is kind of expected of me. It's not a hated task-walking is pretty enjoyable. The only deer I've ever taken while moving around was a meh sized doe during WI's second weekend. It dropped on the easy to get to side of the ridge, so not the worst time had packing out a bambi in the driftless.

I had a early season bonus doe short range weapon. Got sick of them winding me or spotting me in my tree stands.

So I put the bow in the tractor loader bucket went to placing tree cages in the meadow. The deer were oblivious to me and bedded in the willow patch. It was an easy stalk for a 40 yard shot.

I'm fortunate in that I live in an area where I can roam until my heart is content. For me, there is no better way or more satisfying, than stillhunting or tracking. I tend to hunt quicker than most but as quietly as possible and often catch deer flat footed. It is all good.

Maybe if I lived in an area with higher deer numbers I'd feel different but sitting here can be a long cold ordeal.

When Fred Bear started his hunting "career" in Michigan it was not only considered unethical but also illegal to hunt off the ground. It was also illegal to use bait or salt blocks. With the invention of the compound bow, and the subsequent explosion in the numbers of bowhunters, along came the whining that it was too difficult to kill a deer on it's own terms and they needed "advantages". The DNR, wanting more license revenue, acquiesced and here we are. A majority of hunters that started in the '80s and later know only to dump a pile of bait, get up in the air and wait for 'em to come in.

I have still hunted for over 45 years. Hunt a lot of unbroken big areas and have had a few 2 day drags. I still shoot open sights. My kids will use a scope if they're standing in an area that I am hunting......nothing over 4X though.

Lucky day for sure...None had seen that Deer until then, and he came out on the trot from a nasty tangle with 5 or 6 Does. As Raider mentioned, a Doe in late heat was most likely his downfall.

Still we made it happen in the middle of the afternoon, instead of waiting around, or only coming out in the evening hoping something would show up.

Great pics!!!!...Camera or IPhone???? I have a hard time getting pics that sharp on the campfire..Other forums, they are much better..

Getting it done when the season is closing up always makes for a great memory. Congrats!!!!

Just saw this...And the same to you...

I ran into a guy from your country and the Bucks....dead.... he had on camera were beyond impressive...Had a farm and said much the same as you...Right before a good snow he said they were up and moving...Which is the same as here. I also mentioned that it looked really cold in some of the pics..He replied that in the real cold he had the best hunting suit one could have..I asked him what that would be? He replied a Ford F250!!!!

Also Deer don't usually run too far off if you bounce them out...Have more than once walked a circle back to where I was standing...went back to the same tree and in a little time Deer showed up...Coincidence???? Or did I get them up and moving, they didn't go far, and I caught them going back to their safe spot...Who knows????

Without question, conditions vary throughout deer range, and by deer species, as to what you can do locally. Eastern hunting versus western hunting versus coastal rainforest each has its individual conditions and challenges. I have had the great good fortune to be able to hunt larger tracts of land from Adirondacks and Green Mountains, to Texas ranches, to western National Forests and Bureau of Land Management land, to Alaskan coast and montane, that have allowed one to still-hunt by cruising or oozing through woodland, sagebrush, or willow, or to use spot and stalk that sometimes ends up with slithering on your belly. (These can be applied to elk, pronghorn, sheep, and goat as well.) All of these hunts have lacked the boredom I suffer from when I am stuck on a stand for long hours. Can't sit still well. However, there are places where stands are really the only option, and I have certainly been in some: eastern second-growth forests, Alaskan rainforest, and deep south Texas being some of those places, also small tracts of private land. There are places where you can't force your way through, and certainly will see nothing.

That said, it is always easier to see moving game, and it is easier if you are yourself not moving fast or if you stop frequently to look. That coupled with optics allows you to see game in thick cover where otherwise you might miss it. Moving versus staying stationary is to a great extent personal preference, but one has to adapt to local conditions. Sometimes where you might normally be moving, you can't. The it certainly pays to have learned the movement patterns in an area.

Studying the land and identifying likely "deery" areas: bedding, feeding and watering, ingress and egress, scrape runs, etc., then moving between them and sitting and glassing for a while before moving on is how I was raised, and I really enjoy it.

I'm a mover, man. Though at time I will sit/stand for an hour, maybe 2.

Bowhunting I'm trying more to be a sitter.

I suppose, more than anything, whatever terrain you hunt in dictates your hunting style.

Ain't that the truth?

Everybody I know has seen more and bigger bucks pheasant hunting than they've ever seen deer hunting.

Mention jump hunting deer on the Campfire and somebody is likely to start a diatribe on the "ethics" of shooting at running deer, blah, blah, blah.

I've shot a bunch of 'em on the run, and near as I can figure, ain't much different shooting a running deer than a flying pheasant.

I see nothing wrong with giving the deer a sportin chance!!😉

Now start talking about shooting pheasants on the run and see what happens!!

So some of you are saying you hunt this:

Different than you hunt this?:

I hunt northern PA and almost never sit still. I constantly still hunt and have killed some nice bucks doing so. In fact every buck hanging on my walls was killed by still hunting except one. Still hunting is truly hunting and my favorite way to hunt!!!!

Whatever it takes. And that depends on circumstances.

In 1981 I spent the 1st 13 days of a 20-day moose season (unemployed! . ) on various stands, from can-see to can't-see. (18-20 hour days) After the first day I saw only cows ( about 50 - some the same ones) , and one bull too far away to shoot. On the last day I had to hunt, after 3 days of pouring rain, I hiked my soogy camp and bod out to the road where my wife was to pick me up, if she wasn't in hospital giving birth. I could have hunted the whole season, with 12 days to spare at the end, but she was getting pretty uncomfortable.

After 3 days of soaker, even my "water-resistant" watch was drowned out. A camper at the closed-road gate told me the time. It was early enough that I had time to slowly walk the 3 miles back on the closed road " hunting" off both sides to the drilling pad there, and still meet my wife at the gate at the scheduled time. The camper told me no one had been down the road since he had arrived 4 days before. The rain was ending, with clearing skies moving in from the west - all good signs. Just after turning back from the pad at the end, I found fresh tracks crossing the road, put there after I had previously passed less than 10 minutes before. Stepping to the shoulder, it was an easy shot at the 40" bull 50 yards away in the hollow below. He was mostly dressed out in time for me to meet my wife on time. He was good until morning, then 2 days packing.

I never sat on a stand again for over a decade and half after that. The hunting area had burned in 1969, and was now a mosaic of second growth (feed!), and "islands" of unburned timber, which the moose used for bedding areas. At that time, it was "any bull" regs, so it was a simple matter of slip-hunting through the bedding areas until a bull stood up, with fast passage to the next through the second growth, where the moose weren't in day-time. At least not the bulls. I don't believe I ever spent more than two weekends hunting to fill the freezer. I had 100% success ration (and a lot of packing time!), in an area recording 20-23% success, overall. Antlers coming up off the ground stood virtually no chance. . Then again, I didn't hunt closer than a mile from road access. No one else back there.

Then the chit grew up, moose population started declining, antler restrictions were put in place, moose started bedding just anywhere, as they now had good shade and cover even out in the second growth.. The previous strategy was no longer effective, so it was back to stand hunting, near lakes or bogs (feeding areas) with calling, especially a couple hours before and after light.

Success went way down......

It's been more than 10 years since I've hunted out there, and probably won't, again, except to poke around. 8 of those years were spent living up north, and the last 3 we have killed sufficient caribou out of Fbks, before moose season, that moose hunting was not a priority. We'll likely do a half-ass effort for moose out of our remote Interior cabin again, after the caribou hunt 2022. That too will be mostly stand-hunt, probably, at least until I figure things out more extensively. "Hunters" now infest the river, roaring up and down daily, so float hunting, possibly with success 20 years ago, is no longer feasible. I'm going to have to get away from the river, I think. I got maps.....and these other guys don't seem to get 200 yards from the river. The moose, of course, know that.

Moose population is probably 15% or less than it was in the 80's and 90's, in my old area here, the winter feed is a small fraction of what it was, the bedding cover is heavier and wide-spread, the bear and wolf populations haven't declined. Slip hunting out there is now is mostly a matter of exercise and snooping, with a small, small chance of success- about, in my estimation, of ass-plant hunting.

I prefer slip-hunting, btw. But one does see some interesting stuff in an all-day ass-plant.