POLL - Deer Movement
Instead of focusing on the poll winner and sticking to that subject I’m going to let you know how I used all of the following techniques combined to fine tune my stand locations this season at my new hunting grounds. The first thing I want to make clear is that in order to hunt trophy animals you must have trophy animals on the land you hunt (a trophy animal is up to you and only you to decide, don’t let anyone try to tell you that the 6 pointer you shot this season isn’t really a trophy animal, cause it is; and so is that doe). In the area I hunt, I define a trophy as any mature buck over 120″ and there are maybe a handful of them at best on the land I hunt. I know this from the size of the rubs I have found, the size of the tracks and droppings I have seen, knowledge from other hunters, and from seeing two of the trophy animals this season.
The first thing I do when I find a new piece of property to hunt is ask around to find out where and when deer are being seen by landowners, farmers, mailmen, and other hunters. Other hunters might not always want to share any of their knowledge, but they might. I hunted this property in CT one time last year and ran into two hunter who had been hunting the land for years. I talked with them and they asked me if I wanted to set up on a drive with them and they actually drove deer towards me. I never would have expected that in 100 years, but because we talked it happened and I found an incredible bedding area with rubs larger than my thighs inside. I owe that all to those two hunters I met that late winter morning last year.
Once you have an idea of where to start its time to burn some rubber and start learning the lay of the land. The best thing to do is to get a topo map to give you an idea of what you’re getting yourself into and to pinpoint terrain features that will funnel deer past you. I like to look for heavily used deer trails, scrapes, rubs, sheds, beds, and best of all, of course, actually seeing deer. Once I find the sign I start looking for terrain features that will force deer movement in a particular direction. From there I place a trail cam out to see what kind of deer are using the area and what time of day they are passing by. If I only get pictures of deer at night I may move to another area. Just because you only get pictures at night doesn’t mean deer aren’t there during the day. I regularly get pictures of deer feeding at night by my stand and rarely during the day, but I always see deer during the day when I’m hunting. Some deer just skirt the camera and never get captured on film.
With all of this knowledge in hand I’m able to pick out a few stand locations and start hunting. Once I start hunting the first few sits I pay particularly close attention to how the deer are using the land and adjust my stand accordingly. I prefer using a climbing stand for its mobility which is extremely important when you need to adapt to the deer movement as it changes throughout the season. Don’t get discouraged if you move your stand and then you see a deer walk by your old stand. You can’t be where every single deer is, but you do want to be where the majority of the deer are moving.
This year I used local knowledge as a starting point to where I was hunting. I then moved in and picked out a stand location along a bedding area. After two hunts my stand was in the right spot and I got a crack at a doe. While trailing the deer I learned much about the land and how the deer were using it. The only other way I could have learned this much would have been by scouting in the winter while there was still snow on the ground. After my stand near the bedding area died down, I moved locations based on where the doe I was trailing went.
I found another area the deer would frequently pass through on the way to a thick secluded bedding area. It took me three hunts to finally get my stand in the right tree. The first two times large groups of does ended up right in front of me and picked up my scent. Finally, I picked a tree 20 yards from where the deer were moving so there was no way the deer could pick up my scent. On that third hunt a monster P&Y 8 pointer appeared 50 yards away along a creek and started making his way towards me until he was 15 yards in front of me. That day I was in my stand at 3:30pm and like clockwork the deer showed up around 4:30pm just as my trail camera had told me. I never got a picture of this particular buck, but my camera told me the deer were moving at 6:30am and 4:30pm on a daily basis.
Using a combination of all these tactics is sure to get you in front of deer, the more effort you put into this the higher your chances of scoring on a trophy. With the deer season over in New York, there is no better time to start scouting for next season than right now. The sign will jump out at you and if you spook the deer it doesn’t matter, they won’t remember by next season. Get out there now and bag another trophy next season.
