five
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2019
- Messages
- 459
Note, this was buried in a reddit thread, but I thought it needed more eyes on it and would make for a good discussion topic.
There's a lot of good advice to be found on YouTube channels like The Hunting Beast, Whitetail Habitat Solutions, or Exodus Outdoors. The Hunting Public has some good content too, mixed in with a bunch of other videos.
Some things to remember though, that are universal no matter where you are:
1) Deer live, eat and sleep every moment of their lives in the area you step in to for a few hours, here and there. Their existence depends on their ability to notice when something is "not right" or out of place.
2) Learn to identify different sign: Rubs, Scrapes, Scat, Buck Beds, Doe Beds, Travel Corridors, Staging Areas, Funnels/Pinch points, Feeding Areas, etc.
3) Learn to know what the deer habits are at different points in the year. For example, if you're hunting buck beds during the rut, you're liking not having much luck or seeing much deer activity.
4) Know how to play the wind. No matter what you do for scent control you will never beat a deers sense of smell. You and I have 5,000,000 olefactory receptors in our nose. A dog has approximately 250,000,000 and a deer has approximately 295,000,000. I heard it described recently as, you can walk down the street and smell a bakery making bread- a deer can walk down that same street and smell each and every ingredient in that bread, and know how much of each. Play the wind. In years past I wasted so much money on being "scent free". Now, I wash my stuff in scent free detergent when needed, and change in to it when I get to my parking spot. I have a popup shower tent thing I bought on Amazon for $30 that I use to change in, when I'm hunting public. I also have a folding travel toilet too, for those morning when's the coffee hits a little too late, and I can't wait a few hours - lol.
5) Camouflage isn't limited to the clothing, and to be honest, the pattern doesn't much matter. Deer pick out your movement, your scent and your sound, For a mature deer you need to mask all three. For yearling at least 2 of those.
6) If you're in hill country, stay off the ridge lines and learn how thermals work
7) If you're in thick woods, and you think deer don't go through stuff that thick - you're wrong - they do. Deer don't need to hide from what's overhead, only that which comes in from ground around them. They bed in thickets, tall grass, dense low pines, swamps, and thick brush. Mature bucks in hill country will bed 1/2 way up a hill facing downwind, with the wind or thermals blowing over their backs- they can smell what's coming in behind/above them, and see what's coming in from the downwind in front of them.
8) If you're up in a tree, choose a tree that provides some cover - don't pick a tree just because it's easy to climb. If you have no cover, deer will pick you out before you even have a chance to see them. If you're using a ground blind, either set it up and leave it a few weeks ahead of time, or have a plan to use some natural cover to "Brush it in".
9) If you're using trail cameras, set them up higher in the tree an angle them down. from the picture you gather on the camera, think on which way the deer are traveling and use that info to your advantage.
10) Scents, lures, and whatever other deer attractants are a waste of money. If the deer can smell them, they can smell you too. The only thing I use is my own urine in mock-scrapes that I make.
11) Deer don't like the open - they're "animals of edge". They can see out in to the open, and run through the cover when they sense danger. At dusk and dawn they venture in to the open, otherwise, predominantly they prefer 365* of cover and concealment. I have a spot I've been hunting the past few weeks. It's a deer trail shared by beavers by a creek, with scraps and rubs all up and down the t-intersection trail. It's barely "open" now that the leaves are down. It's back in the woods deeper than one would think and it's not discernible on either of the apps I use. I found it be shear luck, while scouting the creek area. There are some open areas in this section I hunt, and that's where the other guys are setting up, which is fine by me. They're getting deer movement through there during dark hours, and not during the day.
12) when you find a rub or a scrape, don’t stop there. Start looking around in all directions and find the next rub or scrape. What you’re trying to do here is find the line that the deer is traveling. Most often a buck will make a rub or scrape line in one direction, and does will be coming across that line in a perpendicular direction. Of course this is not a hard and fast rule, rather it is something to consider when scouting.
These are just a few things that come to mind. I like Exodus Outdoors on YouTube. They provide some great information on how to use Apps like OnX Hunt for e-scouting. I've used both HuntStand and OnX, and they're both great. I couldn't recommend one over the other, so either are fine and both are inexpensive. Another great channel is Whitetail Habitat Solutions. I think Jeff Sturgis probably knows deer as good as anyone. The Hunting Beast (Dan Infalt) is a legend when it comes to finding deer in tough to hunt places.
Best of luck!
(Edit) - Don't get discouraged. You may not see deer every trip out. It's just the way it works. Be observant. Listen. You'll be surprised at how often you hear deer but don't see them, once you can learn to discern the difference in sounds they make, as opposed to every other animal. Think about how you'll make your shot from whichever angle you have. Don't rush things. You'll hear your heart beating, and swear the deer can hear it too. I've been busted before for what I thought was the deer seeing my beating chest and trembling hands. The rush is real ! When they sneak up on you, and you have moments to react, don't. Slow is smooth. They key in on your movement.
There's a lot of good advice to be found on YouTube channels like The Hunting Beast, Whitetail Habitat Solutions, or Exodus Outdoors. The Hunting Public has some good content too, mixed in with a bunch of other videos.
Some things to remember though, that are universal no matter where you are:
1) Deer live, eat and sleep every moment of their lives in the area you step in to for a few hours, here and there. Their existence depends on their ability to notice when something is "not right" or out of place.
2) Learn to identify different sign: Rubs, Scrapes, Scat, Buck Beds, Doe Beds, Travel Corridors, Staging Areas, Funnels/Pinch points, Feeding Areas, etc.
3) Learn to know what the deer habits are at different points in the year. For example, if you're hunting buck beds during the rut, you're liking not having much luck or seeing much deer activity.
4) Know how to play the wind. No matter what you do for scent control you will never beat a deers sense of smell. You and I have 5,000,000 olefactory receptors in our nose. A dog has approximately 250,000,000 and a deer has approximately 295,000,000. I heard it described recently as, you can walk down the street and smell a bakery making bread- a deer can walk down that same street and smell each and every ingredient in that bread, and know how much of each. Play the wind. In years past I wasted so much money on being "scent free". Now, I wash my stuff in scent free detergent when needed, and change in to it when I get to my parking spot. I have a popup shower tent thing I bought on Amazon for $30 that I use to change in, when I'm hunting public. I also have a folding travel toilet too, for those morning when's the coffee hits a little too late, and I can't wait a few hours - lol.
5) Camouflage isn't limited to the clothing, and to be honest, the pattern doesn't much matter. Deer pick out your movement, your scent and your sound, For a mature deer you need to mask all three. For yearling at least 2 of those.
6) If you're in hill country, stay off the ridge lines and learn how thermals work
7) If you're in thick woods, and you think deer don't go through stuff that thick - you're wrong - they do. Deer don't need to hide from what's overhead, only that which comes in from ground around them. They bed in thickets, tall grass, dense low pines, swamps, and thick brush. Mature bucks in hill country will bed 1/2 way up a hill facing downwind, with the wind or thermals blowing over their backs- they can smell what's coming in behind/above them, and see what's coming in from the downwind in front of them.
8) If you're up in a tree, choose a tree that provides some cover - don't pick a tree just because it's easy to climb. If you have no cover, deer will pick you out before you even have a chance to see them. If you're using a ground blind, either set it up and leave it a few weeks ahead of time, or have a plan to use some natural cover to "Brush it in".
9) If you're using trail cameras, set them up higher in the tree an angle them down. from the picture you gather on the camera, think on which way the deer are traveling and use that info to your advantage.
10) Scents, lures, and whatever other deer attractants are a waste of money. If the deer can smell them, they can smell you too. The only thing I use is my own urine in mock-scrapes that I make.
11) Deer don't like the open - they're "animals of edge". They can see out in to the open, and run through the cover when they sense danger. At dusk and dawn they venture in to the open, otherwise, predominantly they prefer 365* of cover and concealment. I have a spot I've been hunting the past few weeks. It's a deer trail shared by beavers by a creek, with scraps and rubs all up and down the t-intersection trail. It's barely "open" now that the leaves are down. It's back in the woods deeper than one would think and it's not discernible on either of the apps I use. I found it be shear luck, while scouting the creek area. There are some open areas in this section I hunt, and that's where the other guys are setting up, which is fine by me. They're getting deer movement through there during dark hours, and not during the day.
12) when you find a rub or a scrape, don’t stop there. Start looking around in all directions and find the next rub or scrape. What you’re trying to do here is find the line that the deer is traveling. Most often a buck will make a rub or scrape line in one direction, and does will be coming across that line in a perpendicular direction. Of course this is not a hard and fast rule, rather it is something to consider when scouting.
These are just a few things that come to mind. I like Exodus Outdoors on YouTube. They provide some great information on how to use Apps like OnX Hunt for e-scouting. I've used both HuntStand and OnX, and they're both great. I couldn't recommend one over the other, so either are fine and both are inexpensive. Another great channel is Whitetail Habitat Solutions. I think Jeff Sturgis probably knows deer as good as anyone. The Hunting Beast (Dan Infalt) is a legend when it comes to finding deer in tough to hunt places.
Best of luck!
(Edit) - Don't get discouraged. You may not see deer every trip out. It's just the way it works. Be observant. Listen. You'll be surprised at how often you hear deer but don't see them, once you can learn to discern the difference in sounds they make, as opposed to every other animal. Think about how you'll make your shot from whichever angle you have. Don't rush things. You'll hear your heart beating, and swear the deer can hear it too. I've been busted before for what I thought was the deer seeing my beating chest and trembling hands. The rush is real ! When they sneak up on you, and you have moments to react, don't. Slow is smooth. They key in on your movement.
