Hunting edge?

[Mattyq2402]

I often hear people talking about transition, in hills I like to hunt top third during the rut. My take on transition is where open meets thicket or cover. If you are up on a hill how do you set up? Do u put your set in the thick, in the open, in a place where u can shoot to both? Guess I'm a bit confused....

 

[Catskills]

shows examples of maps in this video

 

[Allegheny Tom]

"Edge" can be pretty subtle. Its not always where thick meets open. Interior edge can be where 2 patches of different tree species meet.
Google Earth has a feature I like to use that shows historical imagery.
Sometimes an older image was taken during a month when edge is a little easier to see. It may show an interior edge as a difference in foliage color or show an area where trees still holding leaves meet trees that are bare. You have to sometimes really study an image but eventually you will learn what those interior edges look like on Sat imagery.
Also, old fence lines are usually following an edge. Many times, one side of the old fence was where a pasture met woods 50 years ago. It may be subtle, but old, rusty, fence lines are along an edge.
Sometimes those fences are completely rusted away but the giant trees that grew along the fence still show scars where the wire remains inside the tree. Look closer and you can sometimes see a line of larger trees thru the middle of the woods. Usually one side of that old line has a different maturity than the other. That's an interior edge. Deer movement often relates to those subtle, interior edges.

 

[Allegheny Tom]

Post continued...
How you should set up on an edge, or even if you should hunt an edge can only be answered with boots on the ground. Some fantastic edges are just plain difficult to hunt. Some questions to ask yourself...

Can I access the edge without blowing up the area and is it right in the bedding area?

What time of day (or night) is the edge being used?

What is the normal wind pattern along that edge? There are dynamite edges that have wind patterns that only allow it to be hunted 1 or 2 days per season. Is the edge in a terrain feature that creates goofy wind eddies?

Do my odor reduction practices allow me to hunt an "iffy" wind? And even if we could possibly make ourselves completely odor free (never 100% possible) wind patterns also dictate how deer move through an area. So even if we use Scentlok or whatever, will deer still be using that area on a given wind? Ya gotta get out there and investigate. No one can tell you, over a computer, that you should hunt a given edge in a certain way. YOU have to figure it out with boots on the ground.

Just the differential in cover seams can make an edge create it's own wind patterns. Wind does funny things where heavy cover meets an opening. It can create a desirable up-draft or a dreaded down draft. Wind can swirl and eddy along cover edges when wind hits it at one angle, yet that same edge has a stable wind pattern when the wind hits at a different angle. I believe bucks like to travel the edges of wind eddies. It allows them to monitor wind from more area at any one instant.


If you determine you can get in and out without wrecking the place, and you can hunt it during the time deer are using it, and do so with the right wind conditions, you still have to figure out if there is a tree to hunt, or ground blind opportunity that will allow you to be within your effective, ethical shooting range. It does no good if the only spot you can set up is 15 yards farther than you can shoot...unless you can manipulate deer movement via trail blockage and/or creation of a new trail in a better spot. Trail manipulation isn't something I really want to do during the season. It's best done several weeks or months before I want to hunt the spot.

There is no standard answer about where to set-up on an edge. Get out there are figure out the patterns for that spot.

Another thing about hunting edges...
We don't always need to be on an edge to be hunting an edge-movement pattern. Edges eventually fizzle and fade out. We may find out that we are in between adjacent edges. Deer movement may follow along one edge and the edge terminates but the deer want to travel to the next edge some distance away. They may have pass through areas that show almost no edge. Those deer are still in an edge-movement pattern.
Follow a rub or scrape line and it often leads from one edge to another. Yeah, it eventually passes thru more open areas, but the movement pattern is still related to an edge somewhere nearby.
Pay attention to old rub lines. Just because a rub line doesn't contain rubs from the current year doesn't mean it doesn't show movement patterns. Follow old rub lines for clues on traditional movement patterns. They often eventually show a relation to an edge. Sometimes it's an obvious edge, but sometimes it's an obscure, subtle edge that we tend to overlook...but deer don't overlook it.

Edges are just 1 part of the movement puzzle. Sometimes we can hunt one and sometimes we cannot.
Get out there and study it. The best time of the year to study edges is during post season scouting. Some edges are often hard to see for 8 months of the year become obvious in the winter. Off season when trees are bare is the best time to study edges.

 

[Mint]

Exactly Tom. I imagine the wind being like water when it hits the edge, which way will it go nobody knows without using something that will give you visual clues like seed pods, yarn threads etc. I like to set up on the inside of the edge at a turn if possible.

 

[Allegheny Tom]

I like to set up on the inside of the edge at a turn if possible.

I feel just the opposite about where to set up on a bend.
Think about this for a minute...
Draw a "U" for illustration purposes and put a dot in the middle of the U (North is up). (The U is a much exaggerated example of a turn but the general concept still applies). That dot in the middle of the "U" is your stand. The only wind direction that you could hunt that stand without odor blowing toward the trail is a consistent, stable, South wind. Being on the inside of a turn is more critical of slight shifts in wind direction.

Now, place the dot (your new stand) underneath the U...about the only wind direction that will screw you is a South wind. Any wind from the N,E,or W will not blow over that trail. Even a WSW or ESE wind may miss any deer traveling that trail.
One belief about stands in the middle of the U is that deer tend to look straight ahead when approaching a bend so being in the middle has less chance of being seen. But with a saddle, we can keep the tree trunk in between the deer and us and chances are less that we will be visually busted. Being set up on the inside of the U has (slightly) less chance of being visually busted but a much greater chance of an odor bust. We can get away with a visual bust much more so than we can get away with an odor bust. A deer that sees us may finally relax and think we are not a human. A deer that smells us seldom relaxes. I will risk a visual bust over an odor bust any day.
One down side of the outside U stand is that a deer walking around the U presents less true broadside shot angles than when in the stand is in the middle of the U. The inside stand has the deer parallel to you for a greater period of travel. The outside U has the deer quartering to us for a greater period of travel. Quartering-to angle shots should never be considered as an ethical bow shot.

Also...The outside U stand will tend to have deer, that are strung out along the trail, all above you and easier to monitor by you. A stand on the inside U may have strung-out deer on 3 sides of you at one time. Pretty hard to draw on a deer when you don't have eyes in the back of your head to see if deer are watching you.

That all being said...It isn't very often that I find a bend with suitable trees on both sides of the trail. Seems like more often than not, just finding ONE tree in the right spot is a challenge for me and my traditional equipment shooting range.

 

[Mint]

Where I hunt we don't have any U's but we do have L's where the buck will walk along the outside edge of cover. Far enough where the walking is easier but close enough where to hops has them in the cover which is usually thick laurels. I'll hunt the inside edge of that L since the deer here on Long Island which are super pressured love to walk with a cross wind and are constantly looking up into the trees. If you don't have back cover you are going to get busted more times than not. Being in that edge keeps you from getting visually busted.