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Spots

L'îke this.1..place.2..spot.3..area.example...Eddie calls me to hunt,i say wich place?he says,McCully mt.i say wich spot?he says the Gard rail road.i say wich area you want to check out.he says the uper road clear cut. The place. The spot. The area. Every location after that is named in detail. Thats my concept
 
mschultz373 said:
How do you guys conceptualize of a “spot”? Not talking here about sign or features you may look for while scouting. But when you settle on a spot - is it down a single tree that you select to hunt out of, hang a stand on or maybe trim to make way for a platform - and that’s one spot? Or Is it a general area you know deer use that you have a few set up options within - so you have a broader spot that you could access and hit from a few angles? do you ever hunt these same spots within the same season or no, or possibly only after a certain amount of time has elapsed? (Assuming such a spot even exists!)
Click to expand...
Great question and while all people do not hunt the same way, There is a ton of different ways to set out and have a blast deer hunting
Have almost a 100% encounter rate and , a very high shot odds rate.
This is my method of hunting areas or spots for an Afternoon outing.
Choosing a spot, Tree, or even a stump to sit by totally depends on what I describe below. Picking a spot to hunt is easy
The question is When and why do i hunt that specific spot.
To answer the question in a very simple way that I think you are asking would be in my words this.
The way I hunt is a bit different compared to most others. I scout to hunt and, that means that I scout until I find the right area with the hottest sign that will scream out to me " Hunt here now" If I do not come across that sign the I keep scouting until I do. If I do not find that sign anywhere in that area then I keep going until about 45 to 30 minutes until dark and, then I start heading back to the truck without even hunting.
This is where people do not understand how important being mobile and knowing the seasonal timing of especially bucks is.
When I am on the way to a specific area I want to hunt, I am not heart set on a specific spot which in my opinion is a big mistake most hunters go through especially mobile hunters.
I get it we all have spots that are pretty old faithful's for us and we are pretty consistent in those spot but, It took some research at first to figure out how and when to hunt that specific spot, tree, etc.
Where I hunt the timing of areas is key to figure in when to hunt it, Where to hunt is as described above a whole other ball game especially going in blind.
That's why the number of sits a season I have is so low but , My scouting trips with bow in hand and gear on my back are probably triple or double that.
I have learned throughout the years how much more productive this has worked for me and It has really skyrocketed my deer sightings.
For example, Just last year me and my good friend ( which also hunts the way I do) scouted our way into an area blind and we both split up and just kept scouting. In short we both had encounters with great bucks.
My point is that I see people all the time broadcast how many hunts they add up throughout the season and always wonder how productive or educating most of those hunts were. I have had stretches of hunts that are really discouraging without any sign of deer all well there is red hot fresh great sign out in front of me. That is when I realize I need to sit back and think about what is going on and the answer usually presents itself with a little more in depth scouting of the area.
Morning hunts
I hunt very little mornings throughout the season First week and during the hot time of rut that's about it.
Hunting mornings is a bit different for me because I wait until gray light and head into an area not a spot to hunting and I slowly make my way
Towards a spot or area that I have some pretty good intel on. Most likely from a previous hunt.
I myself would never go into and area blind In the morning, I have and the outing was just almost counter productive or educational.
Hope this makes a bit of sense lol
 
Last edited:
Robert loper said:
Great question and while all people do not hunt the same way, There is a ton of different ways to set out and have a blast deer hunting
Have almost a 100% encounter rate and , a very high shot odds rate.
This is my method of hunting areas or spots for an Afternoon outing.
Choosing a spot, Tree, or even a stump to sit by totally depends on what I describe below. Picking a spot to hunt is easy
The question is When and why do i hunt that specific spot.
To answer the question in a very simple way that I think you are asking would be in my words this.
The way I hunt is a bit different compared to most others. I scout to hunt and, that means that I scout until I find the right area with the hottest sign that will scream out to me " Hunt here now" If I do not come across that sign the I keep scouting until I do. If I do not find that sign anywhere in that area then I keep going until about 45 to 30 minutes until dark and, then I start heading back to the truck without even hunting.
This is where people do not understand how important being mobile and knowing the seasonal timing of especially bucks is.
When I am on the way to a specific area I want to hunt, I am not heart set on a specific spot which in my opinion is a big mistake most hunters go through especially mobile hunters.
I get it we all have spots that are pretty old faithful's for us and we are pretty consistent in those spot but, It took some research at first to figure out how and when to hunt that specific spot, tree, etc.
Where I hunt the timing of areas is key to figure in when to hunt it, Where to hunt is as described above a whole other ball game especially going in blind.
That's why the number of sits a season I have is so low but , My scouting trips with bow in hand and gear on my back are probably triple or double that.
I have learned throughout the years how much more productive this has worked for me and It has really skyrocketed my deer sightings.
For example, Just last year me and my good friend ( which also hunts the way I do) scouted our way into an area blind and we both split up and just kept scouting. In short we both had encounters with great bucks.
My point is that I see people all the time broadcast how many hunts they add up throughout the season and always wonder how productive or educating most of those hunts were. I have had stretches of hunts that are really discouraging without any sign of deer all well there is red hot fresh great sign out in front of me. That is when I realize I need to sit back and think about what is going on and the answer usually presents itself with a little more in depth scouting of the area.
Morning hunts
I hunt very little mornings throughout the season First week and during the hot time of rut that's about it.
Hunting mornings is a bit different for me because I wait until gray light and head into an area not a spot to hunting and I slowly make my way
Towards a spot or area that I have some pretty good intel on. Most likely from a previous hunt.
I myself would never go into and area blind In the morning, I have and the outing was just almost counter productive or educational.
Hope this makes a bit of sense lol
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing this. I am one of those people who get hung up on a tree I like in this spot and a tree I like in that spot. I just mix up my spots throughout the year depending on wind mostly. I am going to try your scout and hang style this year.
 
Jimdude said:
Thanks for sharing this. I am one of those people who get hung up on a tree I like in this spot and a tree I like in that spot. I just mix up my spots throughout the year depending on wind mostly. I am going to try your scout and hang style this year.
Click to expand...
Please keep us posted. It is super fun and you really start to learn the area and how the deer use it pretty quickly. Pm me anytime
 
Most of the time a spot for me is where I see a deer in the flesh. I’ll mark that location as precisely as possible, either mentally or in map app.

Then I set about either trying to kill that deer, find out why it’s there, find out if more will be there later in legal hunting hours.

It’s the easiest brain arrangement for me. Organizing by terrain features, elevation, vegetation, food sources, pressure, etc. all fall short. They are good evidence to support why a deer might be in that spot. But the deer is in that spot because they are. And I don’t have enough time or brain space to reliably get the “why” correct with enough precision for bowhunting.

At the end of the year, I usually clear all pins that aren’t “I saw a deer right here”. A spot is a deer and a deer is a spot!
 
mschultz373 said:
How do you guys conceptualize of a “spot”? Not talking here about sign or features you may look for while scouting. But when you settle on a spot - is it down a single tree that you select to hunt out of, hang a stand on or maybe trim to make way for a platform - and that’s one spot? Or Is it a general area you know deer use that you have a few set up options within - so you have a broader spot that you could access and hit from a few angles? do you ever hunt these same spots within the same season or no, or possibly only after a certain amount of time has elapsed? (Assuming such a spot even exists!)
Click to expand...

hey fellow SE La guy!....finding a spot(s) is basically what has already been told...look for the hottest sign you can find and setup on it...that can be a bit trickier here in SE La so heres my approach:

-start with transition areas, especially if it involves a creek. every place i hunt i check creeks first and im almost never disappointed with the sign that i find.
-find some sort of terrain feature that is going to funnel movement (ex a swampy area that has a small section of higher ground and water on most side...deer will funnel on that higher ground)
-if its early season,im looking for white oaks (find them in the off season and check them before season starts to know which ones are going to be dropping). water oaks will work too in swampy areas,just make sure you're setting up on an area that has acorns on the ground and clear sign of being browsed (tracks,scat,etc)
-find travel trails, especially if they intersect

if an area has a bit of everything i like, i setup shop. Will i sit than more than once? yes, and usually that means scout and find that in the evening, see nothing or a little something and come sit it next morning just to be sure and find new spot by that following evening. rinse and repeat.

All this said, if a spot is just absolutely tore up with sign and i feel like ive done a good job of entering\exiting i will probably sit a couple more times, but again only because the sign is telling me to (obvious signs of fresh browse and scat, deer are obviously still coming here and hanging out)

im no pro and i probably dont kill near as many deer as everyone else on here but i hunt public land exclusively in SE La ( will change this year) and i do manage to find deer and get shots.
 
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