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How to kill a ton of deer every year

I love the cookie jar analogy too. I collect spots. It’s fun. I mark places I want to scout in HunttStand and then I save a list of them in my phone and I scout every weekend. If I have time I will choose the one at the top of my priority list no matter how far away it is or how big the track. If I’m pressed for time I go down the list and find what is closest.

i feel like I need a bunch of spots figured out to be ready for season. That’s just me. Every year posted signs appear out of nowhere, ladder stands show up on every other tree or a spot just sucks. You never know what challenges a piece of ground will throw at you come season.

so have plenty of cookies in the jar.
 
Rg176bnc said:
Looks like some pretty good traffic for the off season!

Heres some places that you can check out.

Tree farms
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^^^^^^ This for sure. Back many moons ago during my college years, my summer jobs were usually low paying manual labor work. I worked for a tree farm for two summers and because I grew up on a small farm I could drive a tractor reasonably well and cultivate fields without too many problems so my first day they gave me the junkiest tractor they had, an old corn-binder IH by the end of a couple weeks they had me in a nice big new ford four wheel drive and I was driving that thing to all of their fields and many they leased with a cultivator on the back just keeping the weeds down between their trees and plants. The bucks I saw in July and early August before I went back to school were incredible!!! Gobblers too!! I was too young and stupid to put two and two together to consider even asking if I could bowhunt but I wished I had. These were monsters back in the late 1980's early 1990's. I bet there are still some huge ones there.
 
And guess what is attractive to a big buck that wants to rub its antlers? Row after row of nice 1.5" to 2.5" diameter saplings near a wooded point that comes off a ridge back in the corner near a stream or creek.. What a super spot to bowhunt!!!
 
Take it from somebody that REALLY knows If you aint ever hunted so much that you have come home with ya stuff on the porch You will never kill that many deer.LOL Stop birdwatching and drop the string is the next thing ya got to do Really spend the time it takes to stay on top of good deer sign and dont settle for just getting in a tree
 
Alright lets talk about the deer you shouldn't kill. That is if you are buck hunting or want to fry and "farm" some deer. These are deer that you can count on to show up and they cant be seen from the road. Deer that can regularly be seen from the road arent very attractive to big deer. Most big bucks just aint gonna do it so feel free to whack away.

Now if you have a doe that is as regular as a morning movement 5 out of 7 days a week in a spot dont shoot her before the rut. In my experience the single 1.5 to 2.5 y/o doe are the ones that are like this the most. I dont know why they arent smart enough to relocate when bucks start to harass them but use it to your advantage. Go visit these girls when the bucks are in lock down phase.

Heres something I have started to pick up on the last 5 years or so to key in on during the lock down phase that can be very frustrating to hunt. Key in on bedding areas that border terrain features that totally suck or are impassable. Water, cliffs, terrible briars, vegetation you cant even crawl thru, chain link fence, hog wire fence like used along some of the highways. Along with isolated patches of timber in fields. Mature bucks especially the kind you seldom lay eyes on in the daylight dont like exposing themselves by running around like a fool chasing does.

This seems to happen to the first deer that come into season than the latter ones. I think its because of the effort involved in standing over her and MAKING her cooperate because that is what is going on here. Ive seen some of these ole girls that Im not to sure survived because they were roughed up so much. If you have some of the above structures in your area this is a great time to take your binos and still hunt these features for a locked down buck. Move slow and be patient because that buck is vigilant as all get out at this time.

Thats about it boys, be a student of the deer and get after it. Go to the top of the page and read Womacks way of hunting, he knows what he's talking about.
 
Rg176,
Your spot on. Those isolated bedding areas are prime spots. My main current hunting property used to be my back up spot. I hunted it off and on through the years. My main spot was opened to the public and now gets too much pressure. Now my 2nd spot is my primary hunting area. Anyway, I thought I knew it pretty well. I was missing so much. It has 2 primary bedding areas at both ends and I used to hunt them as they entered and exited these areas. The 500 yds of ground in between I didn't hunt so much because I considered it a travel corridor. In fact I nicknamed it Cottonwood Corridor. Several years ago I set up an observation tree. I could watch one of the main bedding areas plus the corridor. The bedding area was slow but that corridor was hot! I watched 7 bucks work 2 small brush patches all morning long. As the season progressed we set up on either end of the Corridor. Consistantly we saw action in the middle of the corridor. (200 yds away). The trees in that area are very large and finding a tree small enough to get in is a challenge. I finally said enough is enough and hunted the area in to only tree that could I find. I sat dawn to dark. Never went more than 15 min without my eyes on a deer. Never more than a 30 min without my eyes on a buck. Saw 16 different bucks. 3 P&Y bucks. One of them I had 13 opportunities from 35 yds to 60 yds. My range finder was malfunctioning. (TIP-Don't let your grandkids play with your rangefinders. They push buttons they shouldn't!) I wasn't positive of the range so I held off because I just KNEW eventually he would chase a doe within 20 yds. Well that never happened. However I watched those 16 bucks work 3 small brush patches all day. Basically I was just out of bow range. Here's what I learned. Some of the does weren't using the main bedding areas to try to get away from the bucks. They would bed so they could see the bucks coming and leave if one got too close. This went on all day. The light bulb went on and I started paying more attention to these brush patches. I was definitely missing the whole picture. The 2 main bedding areas are so obvious that I spent all my time near one or the other. Both are good areas and have produced some nice bucks. I tagged out early this year so I didn't get to spend much time in the corridor. From what little time I spent there this year, the bucks were definitely working each brush patch. Especially late in the rut. You can bet I will spend more time there in the future. I now have a tree set up downwind of 5 of those brush patches. I can stay mobile and hunt different tree almost every day.
 
Rg176bnc said:
isolated patches of timber in fields.
Click to expand...

This. And it doesn't need to be much. I find the smaller the better. The pieces you've never thought of hunting. The spot next to a house or a barn. Those tiny little spots bucks love because no one ever pays attention to. They usually have 360 visibility or close to it as well. They're prime spots a buck wants to push a doe into for a day or two.
 
I am good with 2-3 a year. About all I can eat before the next season. My best luck has been swamp edges. Find the does and you will find bucks crossing their main trails on the the transition come prerut.

Lots of scouting in the spring before green up.
 
Buckhole75 said:
Take it from somebody that REALLY knows If you aint ever hunted so much that you have come home with ya stuff on the porch You will never kill that many deer.LOL Stop birdwatching and drop the string is the next thing ya got to do Really spend the time it takes to stay on top of good deer sign and dont settle for just getting in a tree
Click to expand...
Hahaha. This is completely true. That's why between turkey season and next deer season; it's wife season.
 
Rg176bnc said:
Alright lets talk about the deer you shouldn't kill. That is if you are buck hunting or want to fry and "farm" some deer. These are deer that you can count on to show up and they cant be seen from the road. Deer that can regularly be seen from the road arent very attractive to big deer. Most big bucks just aint gonna do it so feel free to whack away.

Now if you have a doe that is as regular as a morning movement 5 out of 7 days a week in a spot dont shoot her before the rut. In my experience the single 1.5 to 2.5 y/o doe are the ones that are like this the most. I dont know why they arent smart enough to relocate when bucks start to harass them but use it to your advantage. Go visit these girls when the bucks are in lock down phase.

Heres something I have started to pick up on the last 5 years or so to key in on during the lock down phase that can be very frustrating to hunt. Key in on bedding areas that border terrain features that totally suck or are impassable. Water, cliffs, terrible briars, vegetation you cant even crawl thru, chain link fence, hog wire fence like used along some of the highways. Along with isolated patches of timber in fields. Mature bucks especially the kind you seldom lay eyes on in the daylight dont like exposing themselves by running around like a fool chasing does.

This seems to happen to the first deer that come into season than the latter ones. I think its because of the effort involved in standing over her and MAKING her cooperate because that is what is going on here. Ive seen some of these ole girls that Im not to sure survived because they were roughed up so much. If you have some of the above structures in your area this is a great time to take your binos and still hunt these features for a locked down buck. Move slow and be patient because that buck is vigilant as all get out at this time.

Thats about it boys, be a student of the deer and get after it. Go to the top of the page and read Womacks way of hunting, he knows what he's talking about.
Click to expand...

Grat advice about not killing the doe who stays out of the obvious spots but is very regular to some spots with a little more cover. As a meat hunter it's hard for me to stay off these does, but you're right.

I like to think of deer hunting as a marriage. If I don't put in a little work every day; I aint gonna be successful.
 
The only thing I disagree with. Kill every doe except 1 or 2. Come rut time, EVERY SINGLE buck will be chasing that doe. Keep an eye on that doe and watch the parade of drooling bucks.
 
Stopped reading after I read you were in Kansas and advocate shoot every doe but one.

Sent from my SM-G986W using Tapatalk
 
Not in Kansas. I don't do it, I am not a trophy buck hunter. I am a meat hunter. I have a buddy that constantly kills 160+ buck in Carolina. He manages 4 farms with the single doe philosophy. When he finds those one or 2 doe during the rut they have every buck on the property with them. Also, want to see a show, rattle on a property with 5 mature bucks trying to get some sexy time. Everyone comes running.
 
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hokiehunter373 said:
This. And it doesn't need to be much. I find the smaller the better. The pieces you've never thought of hunting. The spot next to a house or a barn. Those tiny little spots bucks love because no one ever pays attention to. They usually have 360 visibility or close to it as well. They're prime spots a buck wants to push a doe into for a day or two.
Click to expand...


...but how do you get into these patches without bumping deer if they have 360° visibility?
 
DB4x4 said:
...but how do you get into these patches without bumping deer if they have 360° visibility?
Click to expand...
You either get in before them or set up where you think the doe will leave in the evening to feed if you suspect they're already there.

A few years ago for my first public land kill I watched a nice buck push a doe up a valley onto a thicket on top of a knob on November 10th. I had just got down planning to move to a different location all together when I saw it happen. The buck was East of me with a N wind blowing. He originally came S of me up a little valley below the knob they went to. He either didn't care about my scent because of the doe or I got lucky that the terrain pushed it over him. Pressure from other hunters comes from the N there and I figured the doe would feed back out to the S the same way they came from. I moved about 75 yards to the S and a little E so that I'd be downwind of them and could be in range of the same route of travel if they left. I got set back up around 11:30. It was a hailmary but the only option that seemed plausible and would also keep me from getting busted. She got up around 2:45 and fed where they were bedded for half an hour. Finally I guess he didn't like how far away she got from him and tried to corral her. She hopped down on the trail they came up on, he followed, and 10 mins later he was dead.


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