• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

Favorite terrain feature for bucks

bigmike23 said:
I divide my stand locations by rank. So S rank, then A, B and C. Cs are locations I go out if I feel like hunting without great conditions or spots I don't care about burning out. B locations are spots I wait for the right conditions to hunt but also don't care if I burn them out, but definitely worth a good sit. A locations demand the right conditions and I hunt them sparingly throughout the season. In all the hundreds and hundreds of miles I scouted the last couple years, I only found 1 spot that I consider S rank. There's a shear cliff on the leeward side of the mtn. Until deer grow wings they can't come down for most of it. Theres one spot they can come down before it gets steep and rocky again. Its dense and thick and loaded with mtn laurel and security cover. Although I hunt hard all season. The reality is if I didn't hunt at all and only hunted that spot for a couple days in a row during peak rut with a cold front I get it done on a good one every year. It's that good. It's that good because it's a hard funnel. They HAVE to come that way. Try to find the hardest funnels you can here the spot View attachment 83723
Click to expand...

This is very close to my philosophy.

I love just being out there, so unless it is just miserable (hard rain) or dangerous (super hard wind that snaps trees or lightning) then I'm out.

If it is a really bad day (hot, weird wind, etc) then I just go to one of my spots where I have a chance, but I can't screw up any of my good spots and if I screw that mediocre spot up, then I don't really care.

Also, your hard funnel is money.

Also, looking for unconventional funnels, like your cliff. Folks can get too programmed to looking at usual topographic funnels (saddles you can see on a topo) or, usually, vegetation funnels (hourglass of woods in a field) that they might walk by other types.

Here's two unconventional funnel types:

Thick sticky mud in the woods due to a drainage. This is probably common sense to swamp guys, but where I'm at in WV there's no swamps. However, lost my boot in some mud once and noticed that the drainage of this mud was over 50 yards of no tracks. Then where the mud ended there was a lake 50 yards away, all deer have to pass those 50 yards or sink past up to their bellies in what seems like quicksand that is 10 yards wide.

Super dense brush, so dense that deer cannot get through it. Deer love thick stuff, but it can get so thick that they just avoid it. I have a 100 yard screening wall of this and I set up right by it. It acts like a drift fence used for catching critters.
 
Last edited:
drpike22 said:
I just look for recent and frequent sign and find a suitable tree and check the prevailing wind.
Click to expand...

Not to be disagreeable....but keep in mind most sign is made at night and also areas with softer/deeper/wetter soil holds sign way better. A few deer crossing a muddy area at the bottom of a hill will look like a cow path compared to more deer using a higher elevation, well drained area. So, I guess I'm saying to be sure to question the sign.
 
Mitchellfarmer1982 said:
Gonna sound crazy but I always looked for water. Not necessarily for drinking but for cover. Found my thicker areas near water with lots of natural browse.
Click to expand...

When it is unseasonably hot in the fall, I've found them bedding in the day on the shady side of the hill near water. It's where I'd go to stay cool too, if I was forced to wear a fur coat when it was 80 F out.
 
BTaylor said:
Just like the title, what is your favorite terrain feature or features for targeting bucks?
Click to expand...
Thickest area adjacent to feeding per time of year. If I find coniferous crowns and lots of rubs its a give away for mature buck bedding.
Of course actually busting them there is sure proof that I found their spot.
Once I know where they like hanging out I try to figure out their exit out..... most of the time I'm wrong!:angry:
 
BTaylor said:
Just like the title, what is your favorite terrain feature or features for targeting bucks?
Click to expand...
Travel routes. My success with mature bucks in PA is about using cams (and doing my hunting) primarily in travel corridors and doing it strategically, meaning not over hunting it and not getting busted. I try find natural pinch points and funnels caused by anything from a fallen tree to a man made fence. I take inventory and when i find a buck with potential in June or July, I try to explore more to find bedding.... leave cams... figure out if its a day bedding area or night bedding area and if it's used by buck, doe or both. I to figure out which direction a buck will head at dusk as he leaves bedding, and try to mix it up on a handful of trees on a couple travel routes. Late October into the rut, I look for him to show up headed in or out of the doe zones. Scrape lines are always of interest to hunt on. but rubs are not. I believe field edges are the worst place to hunt... only because we might get only one good hunt. When we climb out of our tree at dark, we can't see anything, but everything sees us. And the entire property goes dead. No thanks. I need to be able to leave the area without the deer who are in the field knowing i was there. I have a spot near home where i walk almost a mile to get to my truck when it's parked 225 yds away right across a 150 yd field and i am 75 yds in the woods trying to intercept them on their way to the field.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 
BackSpasm said:
Where would you set up within that bend specifically?
Click to expand...
If u can picture what I’m talking about they cross on the low banks, usually. Water hits the first bank which cuts it out, which is why it’s high, next too are low and the last is high. I’d sit 15-20 yards off where the low bank would be. Usually there’s a trail!
 
Bowtie747 said:
If u can picture what I’m talking about they cross on the low banks, usually. Water hits the first bank which cuts it out, which is why it’s high, next too are low and the last is high. I’d sit 15-20 yards off where the low bank would be. Usually there’s a trail!
Click to expand...
Do you consider other relevant features in the area? I guess how do the other factors influence which side and time you hunt that spot? Do you set up closer to bedding in the morning hoping to catch them coming home and closer to food in the evening? Are these just travel routes you hope to catch a buck cruising for does?
 
Bowtie747 said:
If u can picture what I’m talking about they cross on the low banks, usually. Water hits the first bank which cuts it out, which is why it’s high, next too are low and the last is high. I’d sit 15-20 yards off where the low bank would be. Usually there’s a trail!
Click to expand...
Hunted spot like that in MO years back. High ridge dropped into a bottom. There was big standing corn field in the bottom with a side creek running along the field at the bottom of the ridge that dumped into the main creek that T'd into the ridge. Side creek made a hard S about 65 yards of the inside corner of the corn. It was a really good spot.
 
I will say that I try to get back in away from "easy" pressure. I typically start with edges (either hard or soft), and the more stuff that comes together, the better. Then I'll take that and start looking at terrain features and check for trails/sign. A mature buck (pre-rut) may not make a ton of sign, so subtle sign and sometimes gut instinct is needed; for the rut, figure out the doe activity and then factor the best travel corridors for destination(s)/scent checking. All that aside, my deer density is fairly low, unfortunately.

One of my favorite spots is on the back side of a ridge blending into an oak flat below another ridge. Between the top of the highest ridge and the oak flat is about 80 yds. of thick whippy brush. The top of the lower ridge comes up from a swamp, and is shoulder high blueberry brush changing into a strip of pines primarily banded along the spine. The lower ridge drops down to two swamps that have about a 40 yd. strip of higher ground between them with primarily mountain laurel interspersed with white oaks. The trails lead up onto the ridge from the swamp funnel and either parallel the one long swamp or the ridge crest along the edge of the pines.
 
bowhunthard88 said:
I will say that I try to get back in away from "easy" pressure. I typically start with edges (either hard or soft), and the more stuff that comes together, the better. Then I'll take that and start looking at terrain features and check for trails/sign. A mature buck (pre-rut) may not make a ton of sign, so subtle sign and sometimes gut instinct is needed; for the rut, figure out the doe activity and then factor the best travel corridors for destination(s)/scent checking. All that aside, my deer density is fairly low, unfortunately.

One of my favorite spots is on the back side of a ridge blending into an oak flat below another ridge. Between the top of the highest ridge and the oak flat is about 80 yds. of thick whippy brush. The top of the lower ridge comes up from a swamp, and is shoulder high blueberry brush changing into a strip of pines primarily banded along the spine. The lower ridge drops down to two swamps that have about a 40 yd. strip of higher ground between them with primarily mountain laurel interspersed with white oaks. The trails lead up onto the ridge from the swamp funnel and either parallel the one long swamp or the ridge crest along the edge of the pines.
Click to expand...
Sounds like an interesting spot.
 
bowhunthard88 said:
I do bounce around depending on what the wind is doing, so the crosshair on the screen is not necessarily indicative of anything lol.
Click to expand...
The jumping around comment actually made me go look at one wma I hunt a lot. 117 pins on Onx 99.5% are feed trees or clusters of feed trees that at one point or another have been smoking hot. I am seldom in the same spot for very long either. :)
 
Not so much where I think they travel the most, but in the past few years I’m starting to really value the river that runs through the property I hunt. To some degree I always overlooked it because it’s big enough to feel ‘open’, and kind of feels like you’re hunting next to the road. Plus we get a decent number of fisherman that walk up it… but I’ve been posting the property more trying to reduce the fishing traffic. Maybe the deer were always doing this, but I’m finding they work along the river a lot, they cross it a lot, and it’s a fantastic way to access and then often times set up with my back to the river. I’m cutting my ground scent drastically on the property. My scent is often times pulling to the river behind me, and last season I had many encounters, one of them so close to launching an arrow at my target buck. Looking ahead, I plan to keep focusing a lotta hunts along the river.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top