Whats your deer hunting strategy?

[mike_belben]

How has your deer hunting strategy evolved over the years?  Were you after does or bucks?  A morning guy or evening, ground blind or stalk or stand?  Sit over a food plot or work scrapes or watch the weather or... ? Rain or shine or just fair weather.  How often you visit a place, do you sneak in and out or just drive a pickup to a ladder blind etc etc.  Id like to hear all the ways people rationalize their hunting decisions and stuff. 


Howard you and your legal timed feeders are cheating for the rest of us so tell me your florida strategy when deer werent trying to climb in the stand with you!  ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

 ??? To answer or not? That is the question. If I offend you using my legal feeders so be it. :

I can honestly say I never hunted over bait until WV changed their laws and it became legal to do so. Is hunting over a feeder really different than hunting over a legal food plot or harvested row crops knowing leftover feed will attract game? Is it legal and ethical to plant trees such as oaks, persimmons, chestnuts, apple trees, etc. that grow foods to attract deer. You decide.

Asking for a deer hunting technique is like asking a sawyer how are you going to saw the next log that you have not seen yet. Do you hunt a scrape? Do you hunt around native foods like acorns or such? Do you try rattling? Do you try stalking? It depends on the hunter's mood, weather, terrain, rut, and many other conditions.

I grew up in N Fla and started hunting there and in S. Ala. I mostly hunted with friends using dogs. We'd put standers out in promising areas and release the dogs and often a handler walked through the woods with the dogs hoping to jump a deer and chase it past a stander. I have killed deer while hunting with dogs but as far as I know I never killed one the dogs were chasing - not because I didn't try but a deer being hotly chased by a pack of dogs can be a very difficult target to hit.

While I was in the USMC I hunted on military bases such as Ft. Benning and I mostly stalk hunted and climbed trees or sat on elevated spots watching active trails below. Occasionally I'd take and use a climbing stand and hunt out of trees in likely areas. That was the technique I mostly used when I moved here to WV until the laws changed to allow the use of feeders. Then I started hanging feeders and hunting more out of climbing or ladder stands around them and finally took it to the next level and built a couple of permanent elevated shooting houses in what we knew or I estimated would be good locations. Now it is more harvesting than hunting. The spots I have my permanent blinds would be preferred spots to sit and hunt whether there is a feeder there or not. Many deer I have killed while hunting there were not coming to the feeders but just crossing in centuries old paths.  I sometimes still take a climbing stand to the back corner of my property to hunt deer a few times each year if the mood strikes me.

I keep a rattling bag and try that from time to time but don't ever remember calling in a big buck with them. I did kill a nice doe one time who came when I blew a predator call. I don't know if she thought it was a fawn in distress but I watched her come from the adjacent property and I decided if she was that stupid when she crossed my property line I'd shoot her and I did. I mostly hunt with a rifle but occasionally use a compound bow or muzzleloader. I have not bought a crossbow yet but the state legalized them a few years ago and at some point I probably will do so when I feel or recognize I can no longer draw and hold my 60 lb bow.

I am not a trophy hunter and try to shoot and process 2-3 deer a year that my wife and I use. I usually shoot a couple of fat does or a small buck or two. The last semi-decent buck I killed was an 8 point chasing a doe in front of me on the way to my upper shooting house in mid afternoon. I was on my ATV and they crossed right in front of me. I stopped and shut it off, unslung and loaded my 30-06 Remington 7600 pump. The buck had mounted the doe and I waited patiently till he was done and got off her then I shot him. His live weight was 175 lbs. The only reason I was happy to get a big buck was there was more meat. I spent many years working and vacationing in Africa and never had any desire to hunt the big game there. If I were hunting there I'd prefer to use a .22 rifle and shoot guineas, dik-diks and Francolins. Killing a Cape Buffalo to me would be like shooting an angus cow in the pasture.

My deer processing is as follows: Neck and shoulder become bone in roasts. Hams are sliced and cubed. Backstraps, tenderloin and brisket are corned. The remaining trimmings are ground and made into bulk sausage or packed into pint canning jars and canned and used for BBQ, hash or over added to Cream of mushroom soup and served over rice.

I have a permanent skinning rack built on to the end of my boat house with an old cast iron sink and a water hose nearby and I skin and butcher my deer there. I now skin the deer, remove the shoulders, neck, backstraps and brisket then gut it. Then I cut the hams off, pull the individual muscles off them for mostly cubed steaks then I trim the side meat and any other small pieces I can off the backbone and ribs. There is very little waste.

  I hunt morning, noon and afternoon as my schedule and weather permits. I prefer to hunt when the weather will be just above freezing at night so I can leave a deer hanging to chill if I can. I find a chilled but not frozen cuts up easier.

[Walnut Beast]

Depends on what your going for with deer. Big bucks or anything. Big difference. Gun or bow  a big difference. The genetics in the area you hunt and hunting pressure of surrounding areas are big big factors. I've had a couple world class deer slip through my fingers because I was hunting with a stick and string 

[mike_belben]

Im just teasing you.. And you said it yourself, a timed feeder is more harvesting than hunting in terms of difficulty. Put it out a few weeks early, set it for 11am and get there at 1030 without freezing or waking up at 4am and trudging in blackness etc.  

  If it was legal here i would do it but its not.  You doing it where legal doesnt bother me a bit.  If im here where its illegal trying to hunt in my little woods and you plop a sack of corn right over the line and start shooting them from a pickup at 2am like all the pillheads do, yeah id be pretty mad about that but i know thats not you at all.

Everyone here eats deer so theyre pretty darn educated or theyre on ice before long. Boom boom all day in every direction. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   But as I also mentioned my stands are built in natural feeding, bedding and crossing areas and I'd be hunting them even if I did not have feeders there. And I have killed deer there not attracted to the feeders. With this year's bumper crop of acorns the corn in my feeder is not a big attractant. 

   If anybody knows something that works in the feeders that deer like and doves don't please let me know as my big problem is the doves clean up the corn before the deer ever get there.

[Southside]

His stands also have a propensity to attract smaller critters and spontaneously combust into an inferno - but I digress... :D

[mike_belben]

  

  If anybody knows something that works in the feeders that deer like and doves don't please let me know

Acorns.  :laugh:

[mike_belben]

My dads parcel has quite a few doe beds.  The clock change messed me up this morning and it was daylight before i had kids on the bus but i needed some quiet so i grabbed the bow suited up and walked over.

The leaves are dry and crunchy but the neighbors chickens are always raking thru my dads place.  They were all crowing so i raked leaves liken a chicken with my foot and pat pat pause then advanced each time down the trail.  If i walk in i will never see a deer.  This morning i saw her get up out of bed and slowly walk off without blowing so i know that tactic got me closer and know where lover boy will visit.


I switched to ultra slow, silent(ish) stalking toward the back of the parcel using the low ground on this rolly place.  Its only 5 acres and in view of houses but another doe blew from close by the other direction. Okay, so ive got two bed sites.  Stayingnin the creases brought me onto a faint buck checking trail that weaves along checking on the doe scent. The buck trail intersected a doe highway from bedding area to feeding area.   Aha.  I see whats going on here.  


If i just came out and hung a stand (that i dont even have, im broke again and need to make a few) it woulda gone in the tree i like best and been all wrong.    So my strategy is to push myself into a few failed stalk hunts to gather intel on current events.   With these new bits of info in mind, how i will alter this land is getting reformulated to keep deer preferences intact and increase rather than reduce the holding capacity and hunting opportunity. 

[Jeff]

My strategy now days is to get them to come to ME any way I can. The ultimate goal would be to shoot them from my porch as I need them.  :D

[WDH]

My strategy is to let only my Son-in-law, my nephew and his wife hunt my property and they reward me with 2 deer a year for my freezer.  I have harvested a ton of deer in my life, but as I have gotten older, I do not enjoy the killing part of hunting anymore, so I let them do it for me. 

Yesterday was a great day for my nephew and his wife.  The bigger buck was harvested only 300 yards from my house.  I manage my property for timber production and wildlife habitat.  Both these deer were taken from tree stands.  



 



 

[bannerd]

I typically run around snorting and grunting .. stomping my feet and acting like a deer myself.  Be amazed what deer can do during mating season or what they're thinking! 8)

[mike_belben]

Awesome danny.  Jeff that is exactly the thought i have in mind.  Shoot them off the porch.. And its why im glad i discovered me and my dads property both have prime ag soils at the pasture fence line.. So i will put the houses in the middle on the poorer soils and the field at the back.  


"Get off my cover crop!"  

Bannerd it is funny but i just had an incident like that a few hrs ago at my dads place. After i bumped that first deer on my way in and stalked around till mid morning, i decided any nearby deer are long gone and to go look for property pins at the back field line.. I need to find them this winter to cut the road without going over the line soon on a long skinny woods lot.  

At the back i find no pins but I discover a rubbed up sappling in a gnarly thicket and decide i wanna see the very bed he is laying in.. Try to figure out if this is his roadtrip pitstop or his man cave.  As i come stomping and crashing out of that thorn tangle right out into the open, there is a doe coming straight at me in the open field.  My bow is 20 feet away leaning against the fence!  I stayed dead still and she came in for another minute or two before deciding i was not her man.  


I bet if i stayed in there thrashing and grunting she woulda lept into my arms!

loverboy left a scrape about 60 feet from his penthouse on hot doe highway.  This matches what im seeing in the big woods place a mile back. The bucks are staying in a core mountain laurel thicket canyon creek region thats very challenging to access.  The does use a pretty open old skidder trail to cross a creek.  There was 3 fresh scrapes all in one spot on that trail last week.  One with a big snickers bar clumpy buck turd right in the middle. 

I wonder if thats 3 suitors leaving their cards on doe lane, and a big turd is some sign of stud status. 

[HemlockKing]

Lover boy he says  :D :D

[WV Sawmiller]

   Interesting techniques listed here. There are very few weeks that go by when I could not shoot a deer off my porch or out the bedroom window. so far this year I have ridden past legal deer almost every trip around my pasture.

  I have used the noisy, bush shaking technique to hunt squirrels but never tried with with deer. I confess, I will be much more likely to do a slow silent stalk than the noisy approach. I have spent much of my time in the woods and it just seems totally unnatural to make a lot of noise there whether I am hunting or not. I want to see as much normal activities going on as I can. Are you sure you just didn't hear the old joke about the big bad new bull and using that approach to let the bucks know you are not a doe? :D

  I broke down and got my bow out and shot it a couple dozen times and may take it and go sit in my stands a time or two this week. I just have to schedule it so as not to interfere with VB-Milling's get-together this weekend. A man has to keep his priorities straight.

Mike,

   I must be setting my timers on my feeder all wrong. Instead of the late morning, sleep late, go sit a few minutes and do the deed and come home by noon mine are both set to go off right after sunrise and an hour or so before sunset to encourage the deer to stay up a little later or get up a few minutes early. I still end up going or coming home in the dark on most of my hunts.

  The biggest advantage of the feeders is to encourage young, inexperienced deer to hang out and the bucks see the does and fawns there and tend to think it is safe and are more likely to come out.

[mike_belben]

Yeah, most people who use feeders make it pretty easy for themselves by conditioning the animals to suit their schedule.  It is legal here to use them until i think 2 weeks before a hunt if all feed is off the ground. ?? 

If i try to walk silent i will always get blowed at before i can even see a deer unless its raining and then i can sneak up close enough to startle us both if wind is right, bit i never know where theyll be.  If its dry crunchy leaves, i will rake my steps as loud as a bird.  Squirrels make tremendous racket and i bet it doesnt even wake a deer.  Copy that sound.  Its the slow creeky human plodding that theyre dialed into
 
 I didnt plan anything too particular today, just went to get away from home.. If i had planned i woulda brought a turkey diaphragm and clucked/purred.  I have come up on a lot of deer that way if there is enough visual blockage to conceal your motion.  I could cluck up to a bluff and there be 3 deer right over the other side.   But its not like they stand still at that point. You see each other in unison.  Its just a fun thing to me.


Im not that big into killing deer but i do like being out there with them a lot. Weve had a small freezer until recently so it was only ever one a year.  Now that im better at cooking the entire animal id like 2 or 3. 

[WV Sawmiller]

  If freezer space is a problem try canning it. You just cut up chunks of meat and pack it to 1/2" or so from the rim in fruit jars, put the lids on, put it in a pressure cooker on 15 lbs pressure. When the pressure is met cook for 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts. Some people put a half teaspoon or so of salt in the meat but I don't. Pints is plenty for us so I never make up quarts any more. I'm thinking about trying some half pints so we don't have any leftovers when we use it. The meat cooks in the jars and last for years is stored properly and the seals don't get bumped or such. 

[Southside]

Over the past two weeks I could have shot 11 from a tractor seat and 3 from the skidder, along with 9 today from the wheeler.  We, and they, become comfortable with that which is familiar.  

[mike_belben]

Ive got a chest freezer now.

[WV Sawmiller]

  If its not full fill it with jugs of water. They act as a reserve if there is a power outage and you can always remove a jug or 3 if you need more space. 

   Also keep a cup of ice with coin or washer on top. If there is a power outage and the coin is at the bottom of the cup you know the contents thawed and should be disposed of. If half way down in the cup it partially thawed. If on top you know there was no damage.

[thecfarm]

Talking about making noise in the woods. I had one brother that was very quiet in the woods. Than another that was like a bull dozer going through the woods.  ;D   But he saw deer. The other brother always said, he make so much noise the deer stand there and wonder ,what is that coming through the woods?  :D

[Walnut Beast]

My strategy is to let only my Son-in-law, my nephew and his wife hunt my property and they reward me with 2 deer a year for my freezer.  I have harvested a ton of deer in my life, but as I have gotten older, I do not enjoy the killing part of hunting anymore, so I let them do it for me.

Yesterday was a great day for my nephew and his wife.  The bigger buck was harvested only 300 yards from my house.  I manage my property for timber production and wildlife habitat.  Both these deer were taken from tree stands.  



 

Tree stands are by far the best place to be or a blind that's elevated pretty high and preferably has been there to condition them to it

[Texas Ranger]

Chootem

[Walnut Beast]

Thank the Lord. It was a beautiful and good morning in the tree stand.

 

 

[newoodguy78]

Nice buck, what'd it weigh?

[Southside]

I bet he would disagree on it being a good morning.  ;D