Just the other day, I was with a group of deer hunters, friends and family, and we were going over our hunts from this past year. We all shared what worked or was working for this year, and what didn’t work. At one point, I posed a question to my fellow hunters. It’s a philosophical question I’ve pondered in my stand for hours this year. Not how I would answer the question, but how others would. The question: If you were given two choices, the first is you can hunt all season long but what you see and get is all on you; or the second option is you can only hunt one sit on one day, but you are guaranteed a big mature buck. Which would you choose?
I bring this question up because I think it’s a good lead in to this month’s article. It’s relevant because most hunters have limited access to acreage they can hunt. If you are lucky enough to hunt private land, you are still probably limited to a farm or two with a handful of stand locations to choose from. If you hunt those farms hard, from season opener until the last day you can hunt, you will surely burn them out. At least that’s what we are told right? If you can only hunt public land, there are techniques and strategies you can do to get away from hunting pressure; but there are even less guarantees of hunting deer that are not burned out.
The solution we are told is to use some form of highly sophisticated software or mobile app to tell us when to hunt. Another professional I see on-line has a formula you can use to tell you when the best days to hunt are based on the weather, the wind, or other factors. (Just buy the book!) To be honest I’ve not looked into any of these methods with any detail because for me, it makes no sense at all. If I can hunt, I won’t be sitting out just because my chances might be lower on a given day. Most hunters can’t hunt every day all season long; we are weekend and vacation hunters in between work and other commitments. So, it makes sense that we hunt as much as we can when we can. At least that’s true if we enjoy the outdoors more than just the kill.
The 2019 Experiment
Going into the 2019 season, I had a plan to hunt my home farm very hard. It is 80 acres of mostly tillable row crop land with a small number of brushy ditches running through it. The east most portion is all row crop…essentially making this hunting parcel 50 acres or so with very little cover; all things considered. I have plans to make this small parcel exceptional hunting through better habitat, but it’s not quite there yet. My experiment was to see how hard I could hunt this farm and still see deer, still have a legitimate chance at killing a mature buck, all while hunting hard all season long. I’ve long argued that with great planning and well thought out hunting locations, any hunter could have season long success and still hunt hard. This would maximize our ability to hunt all season long without imposing self-limitations keeping us out of the timber.
All Stands are not Created Equal
The perfect stand has four critical characteristics that make it a great stand…a stand that can be hunted multiple times throughout the season without burning it out. For most hunters, planning and preparing to make sure you have these four things on your side makes it possible for us to hunt our small parcels the entire season.
The Spot—The first, and really the easiest most of the time, is finding the ambush spot that deer are actually using. Before game cameras, most hunters used the sign method to find these spots. Abundant trails, droppings, rubs, scrapes, and even an adjacent food source will tell you deer are using the area frequently. This is using our woodsmen-ship skills and scouting to find the places deer like. Find them all in the same area and you have a great location that deer frequent. That’s usually the easy part. When we plant food plots, or establish mock scrapes, we are manipulating the natural environment deer live in to promote them using areas we want. This truly is the easy stuff. Planting a food plot for example with all of today’s You Tube videos and articles on how to do it is getting easier and easier. Where to locate ambush spots for small parcel hunting is where it starts to get tricky.
Entrance—Finding the ambush spot or creating one is only one fourth the planning. The next step is figuring out how to enter that area without alerting deer along the way. This gets much trickier as we walk sometimes hundreds of yards to get to our ambush areas. All along the way, we are letting our scent blow with the winds while we make noise and potentially allow deer to see us enter. Alerting deer during our entrance is what will kill a hunt before it even starts. Do it over and over, and that stand location no matter how good it could be, will be rendered useless. Great entrance plans will allow you to enter your stand with the wind in your face so that your scent is only blowing where you’ve already walked. Using terrain features like ditches or low parts of a field will allow you to get in without being seen or heard. Proximity to bedding areas or where deer spend a lot of time is important to consider so that you aren’t walking too close to them.
An example of a great entrance option would be a cow pasture that is currently being used by cattle. The low grasses and heavy traffic from the cows will eliminate most noises…if you do make a noise it will likely sound like the cattle. Deer won’t heavily use the pasture making it rare to bump a deer. A beaten down pasture is a great way to get in to your stands.
While on Stand—The third key element is making sure deer don’t bust you while on stand. This means having brushed in blinds and stands so that deer don’t pick you off on stand. It also means making sure deer can’t or won’t get down wind of you. Having your scent blow over water, or a steep ditch or bluff, maybe even that same cow pasture is a great way of eliminating or reducing the chances deer will get down wind of you. Imagine placing a stand in the middle of flat timber…there is no wind direction that will prevent or even lower the chances a deer will get down wind and smell you. You must use terrain features like elevation, water, and yes…that cow pasture to help you with your stink!
The Exit—The fourth element is making sure you have an exit strategy. Nothing will burn out an ambush spot faster than having deer around you at quitting time only to alert them all while you are getting down from your stand, or leaving your blind. Do this on a food plot even once and it might be weeks before your stand location is huntable again. Locating stands in transition areas so that no deer are present at quitting time is a preferred way to prevent bumping deer while getting down. Having a friend bump deer off your food plot that you are hunting is much better than letting them see you get down. And remember, walking out is important too. Plan your exit away from evening food sources. Be conscious of where your scent is blowing too on your exit. Deer can smell even the cleanest hunter from as far away as 200 yards or more. Sight, sound, and stink are all ways a deer will bust you even if they don’t see you. If you are using a vehicle to go to and from your hunting locations, be sure to drive and park far enough away so that the deer don’t recognize your vehicle as danger. Or, conversely, if farming or other vehicle traffic is common place where you hunt, you can mimic those sounds and actions with pretty good success. However, driving your new UTV to within a couple hundred yards of your stand once the season starts is a sure-fire way to tell the local deer herd they are now being hunted!
Avoiding the Hype
Out of all four critical aspects of a great stand, the least important gets the most press. It’s the location or the right spot by itself that see’s all the editorial in magazines and all the time on the hunting shows. I know I’m being cynical here, but the right spot, the right food plot blend, and all the rest is what gets us all fired up. But, for small parcel hunters who don’t have thousands of acres of prime hunting land, we have to consider ways to make our farms hunt the entire season. Which, makes the spot itself the least important if our goal is to be able to hunt our farms all season long. This, in itself, brings me back to the opening question I posed my hunting buddies. Would you pick season long hunting opportunities to only one day of guaranteed success? We were unanimous in our answer…I’d rather hunt all season long and have my success pinned on me, rather than only hunt one day with a guarantee.
There are never any guarantees when hunting. My question posed was only hypothetical, but it illustrates what most hunters face each fall. Hunt hard all fall and you run the risk of burning out your hunting grounds. Take a passive approach and only hunt the “prime” days and you self-impose limitations on the amount of time you are in the field each fall. I would argue you can have it both ways if you take the time to plan out your hunting stands to take into account all four key components to a great ambush location. Stands that are only good “the first time in” are great for large land owners or for hunters that only hunt a couple times a year. Late winter and early spring is the time to get in the field to start planning your sets for next year. If you do your work now, you can hunt all fall and have good hunting the entire season.
Experiment Results
In 2019, I hunted my home farm hard. I sat out dozens of times on the small parcel and used only a handful of stand and blind locations. Being honest with myself, there is no doubt my hunting had an affect on deer movement…but not detrimental. I was still able to see daytime movement of deer and mature bucks the entire season. In fact, I was able to harvest two does and a mature buck out of the same stand even after sitting that stand a bunch of times. My cameras showed daytime movement of all deer…does, fawns, young bucks, and older class bucks. The key, was using all 4 key components into selecting my stand locations each and every hunt. I did bump some deer some time, but most of the time I went in, hunted, and got out without a single deer knowing it. That spells season long success on a small property!