| PART ONE: FINDING DEER, a real
life example
Fourteen years ago I got on a new bowhunting lease. It was a thousand acres and there were eight of us, all bowhunters. On my first trip to the lease six of the other hunters were in camp. They took me to a large map of our hunting area and said that I had to mark my stands on the map with colored pins. "You're green," one of them said. (Each hunter had different color pins.)
THE MAP: Fences are the narrow Black Lines. The wider Black Line is the only road on the place. If it's Blue, it's water. Dark Green areas are Heavily Wooded. Light Green is either Oats or Coastal grass. Medium Green marks the open areas which have scattered Oak trees and clumps of Cedars. Bordering woods were along the river and the Northern side of the crop fields. The adjacent Northern strip was very thick woods. It ran sharply uphill and turned into 200 acres of pasture land for cattle. That was the foot of the "Boot". The top of the "Boot" was long and narrow and appeared to be somewhat wooded but still fairly open. The Eastern side of the boot top was bordered by a fence and a narrow strip of woods that ran along both sides of the fence. That narrow strip of woods ran all the way from the oat fields. It was pie shaped on our side and came to a "Point" that ended at a gate--that divided the top of the "boot" into two separate areas. A water hole was about 150 yards away from the gate, a bit South and out in the more open middle area. Another water hole was in the middle of the pie shaped strip of thick woods. One lone road wound through the property (the black line on the map) and went from the Oat Fields to the Camp and then to the back of the place. The area past the "Point" looked fairly open for a couple hundred yards. But on the adjacent property the dense wooded strip continued and then mushroomed out into an enormous, very densely wooded area that took in both sides of our property as well as the entire back 150 acres of our place. Picture the hunting area as a mushroom cloud. A big area of farm crops at the bottom and thick woods at the top and one strip of woods (on the East side) that connected them. I picked up two green pins and stuck them in the map. Where? Well, let me ask you, where would you put them? Right now, you have as much information as I had. I'll give you a couple of days and then I'll tell you where I put my pins and why. And I'll let you know how those two spots I picked worked out. And with this example behind us, we'll get to the nitty gritty of finding deer. ANSWER: I Put My Pins at the Point and the Island. The Island
because it was a wooded area in the middle of the farm crops. I figured
deer that wanted to stay close to the field would lay up in the Island.
The Point was at the top (on our property) of the Funnel that connected
the dense area to the North with the farm crops to the South. Four fences
came together there and fences funnel deer movement, too. Plus there were
two water holes close by.
Part 2 - Learning Your
Area (locating deer)
Part
1a: Aerial Photography Maps
If possible you want your map to give you the answers to three questions. Where is the food? Where is the bedding area? What route do they use to get back and forth from the bedding area to the food. First look for farm crops. If you have them and the fields are up during hunting season the deer will focus on them. (If there are no crops that is a different matter and I'll come right back to that.) The bedding areas will be the dark, dense areas on your map. More than likely there will be dark areas (prospective bedding areas) in several directions. The trick is to find out which dark area is the most likely to be the bedding area of your deer herd. It's easy. You can predict it 99 out of 100 times. But a lot of hunters don't know how. Sooo, let me ask you, what is their most likely direction of travel? I'll wait until the weekend is over and I'll post the answer. Then we will use our map to pick out some likely places to hunt and head out to the place, with a list of likely places to check out. ANSWER: Into the prevailing wind. From their bedding ground deer prefer to travel into, or cross wind, of the prevailing wind. 1b. Learning Your Hunting Area, At Warp Speed. Take your map, and, starting from the farm crops, look in the direction that the prevailing wind blows and the deer bedding area the will be dark patches of woods, somewhere upwind. Continuing on. Farm crops or no, don't just wander out into your hunting area and haphazardly explore it. Use an Aerial map and a systematic approach. It is more effective and a much faster way to get a grasp on where the deer are. Using your Aerial map look for the most likely routes of travel in the area you will hunt. Look for Edges and Funnels. Deer travel along Edges and in Funnels of woods. Edges are formed by many things: Fences, Creeks, Rivers, Corners, Strips of Woods, Cross Fences, Power Line Right of Ways, Natural Breaks in the woods, Clearings, Dirt Roads, Hills, Fields, and more. Funnels are strips of woods that connect wooded areas to each other. Sometimes they may be only a few yards wide. But 50 to 150 is more to the deer's liking. Note all these places on your map. They will be obvious. Go to your area and drive it out. Take note of how all the likely places on your map actually look. Drive the entire area first. Resist the temptation to stop and look at every interesting place. When you have driven through it all once, go back through and stop at every Edge and Funnel you marked that is is accessible by the roads system on the place. Take notice of how much deer sign you see (tracks, rubs, trails, crossings, holes in fences, and deer). Now start walking the edges, looking for crossings, deer trails going into the woods, and areas of concentrated deer sign. Take some colored flagging tape with you for marking the spots where this sign is. Then walk back to your vehicle the same way you came and you will see where the deer traffic is heaviest. There will be several strips of flagging where the best spots are. Also, you can pick up your flagging strips so you're not littering the area. This method, marking with flagging, goes for locating good spots on any other kind of edge. Walk and flag all the crossings and deer sign on the places that you previously located on your map: Creeks, Rivers, Corners, Strips of Woods, Cross Fences, Power Line Right of Ways, Natural Breaks in the woods, Clearings, Dirt Roads, Hills, and Fields. Realistically, there is a good chance you might not have time to walk and flag all the edges on the place. That's OK, just do it as you can get to it. You will quickly discover more promising areas than you could possibly hunt, anyway. Onward: Pick
A Spot -- to hunt!
|
I
looked at the map. It had pins all over it! I decided to mark some stand
sites for myself, right then and there -- before all the good places
were gone. First I studied the map. The property was "Boot" shaped,
and looked more or less like this: half of the acreage was the foot of
the boot. The other half, or the top of the boot, was narrow and long.
The entire Southern boundary (the sole of the boot) was a winding river
that was bordered by a narrow, 300 acre field of planted oats. The oats
were sectioned off into four separate fields by three fences. One of the
fencelines had trees along it and led to a lone Island of trees--about
fifteen acres worth--in the middle of the field. The area at the third
fence got very narrow and looked to be only about 40-50 yards wide.