• 1a. Aerial Photography Maps 
• 1b. Learning your hunting area, at warp speed 

• Fences
• Throw Aways (nobody wants to do this, and it pays off big time)
• Rivers, Creeks & Farm Roads
• Fields & Farm Crops
• the Big Woods
• a Core Rutting Area
• a Bedding Area
• Where Not To Hunt

Your most likely places to hunt are those that you flagged with multiple ribbons. Select the best of your multiple ribbon locations and set up as many stand sites as you think you can hunt. At this early stage in the search for deer it is better to have quite a few stand sites. (We will return to setting up stands because we are in the Finding Deer mode at the moment.)  

At this juncture you are ready to gather information about the deer herd in your new area. It's also a fun phase of finding where the deer are. It's hunting them. I suggest you name or number all of your stand sites and keep a log of the deer you see. 

Not all of your stand sites will work out. In fact there is a common scenario where there is an abundance of smokin' hot deer sign, I'm talkin' tracks and trails everywhere, but when you hunt the place you don't see any deer. What's up with that? Like I said it's pretty common. 

ANSWER: Night time traffic. Lots of tracks and trails but no deer during the daylight hours. It happens! Here's the cure. Get out your aerial photo map and head off to the closest area of cover that is in the predominate wind direction.  

Onward, we are going to explore the ways to find those magic places where the deer come by within 20 yards or less. It's easy, but many hunters don't want to pay the their dues bad enough to find out. 

• Fences
• Throw Aways (nobody wants to do this, and it pays off big time)
• Rivers, Creeks & Farm Roads
• Fields & Farm Crops
• a Core Rutting Area
• a Bedding Area
• Where Not To Hunt

It's best to start at a corner, a woods road or an easy access point. The fence line you survey may be a nice tight new fence or an old rusty one that has lots of holes (more on this in a minute). As you walk the fence you will see: 

1. holes in the fence
2. places where deer are coming under the fence, and 
3. places where the top wire is low enough that deer are jumping it. 

One, in a tree that is within 15 yards of the trail that leads away from the fence. The Second, in a tree where you can watch the fenceline for a good distance. If you have enough stands, set up in 3 or 4 areas. Rotate your hunting efforts between the stands, hunt once, watch once -- and note any other crossing activity you see. 

* If you can leave a ribbon to mark the spots with multiple ribbon, do so. If not, pick up all your flagging ribbons.  

Holes In The Fence: 
Obviously, if there is a hole in the fence and deer have enough cover to come and go at will, chances are good they will focus on the area. Bucks will jump the fence a few yards from the hole, but the majority of the deer traffic will pass right through the hole. If you decide to hunt one of these areas be sure you set your stand where you can do these two things: 

1. set up 15 yards from the deer trail(s) coming from the fence.
2. where you can see the hole in the fence.

You may have too many holes an area and find that the traffic is not channeled to a particular hole in the fence. The best cure for this is to wire up some of the holes in the fence and limit the crossings. (Always check with the landowner or authorities first. Although I have never had a landowner say, "no way, don't wire up any holes in my fence," this is still a no-no without permission.) You can get Bailing Wire at any Feed Store -- don't forget to get a good heavy duty pair of Wire Cutters. Leave the hole that looks to have the most traffic alone and wire up the others. Close them up good, so the deer can't get through them. Now you have limited the number of trails they use to cross the fence. 

A New, Tight Fence 
Generally, because the fence is nice and tight and the weather and time haven't had time to rust and weaken the fence, the major crossings will be under the fence. There are always natural low spots in the ground and deer will capitalize on this and slip under the bottom wire of the fence and make a crossing. 

An example: Years ago I set up my treestand close to a old goat wire fence. A couple of the wires had rusted through years ago and the deer found the opening and made it a major crossing. Each side of the fence had a well worn crossing trail. I watched a lot of deer come through the hole. One morning, I heard talking and some clanking noises and when it continued I investigated. Un-beknownst to me, the landowner had a small crew replacing the old square hole fence with a 5-strand barbed wire fence. The following day the fencing was complete so I hunted there the next morning. 

In spite of the recent disturbance, I saw a lot of deer. They come out of the thick brush on the opposite side of the of the new fence--on their time worn trail to the crossing. But now, they couldn't get through the fence. Several of them tried, but they just couldn't slip between the wires. Then they attempted to crawl under the fence, again, no dice. Finally they walked up and down the fence looking for a crossing place. Later in the year when I  re-scouted the new fence I found a foot wide deer trail leading under the fence where there was a low spot in the ground. It was about 25 yards from the old crossing. 

Ok, here are the two main points to this example: 

1. the deer were forced to change their crossing site because of a change in the crossing area.
2. they didn't go far, they wanted to stay in the same area. It was safe and was on the right route for them.

Boundary Fences:  
First off, never jeopardize your safety. Secondly, I recommend you think twice abut setting up on a boundary fence. Never do it without the other landowners knowledge, and if they object, don't do it. Also, the other landowner may have stipulations or minimum yardage's for their own hunters (and you) to adhere to in this situation. 

* A Note On Safety & Courtesy: If the fence you are hunting is a boundary fence and the other side is someone else's property, it is common courtesy (and safer) to keep your distance from the fence. And, of course, limit your shots to deer that are on your side of the fence. During bow seasons hunting within 50 yards of a fence line should not be a problem, I recommend distancing yourself at least 250 yards during firearms season.

Before deer cross a fence they will survey the area thoroughly, and they often do it from somewhere where you can't see them. So you don't want to be right on the edge of the woods, you will be seen. Put your stand on a tree that is inside the edge--so the treeline is a few yards in front of you. That way if you move around a little at the wrong moment the deer aren't likely to pick you up because you have more cover. 

But, remember, this is called "hunting" not "killing". The way you become a competent hunter is to hunt, to watch and learn, and to hunt some more. The "Throw Away" tactic is a fact gathering mission. You're going to sacrifice a couple of morning and afternoon hunts for the "trade off" of  learning more about your hunting area than you can in years of sitting in those scrub oaks wondering where all those tracks came from and why they don't get made when you are there. 

First of all it's important to know that the time to do this is during the hunting season. And it's particularly informative if you do it during the the rut. (Now you're back peddling, but hold on, hear me out.) Basically, a "throw away" is sitting where you can watch the perimeter of your major hunting area or else where you can observe traffic through a deer funnel or corridor. The more you can see the better. On a large scale you might take up a position in a field overlooking a few hundred yards of woodline. On a smaller scale you might be in an 80 yard diameter opening -- watching the trail to where you hunt, or on a forest road (or fenceline or creek) where you can see both ways for 80-100 yards or hopefully more, or at the top of a canyon glassing the activity below. The key, here, is to get where you can watch the deer come and go from where you  have been hunting them or want to hunt them. 

An Example: I put a stand in a Long Wooded Strip sandwiched between 200 acres of grain crops and an 80 acre coastal field. The year before, I had hunted the only wooded area in the grain field (I named it the "Island"). In the morning and afternoon I'd see 35-60 deer come into the grain fields. On the opposite side of the grain crops was a River which is the Southern boundary of our hunting property. To the North, on the far side of the Coastal Field was a Craggy, sparsely wooded area that led to the thickest area imaginable, the bedding area. The deer were coming through the Craggy area and using some unknown route to fill up the fields in the afternoon--and visa versa in the morning. (Does this sound like the same area as my map from Part One, it should). The Long Wooded Strip held a lot of deer but it wasn't enough acreage to be a regular bedding area. The deer in the field were using the Strip every morning and afternoon as they came and went. But I wasn't seeing deer consistently in my Strip stand. 

There were 2 others in our hunting party who were also hunting the Wooded Strip. I didn't have forever to bumble around looking for a good place, so I did what they wouldn't do. I "threw away" some hunting time. It had worked for me plenty of times before and I felt it would work again. 

First, I put a stand in a huge tree at the river's edge. I could observe several hundred yards and the bottom line of that was that the deer changed their entry points to the field daily -- and when I left I spooked the daylights out of them (not a good thing). 

Second, I hung a stand in a group of Pecan trees at the edge of the Craggy area and watched the Coastal field. Bingo! Now I was rocking. (Plus a big doe wandered up and got herself introduced to my freezer, which goes to prove that the "throw away" tactic isn't always a throw away.) In 3 days I learned the 3 major routes that deer (mostly Does) used to cross the Coastal field. The #1 Major Route was straight across the middle of the field. Because of the slope of the Coastal field I hadn't been able to see the woodline in the Strip. So I needed to move. 

There were 4 large Oak trees in the Coastal field, kind of in a line, and spaced a long ways apart. 

You're gonna laugh, but my next move was to the #3 tree, right in the wide open, Where I could see the Strip's woodline. I spent almost a week in that tree and pulled some long sits. From this vantage point I glassed something I hadn't seen before in the Strip, a lot of buck activity. Activity that I hadn't been able to see in the thick woods inside the Strip, because I was in the wrong place! 

I moved to the area where I had seen the majority of the bucks. 

Onward, and cutting to the chase, this area turned out to be a Core Rut Area (we'll cover more about core rut areas later). A hot bed of rutting activity where they "come on down" every year. 

I could give you many other examples of "Throw Aways" because I do this a lot. It's how I found the area where, last year, I harvested the biggest buck taken off our property so far (it's a route bucks take in and out of a huge bedding area). And the other area, where I got the 2nd biggest one, the year before (it's a deer funnel by a fence crossing in the Strip). But, I'll spare you further examples. 

COMING NEXT: Rivers, Creeks & Farm Roads