Conference vmsnet::hunting$note:hunting

    
    
    The most important strategy is "TIME", Now if I can only get the months
    of November and December off with pay, I'd say we would be most
    successful of bringing home a rocking-chair.
    
    Yes'SA, time in the woods = increased opportunitys.
    
    Rick
    

I agree wholeheartedly, not only do you see more of the species you're hunting
but other rare sights such as eagles, minks, otters etc. Those kind of things 
fill in the duldrums of a slow hunt quite well. The other factor seems to be 
sunrise and sunsets. Activity really seems to slow down in the in between hours.
I usually knock off a few zee's around 1:00, but don't carried away! I knocked 
off around 2:30 one day and woke up around 3:45 and dark enough to make me wonder 
if I was going to be able to get out. (had a couple mile hike) Boy I trucked it
no way was I going to miss chow and Bud for a lonely night with mother nature!!!

    OK,
    	Thank's for the first two replies but I'm hopeing for a bit more 
    detail in how/what strategy they use in hunting Deer.
    
    One question I have regards bedding areas.  Assuming you're out
    scouting and find a few beds.   Lets say three.  What's that really
    mean?  Do deer when bedding down in the same area utilize the same
    bed as before? or rather will they bed down within some yardage
    (ie 50 sq yrds) of a particluar area?  If they don't use the same bed
    then I assume that if you find three beds that means tha three deer
    were there a short time ago. SO I guess I'm asking everyone to tell
    me everything the know about bedding areas!
    
    
    This question was brought about by a hunting strategy I got from one
    of the guys I know of from shooting indoors.  His strategy is to find a
    feeding and a bedding area that is well traveled.  Then he finds the
    major paths to these areas.  Then he sets up three stand areas along the
    way to the bedding or feeding area.  These stand areas are 50-75 yrds
    apart along the route.  He starts his hunt at the stand closest to the
    bedding or feeding areas.  If he has a shot, is winded, etc by any deer
    the following day he will move to the next stand  down the route.  His
    hunting had told him that in most cases once a deer locates a hunter
    the will usually stop 50-75 yards away and stay there for a prolonged
    period until they can determine if something is there.  By moving he
    gets his opertunities before the deer are at a hightened sence of
    awareness as they try and find out if something it where they spotted
    it before. It seems to have worked for him. He so far has kept four
    racks of 6-8 points each and the right ear of 12 other deer.  These
    are backed up by a pictures or each deer taken.  Of his 16 deer 11 have
    been with a longbow and 5 with a compound. 
    
    
    Tom  

    My personal strategy is to concentrate on bottlenecks. Most 'runs'
    are actually wide swaths where the deer travel, possibly 1-200
    yards wide. A 'bedding area' may encompass several acres. 
    Feeding areas may be huge fields, with numerous places the deer
    will leave from in the morning. At some point between the two the 
    trails to and fro will be forced into a relatively narrow area. This 
    may be caused by terrain, cover, development, availability of food on 
    the way, or other factors. Hunting in this bottleneck will force the 
    deer nearer to you, where in other parts of the pattern they might pass
    by out of sight or range.
    
    It may take a long time and lots of thought/observation to find such
    a bottleneck, but it will be worthwhile.
    
    dana
    
    PS some people also refer to these points as 'funnels' - same
    difference.

    	Many moons ago - when I was going to start hunting dear and was
    reading everything I could get my hands on, the strategy  mentioned is
    correct, ie., find where their food is, find where their cover is, and
    intercept 'em.  
    	Then I started hunting in District 9 in Maine.  Well, there's food
    everywhere, and cover everywhere.  Fortunately, the crossings and
    runs never change - even though the lumber companys come and go.

    
    	I do pretty much the same thing as Dana in .4 does.  I would like
    to add a few things about these bottlenecks though.  Bottlenecks may
    be a notch between ridges ( usually what people think of as
    bottlenecks), but they may be nothing more than a shelf on some 
    mountain that has what the deer are looking for when moving.  When I'm
    out looking at deer sign and finding indications of movement, I almost
    always find 90% of the sign near forest transition areas or
    "edge".  Keep in mind that deer are creatures of this edge.  In biological
    terms it's called an Ecotone ( a place where two different types of
    plant life merge that creates a diversity).  It's like the edge
    of a weed bed is for Bass fishing.  Structure is also very important
    for deer.  They're always travelling in areas where they can see out,
    but where they'll be hidden from view (edges of slash-beds, ledges,
    hidden valleys, knolls, crags, etc...)
    
    	Examples of edge include the edges of fields, a small opening in
    the woods, edges of hardwoods and softwoods (which btw is a place I
    find to contain perhaps the most sign).  This hardwood/softwood edge
    in the forest is important, you'll find deer regularly travel here,
    they'll travel just inside the softwoods - they can watch the hardwoods
    and duck into cover if they need to.
    
    	If I took a look at the treestands that have produced for me in
    the last several years, I'd find one common element - Edge.  Sometimes
    the fact that I've placed the stand in Edge cover won't strike me when
    I put the stand in, but when I step back and look at it, it's on the
    edge.  
    
    	You'll rarely find whitetails hanging out in numbers in open 
    mature hardwood forests, or big stands of mature softwoods.
    
    	I try to hunt this edge line of the forest where I'll find
    trails heading downhill to fields, or from areas of bedding activity
    to hardwood ridges.  These are good evening spots.  In the morning,
    I'll again hunt the edge, but I'll try to get closer to their bedroom.
    So far, I haven't had much luck hunting in the mornings during bow
    season for whitetails.  Bedding areas and the trails leading into them
    are tricky business.
    
    	I do things differently during rifle season, but I consider myself
    a better bow-hunter than rifle hunter so I'll let the rifle hunters
    go ahead -
    
    - Rob

    Ditto everything Rob said... I entered a note in this file somewhere
    before about hunting the edges, and bottlenecks, damned if i can find
    it now though...  no matter, Rob said it quite well.  All 5 of the 
    deer i've shot with a bow have been at an "edge"...  
    
    My rifle deer have been in hardwoods, where deer have been "funneled".
    anything can actually serve as a funnel... fence rows, walls, saddles,
    brooks, streams, ravines, fallen trees etc...  Bottom line is; nothing
    beats putting in alot of preseason scouting to locate these things. 
    Take advantage of topo maps, their a cheap but invaluable source of
    info!
    
    enough rambling...  Fra

    re .5
    
      That's exactly the type of habitat that I hunt in in northern NH.
    Anywhere you go you'll find areas that could be bedding, feeding, or
    both. Since the population of deer in these areas isn't "heavy" by
    any means, what happens is that the deer tend to form into "pockets"
    or "family groups". True, deer do this everywhere, but in this type
    of habitat it becomes really obvious.
    
      Any number of times our hunting group has concentrated on a parti-
    cular area for 3 to 4 days because of the abundance of fresh sign, only
    to be skunked because the "pocket" of deer that were in the area has
    shifted it's ground to an area about a mile away. I clearly saw this
    in Pennsylvania this year. Our group hunted this one particular farm.
    The first day we saw scads of deer, but weren't able to take one. We
    came back on day #2, and on top of the deer being in less abundance,
    they were on "high alert". I couldn't get within 50 yards of any deer I
    saw on day #2 without getting detected and snorted at. Day #3 was a
    complete waste! I saw 3 deer about 60 to 70 yards away. The lead doe
    caught my scent, blew at me, and scattered her brood in no time flat!
    From seeing over 20 deer on day one to 3 fleeting "bundles of nerves"
    on day 3...
    
      So, in an area like Northern NH (rifle or BP hunting) our group
    basically "stump hunts". It's not a "still hunt". It's not a "stand
    hunt". And, it's not a "drive". We basically try to jump a deer onto 
    the other guy. As the old-timer we hunt with says "Steve hunts Joe's
    deer, and Joe hunts Pete's deer, and Pete hunts my deer, and so on...
    We've found that this is about the only way to get deer moving in
    these parts. In this area, streams and brooks are everywhere, so
    there's no need for the deer to travel far for their water. There is no
    mast or apple crop per-say, except for beechnuts which are just about
    everywhere also. Like the old timer says "the deer here can hole up
    in a 50 square yard area and have everything they need! So, with a
    usual crew of 4-6 hunters, and an area of about 2-4 square miles, we
    split up and "converge" on the area. If it's a long ridge we'll either
    send everyone along the ridge at 100, 200, even 400 yard intervals,
    with one guy low, one in the middle, and one high. With more hunters
    we try to hit the ridge from both ends and converge in the middle.
    With an entire hill or mountain to cover we fan out along the low
    section and converge in an uphill pattern. If we see an area that is
    especially hot we'll conncentrate on that side of the hill and leave 
    the other side alone.
    
      For strictly BIG BUCK hunting we have observed a couple of groups
    that are very successful at it. What they do is head for the top of
    any given hill or mountain in the area. They usually go in single file
    climbing ever higher till they cut a BIG track, and I do mean BIG.
    These guys, as a rule, bring in deer in the 230 to 260 lbs range!
    When they get on that big track two of them will stay on the track, and
    the other two guys will cut big circles out, then back toward where
    they figure the track is, and they keep doing this. In a nutshell, they
    "run the deer down". It must work because they get at least one big
    one every year from what I've seen! 
    
      Any others?!?
    
    Joe

    
    Couldn't think of a better place to put this so...
    
    Yesterday (opening of rifle season in NH), I was still hunting
    through a thick THICK swamp around 10:30.  I was walking along on
    the moss, not making any noise (that I could tell at least).
    
    I had been walking and stopping and looking. I came to the end of 
    the mossy section and stopped just before the leaves started again,
    the trees were mostly alders with some beachnuts and few maples.
    
    I stayed there for a couple of minutes looking around trying to
    find what ever may be around. After convincing myself nothing was
    in sight I took one step onto the leaves. Well just when I did this
    something stood up about 20 feet to my right, it sounded like it may
    have taken one step, but no more.  I could not see over there and
    I am sure it could not see me due to a wall of tangled brush, its not
    that I could not see it through this, its that you couldn't see 
    anything through this, it was like looking at a black wall. This
    wall went on for about 30 yards in each direction.
    
    Anyway, here is what I did:  I couldn't move without making noise so
    I was afraid to try and move closer. I crouched down into a catchers
    stance without moving my feet, thus making no noise, still couldn't
    see through the wall. After about 1 minute (seemed like more) 
    whatever it was decided it should leave. Note it had not moved since 
    the first movement either.  It then sounded as if it trotted off,
    faster than a walk, but not running.
    
    The question is, is there anything I could have done, short of seeing
    it before it moved?  what would you have done?
    
    Wish I had a grunt call, maybe I could have coaxed it out. THough I
    have a feeling it was a moose, it sounded real big.
    
    --Bob
    

    
    Because the file doesn't seem to be doing anything I thought I would
    let everyone in on the whereabouts of a small herd of deer. As I
    was driving home late from work last wednesday night I almost nailed
    a small herd of deer as they were crossing the road in Brookline,
    NH. A couple of them were good sized. All I could think of is Corky
    getting that moose. I was wide awake for the remainder of the ride
    home. Its great to see deer running around though.....  
    
    sjn