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need help with deer

3K views 14 replies 9 participants last post by  Sagebrush 
#1 ·
Hey all, ive been hunting ducks for a number of years and have grown fairly comfortable hunting them. Recently i decided to start hunting deer. I live in northeastern mass and have private land im allowed to hunt. The land has a pond, marsh a large hill and thick forests. There is no open fields like you see on tv but there is still plenty of action for deer on the land. Ive already bought all the stuff they tell you to buy on tv such as female deer attractant, scent cover, bricks for them to lick on and other attractant stuff. My question is what do i do now lol. Should i make a tree stand and wait for deer to walk on a trail? should i walk quietly through the woods and try to stalk one? i am in much need of help because even though ive spent my fair share of time watching deer hunting on tv, ive never hunted for them before. Thanks
 
#2 ·
i live in maine, we have great deer hunting up here. (were not allowed salt licks or to bait so we can rule that out) for the first 10 years of my life i focused all my hunting on white tail. im 21 and ive shot more deer than i cas count. i dont use scent blockers, i dont use tree stands. infact i dont even use camo. a week before the season i scout, look for where there bedding, feeding and large deer runs, basicaly high ways of deer travel, typically along swamps and thick cover. if im hunting it the morning i sit off these runs close by to where theyve been sleeping. sit quietly and move very little. wind is a big factor. you want the wind in your face. if im hunting in the afternoon ill focus on where there feeding. if a farm most likly apple trees, grass ext. if its a feild find where there entering and exiting. since they mostly come out at night you need to be deep in the woods and sit near that enterance, they wont expose themselves in the feilds til its dark so youll need to find there entrance and wait. next: theory has it that deer see everything in a blue lens, so blue appears to be as bright as hunter orange. of all the deers senses there eye sight is the worst. study there habits, it changes through out the season.

these are solid facts you can count on: if its raining the deer arnt gonna be moving, do some walking. if its hot, them wont be moving. if its going to rain that night, theyll be moving, so sit (wind in your face) there gonna want to eat before the storm.
 
#5 ·
Oh, something nobody else has mentioned, be patient. That is the hardest stinking part. Whether you're sitting in a tree or still hunting/stalking, be patient. During rifle season, if I'm the only one on the land, I won't even sit in a tree stand, I'll just clear some leaves around a tree and sit down. Stay there for a good while, and maybe still hunt to another spot, and repeat the process.
 
#6 ·
I see your from Mass. same here, but out west.
Before getting my 1st gundog this year & taking up duck hunting, deer hunting, bowhunting in particular, consumed me.
I'm sure you will get lots of great advice here but if I could offer any one piece of advice to increase deer sightings it would come
down to this.
Keep yourself, your equipment, and your clothing clean, a deers nose is his #1 sense.
Unlike humans that need our eyes to tell us what something is, a deer can see you & hear you but if it can't smell you it will not be fully convinced you are a danger.
But once he does smell you, he's gone.
DO NOT EVER HUNT A STAND WHERE THE WIND IS WRONG I DON'T CARE HOW TEMPTED YOU ARE!
I see your not afraid to buy equipment. The one piece I would never be without is a pair of tall rubber boots and keep your pants tucked in them. The year I started wearing them my deer sightings more than doubled. I have witnesses 1st hand deer crossing
where I have walked and not smelling anything at all but as soon as he crossed paths of where a hunting buddy wearing leather boots had walked he reversed directions on a dime.
Have fun and don't get frustrated, it's a great sport.
 
#7 ·
well ive been getting ready for the season which opens in a few weeks. Today i had the most deer sightings ive had in all my scouting trips. I wanted to ask though how do you guys decide where to set up a ground blind? The two spots i want to set up are on small little hills on the edge of the swamp on the property. It seems the deer use two trails to walk through the swamp and judging by the amount of tracks ive noticed on the paths they use these paths alot. My other options were small hills that were closer to the center of the property where ive seen a few older tree stands and ive noticed a few tracks. There is a field all the way on the edge of the property and im sure that where the deer feed but ive never really scouted that area and i dont know if anyone hunts the field. Any help would be great, i really have no idea what im doing. I know that if i stick to this property im bound to get a deer eventually i just dont know what is the best way to start and i want to hit em hard on opening day in three weeks. Thanks
 
#8 ·
If you have isolated the runs they are using, buy a trailcam and set it up and figure out which direction they are moving and when. Figure out where they are bedding and hunt the paths that lead to the bedding areas. As someone else stated, they feed at night and bed during the day. Your best bet is always to try and catch them heading back to the bedding areas. I used to hunt MA and my biggest complaint is the gun season opens after the rut. Hunting during the rut is the best and totally different. 2 things I will say, if you know where they are moving, stop scouting, you don't want to spook them before you can shoot them, second, throw the doe piss away, by the time you can hunt with the gun, the bucks won't be nearly as interested in the doe piss. The rut is on right now in northern MA, I shot a buck two days ago about 10 miles from the border and they were chasing does hard and rutting pretty heavy.
 
#10 ·
I would suggest you invest in a climbing tree stand. This will enable you to be able to move your stand around easily. It may take several tries to set up on them just right. Assuming that season has already started, If you have the same oppourtunity next year i would get a trail cam to get times and areas where the deer are moving. Then set my stand up according to the pics and what area and times. But setting up dead on the trail can be a mistake. Always make sure to put the camera atleast 10-15 feet off of the trail. You don't want the cam to be in their face.I have always had better results that way.

CutEM
 
#11 ·
thanks for the help guys. My season starts in three weeks so im just early enough to get prepared and get this season in. I bought a ground stand and made three others that are 40 yards off the trails in the woods and i also bought a trail cam. I plan on setting it up immediatly when it comes in the mail and checking it every 4 or 5 days for two weeks. I found an old tree stand that looked like it hadnt been used for years but i dont think ill use that because it doesnt seem to be on any sort of trail or food plot. so now my final question will be asked ( i hope). is there anything i can do while im waiting in my blind to better my chance of me getting a deer?
 
#12 ·
Being that you're new to the game I was just sit still and study deer. Study their actions, movements and how they react in and around different situations. Sure you can get calls, rattle, throw out corn or salt licks and play with scents but learning how deer behave will help you more in the end. For now just use cover scents. Make sure your cloths and equipment are scent free, make sure you spray your blind down too. Like what was said before deer use their nose more than anything and if they since anything wrong there gut will take over and beat feat. Watch the wind and good luck.
 
#13 ·
i got a cam set up a few days ago and have some decent pics. Alot of just blank darkness as well, i think they might have been running through and the flash missed them or perhaps a bird flew through idk. I know that deer like to eat at the end of the day and the early morning so my question is do i stay on the trail that i know there are deer or do i go where i think the deer are feeding? all my pics are of deer in the dark, there wernt any pictures of deer in the day.
 

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#14 ·
That is a great question.

1) Keep in mind, the deer that pass in front of your trail cam are not the only deer in the area, however they are the only deer that passed within 10 feet of the camera. You will get blank picks from time to time. There is a family of Armadillos that sets mine off all the time, and often all I get is a tail or a blur from where they triggered it. Wind also can trigger it if there are leaves or trees moving in front of it. If you trim down some of the foliage, it helps reduce the amount of times wind triggers it.

Since you are on a trail with your camera, you can help by setting it back a few more feet or put an orange flag or something in the trail, just anything to make them pause. That will keep you from getting pic's of deer butts all the time. Great site for trailcam info is http://www.chasingame.com.

2) For deer, you want to be where they are when it is legal shooting time. You can hunt that trail all day, but if they only come out at midnight, or 4AM, then your odds of getting a deer on that part of the trail are bad. This could change as deer move more the colder it gets, so whats a dead spot today could be a hot spot tomorrow.

Two things you want to find out are where they are bedding and where are they feeding? If you have access to their food source, you can hunt the edge of that. If you have access to the bedding area, you can hunt the outskirts of that as well. I would not setup in the middle of their bedding area b/c you chance pushing them out.
 
#15 ·
One of the best things that a hunter can do is "Pre-scout" the area...............

You don't have to get on top of them, just get a good quality spotting scope and you can be as far as
800 yards or more away, to see what is going on. If a high elevation point is near, this is the best way
to see a large area, otherwise a good pair of glasses will work for areas with heavy cover.

I also have to agree that you have to out smart their "NOSE" first and then their eye sight and then their hearing.
A tree stand is better than a ground blind, since you can be busted by walking animals, since with a shotgun you do not have the option to be able to shoot at deer, "way over there"............but it does beat , having a bow.

When you find the "Honey Hole" , if possible set up three or more stands that will take in all the wind directions and the cover
that will give you the best odds at bagging a deer and don't forget about a entry way that will not scare all the deer in the area off.

Good hunting.
 
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