Hunt deer where it’s tough going

The hunter who pays attention to deer movements will soon find some out-of-the-way spots where big bucks like to live. Some of those locations are easily hunted and some are not.

Some of these out-of-the-way spots are found while hunting other species. Some of the little hidey-holes where bucks lay up are so small that one wonders if there is enough cover for a cottontail rabbit to hide. Take it from me: it doesn't take much cover to hide a big buck.

Some of my friends hunt in widely scattered locations. Many also hunt upland game birds, cottontail rabbits and snowshoe hares, wild turkeys and other game. The observant ones find hard-to-hunt buck hideaways.

Be alert to possible buck hotspots.

A friend pays attention to such things, and as he walked past an overgrown apple orchard after a hard rain, he spotted a big deer track going over the fence. He'd tried to get his pointer to work into it in search of birds, and the dog refused to go.

Being a patient fellow, he walked his pooch around the orchard, and found the way the buck left that orchard. He also noticed that the tracks went past a big pine tree. Two days later he scaled that tree in the late afternoon after putting the dog in the truck kennel, and took his bow with him. Thirty minutes before the end of shooting time a buck that grossed 152 points jumped the fence and walked past his tree.

He's no stranger to seeing big bucks. This one passed the tree at 22 yards, and my friend shot him. It is still his largest buck, but it points out the reasons why hunters should be attentive to deer sign.

Another guy was out chasing ruffed grouse, and walked past a sumac patch on top of a hill with a good view in all directions. The man stopped to re-tie his boot laces, and was 20 feet from the sumac patch, and out busted a big buck. He was laying up there because most people walked past the sumac without stopping, thinking the cover was much too sparse to hold a deer.

Hunt cover that other sportsmen won’t.

A friend tells the story of hunting ringneck pheasants near Montrose, Michigan, years ago. He was hunting along the edge of the Flint River. A rooster flushed wild at 30 yards ahead of the dog, and he swung and winged the bird.

It caught its balance in mid-air, cocked its wings and soared part-way across the river and landed on a tiny island of marsh grass and a few stunted trees. He checked the water depth, and it was only shin deep, and he crossed. His dog caught some scent, pointed, and as he approached the dog, a big buck jumped up and bolted across the river. He watched the buck splash across, crisscrossed the tiny island, and kicked up the pheasant and downed the bird.

He kept that oddball sighting in mind, and once the firearm season opened, he and friend waded across to the island. One went to the upstream end while the other walked through, and sure enough, they jumped the buck and killed it with one shot.

Talk to some farmers, and they all have tales of bucks laying up in tall weeds along their line fences or next to a barn. They push deer out of swampy little tangles perhaps 20 feet across. These bucks hold in such tiny bits of cover because few people think to look there.

The thing is that bow hunters can dare to be different. They don't have to follow the doctrine everyone throws at them. They can walk through an area so small that it takes less than 10 seconds to get through, and often they find the home of a big trophy buck that no one knows about.

If it’s tough going, and hard to walk through, it may be just right for deer.

Cattail marshes hold bucks, and I remember a nice buck that a friend shot as it came out of the cattails. He knew that buck was there, and when he shot it, the buck wheeled and dove back into the cattails and died there.

Don't stick with the status quo. Check things out. Know where the tiny patches of heavy cover are in your hunting area, look for those little nooks and crannies, and try to figure where a buck will come from or go to when leaving. That information is knowledge you can put to good use this fall.

Try it this year. It may produce a nice buck that you've probably overlooked for years.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Hunt natural foods as well

Bow hunters have a deeply ingrained habit. They hunt the food sources.

For many, that means the edge of a corn field where bucks and does move in and out. It could mean a huge soy bean field where deer are conspicuous as the only upright objects in the field.

If you hunt the beechnut trees and the oak flats, and good mast is laying on the ground, this is a pretty good bet as well. Oak mast, and to a lesser degree, beechnuts are a staple in the diet of deer that roam near such nut trees.

There are more deer food than corn, soy beans & other truck crops.

However, many hunters overlook other deer food. The forget about the less common stuff. Years ago I had a stand where I could see deer approaching for 200 yards from their bedding area as they moved to a nearby soy bean field.

The bean field was huge, and there weren't many deer in the area back then, and I had the opportunity to watch this buck come. It took him an hour to reach my stand area only 75 yards from the field.

I had a pit blind next to an uprooted tree, and my pit was in the soft earth ripped up when the tree went down. One side of the root wad hung three feet over my head, and shielded me from the sun and rain, and covered me in shadow.

The buck, one step above a basket rack, fed every night in the beans. This boy was as regular as the 11 o'clock news, and I watched him walk out of the brushy swale where he bedded down. He moved 10 yards out, stopped to browse on something, poked around a bit more, moved closer, and browsed on something else, and with every few steps he would get closer to me and the bean field.

This buck was feeding, and at the time I didn't know what it was. I made up my mind that if I shot the buck that night or didn't shoot it, I was going to learn what that deer was feeding on before he reached the dining table loaded with high-protein soy beans.

He kept coming, and if he stayed his course, he would cross 15 yards from me and offer a quartering-away shot. I relaxed, watched for other deer, but again, there were far fewer deer in those days. Little did I know I would be learning a trick that few people know they know.

Thirty minutes later he nibbled at something, lifted his head, took several more steps and stood, quartering-away and looking off toward the field. It was easy to make my draw, take my time aiming, and make a smooth release.

Watch what natural browse deer eat in your hunting area.

The buck kicked up his back legs, and darted out of there in a panicked 75-yard run before collapsing near the field edge. Two or three does were in the field, and they looked up, studied the area for a moment, and went back to munching soy beans.

That buck taught me more than just about deer feeding in a soy bean field. He could have been heading for an alfalfa, barley, cabbage, clover, corn, oats, potatoes. rape, rye, rye grass, sugar beet, winter wheat or any other farm crop to have dinner. Deer are catholic in their appetite, and will munch on almost anything.

Protein levels are high in clover and legumes, such as soy beans. But a deer's appetite goes far beyond these truck crops. It's some of the wild stuff that grows and that deer eat, that can provide the often overlooked other food source for people to hunt.

Deer make wise use of the aforementioned acorns and beechnuts. They also eat wild apples and pears. There used to be one single pear tree near my home, and a nearby fence row was 15 yards away and it held one gnarly old oak. It didn't produce acorns anymore, but it offered a spot for a tree stand. More than one buck met his fate by coming to eat on the pears.

Deer are often known as random tip browsers. They will nip a bud off a twig here, one over there, and they have a wide range of things they will eat besides farm crops, fruit and nuts.

Some examples of what Michigan deer eat beside truck crops.

Michigan deer will eat balsam, basswood, cherry, dogwood, dwarf sumac, blackberry leaves, black cherry, ground hemlock, orchard grass, red maple, red osier, spruce, tag alder tips, white cedar, wild grapes and the leaves. Many other wild growing weeds also serve as fodder for a browsing whitetail deer.

Find a neighbor who has ornamental shrubs planted around the house, and watch it for a few days in December. You'll soon learn which trails deer use to come to feed on the shrubs, and a savvy bow hunter can set up on them very easy. Stay away from the houses because of Michigan's "safety zone," which is 450 feet, and ambush them as they move down a trail to feed.

Hunters who can locate a wild food source has found the banquet table. Some wild foods are eaten only in the winter, but many are a mainstay at other times of the year.

Learn these foods, spend some time checking for deer movement around these natural food sources, and it can pay off. If deer are slow or reluctant to come to croplands, go looking for wild-growing foods.

It can pay off ... big-time.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors