white tail habits

[kgtech]

how can some one tell is the white tail deer are using a clear cut thicket for a bedding? I've tried a tc but had to pull it out after 1 week (turkey season open) I do leave my tc out 2-3 month at a time but a don't want waste time if this is not a bedding place and it's a new public hunting grounds.

[remmag]

Scout, scout, scout.

[ Post made via Android ]

[kgtech]

I don't have the time to scout I have to travel a lot I have to make money tooo.

[Bowhunter4life]

How old is the clear cut? I've had a ton of luck in clear cuts and see a lot of bucks using them to bed in it. How big is the clear cut? Also how much pressure is in the clear cut? If there is not a lot of pressure in the clear cut but a lot of pressure jn the surrounding area you can bet on it that's where the bucks will be bedding if they are in the area. I have used that to my advantage. During our rifle season I hunt a big clear cut that is 7 years old. It's so thick and nasty that you can't walk through it. Gets a ton of pressure all around it and on the edges but deep in it guys don't hunt it cause there are no trees big enough for climbers which is what most use. Can't see on the ground. I use my lone wolf and get about 8 feet up just to see over all the brush and have great luck. As far as knowing if the bucks are using it scouting is about the only way to truly know. Is it hill country? If so check the points, that can cut your scouting time down by checking those specific types of locations bucks tend to bed.

[ Post made via Android ]

[dan]

I don't have the time to scout I have to travel a lot I have to make money tooo.

You get out of hunting what you put in to it... Scouting is more important than hunting. A day of scouting will give you several days of educated hunts.

[JoeRE]

Depending on what type of trees there are generally clearcuts 10-15+ years old become good bedding, younger clearcuts are more food sources - browse.

I don't have the time to scout I have to travel a lot I have to make money tooo.

I would look at it as a matter of priorities. If scouting is not a high priority then your success this fall needs to be a lower priority as well because they go hand in hand. Cyber scouting can make boots on the ground scouting more efficient but doesn't replace it particularly on public land where one of the biggest things you need to sort out is where everyone else is hunting.

A couple hours here and there can add up between now and fall. I don't have time to devote large chunks of time to scouting either unfortunately but I chip away at it every moment I can and as a result rack up some decent milage over the year.

[dirt nap giver]

I can tell a lot about a clear cut from cyber scouting.
I won't hunt a cut that is less than 5 years old.
Terrain inside and surrounding the cut will play a vital roll in deer travel.
Down wind side gets more buck cruising during the rut than the middle.
Just like marsh hunting, the transition is the area I focus my scouting efforts.
Cuts away from roads and foot trails are best.

I am with the others on laying down the leather. Scouting equals success.
I am at the point now where I can go into a cut blind and be on em.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[kgtech]

what do you look for???

"Terrain inside and surrounding the cut will play a vital roll in deer travel"

[Ghost Hunter]

When I first started bow hunting. It seem like about the time you had an area figured out. The loggers would move in an wipe it clean. I spent a lot of time being frustrated with this happening for a few years. Most of the time they wiped them clean except for the creeks that run through the clear cuts. I learned what I was actually looking at was a clean slate. It was then, that I no longer looked at a clear cut the same again.


What I started noticing, was you see the lay of the land for several hundred yards in either direction. If you wanted to have a picture of the lay of the land this would be the time. I would wait for the loggers to get out an I would give it maybe a month. I would then move in an walk the edges all the way around an make note either mental or on a GPS of all the trails, creek crossings an left standing acorn trees. I would look for the old rubs droppings an bedding areas around the cutovers. Note all the food sources such as berries, saw briers, honey suckle or anything to their liking that is near the fresh cutover. I would put trail cameras in the logging roads that weaved through the woods into the cutovers. I'll spend late summer glassing the favorite locations from a distance. You can easily put together a game plan. Then you just grow with the changes.

[dirt nap giver]

what do you look for???

"Terrain inside and surrounding the cut will play a vital roll in deer travel"

As mentioned above, creeks, ridges, two connecting ridges, transitions where the cut and mature woods meet.
One of the cuts I hunt has theses features in and around it-
Inside the cut has two small ridges running N & S, on the south end of these ridges, the connect with each other into another larger ridge that runs NE/SW. 40 yards to the east of those connecting ridges, the cut stops and turns to mature woods. That transition between the cut and mature woods also runs NE/SW. If I follow the larger ridge and the cut to the SW, the cut comes to a point. Within 60 years of the point, there is a swamp that run E & W.
Think about this for a minute..........
Within 100 yards, there are numerous terrain features.
You have 2 transition lines from the cut/mature woods, you also have 3 ridges and the transition from the mature woods to the swamp.
Mature bucks, use terrain to their advantage when traveling. One buck could be using any one of the ridges, while another buck could be traveling with one of the cut/ mature woods transition lines. While yet another buck could be traveling the edge of the swamp/mature woods.

Using caltopo.com, I locate the cut based on finding it from obtaining a list from the forestry division from my local DNR office. I requested a list of clear cuts that had happened 5, 6, 7 & 8 years prior. This list came with locations of each.
With Caltopo.com, I am able to use the road map feature to locate the intersection nearest my desired clear cut. Once I locate the cut, I can switch caltopo back and forth between topo and aerial. I keep switching back and forth till I have an image in my head of that things look like. If there isn't much for terrain features on the map for that cut, I move to the next cut on the list, until I find cuts that have the terrain features mentioned above. Once I have located one that looks good, I then look for the nearest road, house or 2 track(helps locate access from other hunters). Knowing I don't want to hunt where others do, I then come up with an access route to the terrain that comes together, look at the prevailing wind direction, this my stand on my back and go. When I start getting close to the area I have in mind, I start using the milk weed to give me a better understanding of what the thermals are doing. Then hang and hunt.

This is what became of a blind clear cut hunt last year, strictly based off cyber scouting.

It isn't a slob......... But I had a great hunt.

The year before. Same thing, different cut.


[ Post made via iPhone ]

[remmag]

Very nice DNG! Might have to make a trip to my local DNR office and try this myself. This might be a obvious question, but what's the reasoning for clear cuts being so hot several years after? Just because of the undergrowth that comes back in? Couple public parcels I hunt have been clear cut last year somewhat close to the road for several miles, not logging just long runs of clearing underneath power lines. Although this may not technically be a clear cut like you described, I've noticed from the tracks that these runs have become somewhat of a deer highway

[ Post made via Android ]

[Jackson Marsh]

Dang nice DNG!

[ Post made via Android ]

[dirt nap giver]

Very nice DNG! Might have to make a trip to my local DNR office and try this myself. This might be a obvious question, but what's the reasoning for clear cuts being so hot several years after? Just because of the undergrowth that comes back in? Couple public parcels I hunt have been clear cut last year somewhat close to the road for several miles, not logging just long runs of clearing underneath power lines. Although this may not technically be a clear cut like you described, I've noticed from the tracks that these runs have become somewhat of a deer highway

[ Post made via Android ]

From my experience, the first 2-3 years are when the under growth is developing. Briars are rooting etc. People start hunting the open terrain thinking it gives them wide open shooting. After 3 years, the undergrowth has taken root, but still isn't quite thick enough for bedding comfort. By year 5 the briars are out of control, humans are intimidated, and they start to back off from hunting because it's just to thick.
In the mean time, deer have been using the cuts and have been browsing along their trail, which keeps the trails open.

Just like swamps and marshes, small humps/hills, points, little clearings within the cut surrounded by briars become bedding areas for mature bucks. I don't have many marshes where I live, so these clear cuts are essentially my marshes. Similar principles, just different landscape.

If you can locate a couple clear cuts within close proximity to each other(deer terms anyway), mature bucks will scent check the down wind side. Most of your big rubs and scrapes will be located here. Finding a cut that has big buck bedding inside of it, is dictated by the terrain inside the cut. And in almost every circumstance, he is using the doe bedding as an alarm clock, which is conveniently located down wind of his bed.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[remmag]

Very interesting stuff DNG. Thanks for the post. More often than not these cuts are impenetrable, so your setting up on the downside side of the cut along the transition edge along his exit route/staging area, correct?

[ Post made via Android ]

[dirt nap giver]

Very interesting stuff DNG. Thanks for the post. More often than not these cuts are impenetrable, so your setting up on the downside side of the cut along the transition edge along his exit route/staging area, correct?

[ Post made via Android ]

For the most part.
A lot of the time I catch him coming in.

10+ years ago, I would hunt the morning, then go grab lunch or go check another spot during the afternoon. One day that is etched in my brain unfolded like this.
It was mid October, the rut had not started yet(early pre rut)
I sat my stand till 9:45 and decided to grab some food. I went back to the truck, ate and decided to go look at an area that has held big rubs in the past. The area was in the same block I had been hunting that morning, just 700-800 yards away. I walked into this area and was looking at numerous fresh rubs located 1/2 down a 30-40' high ridge. Something caught my eye, and 75-80 yards out was one of the biggest bucks I had ever seen on public land. He was up and traveling. I never got a shot at him, but that moment got me started in asking why.
Why did I just see him, on his feet and moving at that time?
Why was my mature buck sightings so random while on stand? I was hunting hot sign. I had done my late season scouting. Why, why, why. It didn't add up
3 days later, while climbing in my stand, one of the steps on my ladder sticks had broken. A friend was hunting a couple miles away and we had plans on meeting up to hit the local restaurant. I called him from the tree at 9:45 a.m. and told him what happened, and he decided it would be better to bring me out a set of his sticks(connecting ladder sticks). As I sat there waiting for him to come to my rescue, I had a 145" 8 point come in on one of the trails I was hunting over. He was headed for the clear cut. At 20 yards, broad side, I choked and shot right over his back. He had no clue what just happened, and I watched him make a rub, then enter the cut. The clock said 10:40 a.m. Just after I shot.

To shorten things up, 2 days later, I shot him, 150 yards down wind of where I had missed him before as he was entering his bed in the clear cut. The clock said 9:45 a.m.

I'll have to finish this up later, but that season a light went off in my head. Here is a pic.


[ Post made via iPhone ]