The Hunting Beast

I'm headed out for 10 days at the end of this week. Yes my lovely wife and boys are going to Alaska and I'm getting out of patient care duties for an exteneded period in the middle of the rut. So. . . last year I did this I spent the first 1.5 days scouting and the last hunting. This time around, I was thinking I would walk with the stand and hang it if the area looked good. Hunt in the evening and likely following morning since most areas will be staging or funnels (pre-rut) and then move it if I don't kill one or it's not good. This won't allow me to take a survey of all the areas and hunt the best, but it should allow me to hunt "unburned" areas.

What do you guys think? is this how you do it? I know I've heard Dan talk about hunting this way before. John Eberhardt talks about walking a lot with "scent control" and then hunting the best areas first. I'm not sure what I think about scent control.

thanks for the opinions,

kendall

I think you've got a great plan. Just make sure it's not mediocre or old sign. Find the hot stuff and set up, hunt a couple of times and move on.

Thats the best way to do it if you are unfamiliar with an area. Go in and setup on the hot sign. Otherwise if you get a rain, go for a walk around and figure out the good spots at midday. Rain will wash all your scent away and make things a lot more quiet. Make sure you take your bow along just in case

I think "walking around" in a hunting area can be a bad thing.
Walk in hang a stand near fresh sign, sit/watch can be a good thing.

Play the wind of course, and do not let it carry your scent where you do not want it to go.

I wish you a good time and luck.

marty

When hunting mobile I take down each time b/c if you only have one mobile stand (or in my case 1 favorite mobile stand) it doesnt do you any good the next morning if the wind changes or is bad. Weather.com can take a lot of the guess work out, but it is something to consider. I am more apt to leave the pegs in if a return hunt is a possibility.

Every single hunt this year was with my Lone Wolf Alpha Hang-On and it is so far the best year off hunting for me (Put up the stand and take it down, bucks can't pattern you). This is my first year hunting mobile and will never go back to permanent stands.

What I do is walk Transition Lines which is a good tactic for Early Season and the Rut. By transition lines I mean to look at an aerial view and look for a line or area where tree types change or land features change.
Ex. Pines to Handwood
Medium Cover to Heavy Cover

Walk quietly while you do this because you never know what is close-by. Also, if you walk quiet you know you did everything in your power to make the hunt successful, not blow it because you are lazy. It is not how fast you set-up because big buck move just before dark.

Hope this helps, I am not an expert like Dan I am only 16 ,
Stuart

I would agree with most of the comments... I will say this though. Sometimes a spot, especially a good rut spot, won't have a lot of sign, or look hot. Go with your gut feeling. Some of my biggest bucks were taken from sots with only a few rubs and faint trails.
I too would post a stand over "hot" sign, but a lot of the time the "hot" sign is left by 2 or 3 year old bucks... The older ones don't seem to leave that heavy sign.
If you watched the Hill country DVD where I filmed Bob Dobson (3Dog) miss a 4 1/2 year old 8 point. Bob set up there with very little sign. The spot was chosen rather because it is a ridge that connects many bedding areas. Bob picked his tree based on a couple old rubs from the past year.
He was spot on... Had I hunted that woods rather than Bob, I would of ended up within 20 yards of the same spot, if not the same tree... But other hunters may have wandered past looking for hot sign.
Another good tidbit is that most hunters feel that they can hunt the same funnel every day during the rut without damaging it... I disagree.
I have noticed while hunting and while filming for others that every hunt you do you see less deer... Sure, a nice buck might suddenly come walking thru at any time, thats the magic of the rut, however, your odds go up by putting the stand on your back and staying mobile.

dan wrote:If you watched the Hill country DVD where I filmed Bob Dobson (3Dog) miss a 4 1/2 year old 8 point. Bob set up there with very little sign. The spot was chosen rather because it is a ridge that connects many bedding areas. Bob picked his tree based on a couple old rubs from the past year.
He was spot on... Had I hunted that woods rather than Bob, I would of ended up within 20 yards of the same spot, if not the same tree... But other hunters may have wandered past looking for hot sign.

Dan can you explain this more in detail about what exactly caught your eye. What about the old sign said you got to sit here. I'm guessing it's something that has become "instinct" with expierence but what little details?

Adrenalin,
I just got back from hunting a hill country area, as a matter of fact the same public area where 3Dog missed that 8 pointer. I was on a property just down the road from there... Anyway, this was a valley. Going in I noticed the whole valley was torn apart. Rubs and scrapes were everywhere.
Being that this is in the valley, and knowing that the bucks are laying that sign in the night time, I new I needed to be on the rim of the ridges where the bucks cruise. They choose this area because the thermals give them scent from below, and the wind over the top gives them scent from the doe bedding areas and from danger from above.
Most rookie hunters would set up where the sign is down low.
I also know that the best spots along the ridges are at the tops of draws where movement is concentrated and your inbetween the bedding points.
The lower terrain makes it easier to sneak in too... Each set up near the top of the cuts paid off with bucks cruising in daylight. I might add, that I could see the valley floor and after seeing dozens of bucks and a few does along the thermal tunnel I only seen one lone doe in the valley in daylight the entire time.

Good stuff Dan and Others! Great thread

dan wrote: Another good tidbit is that most hunters feel that they can hunt the same funnel every day during the rut without damaging it... I disagree.
I have noticed while hunting and while filming for others that every hunt you do you see less deer... Sure, a nice buck might suddenly come walking thru at any time, thats the magic of the rut, however, your odds go up by putting the stand on your back and staying mobile.

I have to admit I was guilty of this exact thing last week. I had a great sit on Tuesday so I thought with the rut being so hot why not try the same tree again? Well reality was the next day and then a few days later after sitting there all day I did not see another deer. I'm sure the doe's figured me out and took the bucks with them.
Being mobile is the only way to go and I was really good the rest of the season but got a little lax during the rut and I think I hurt my chances somewhat the last days of my hunting vacation. I think it was a good lesson learned and I will focus on being mobile from now on for sure.