A bucks desire vs need

[headgear]

With that land size and number of two year olds the mature bucks are there somewhere, the gate makes the area all that much better. Some logging would help with food but if there are a lot of oaks you should be fine too. As you suspect the bucks probably summer somewhere else and hit the woods as the pressure slowly ramps up and food sources change. 10K acres is nothing to a buck so they are probably moving into and out of your main area all the time, the trick is to find their beds and get on them when they are using them. How well do you have this area scouted out? Do you know their core areas? Can you post any aerials or topos?

When the snow flies after season it might be worth taking up a large track or two to see how the older bucks use the land. Find their travel routes, maybe some good bedding areas, and food sources.

[mainebowhunter]

Headgear is right...if your seeing that many 2.5yr olds, the mature bucks have to be somewhere. I am guessing most guys are not passing 2.5yr old 8pts. The Northeast is comprised of a lot of the same kind of terrain. Its really the reason why I run so many cameras. Because with all of the "great" terrain features pulled of a map, if the mature bucks don't live there, its kind of useless to hunt.

The hard part with snow scouting is weather your deer yard or change their patterns during the winter. Many times, deer herds head for conifer, softwoods to spend the winter in. You can find piles and piles of droppings in these areas but never will see a deer during the season. Its all winter herding.

I would ask the same questions as headgear. How well do you have this area scouted out? Do you know their core areas? Have you scouted all your edges/transitions? The hardest part with big woods is many times, the majority of the deer will be only using a small percentage of the ground as a core area. And, if there is not a lot of pressure, deer will not necessarily crawl in a swamp with kneedeep water to bed.

I would be looking for cutovers, walking all of my cutover / mature timber edges. You mention you have a lot of mature open hardwood. Good. You can cut that area out. Deer move through it...but most times, thats about it. They will feed on acorns or any mast crop.

The understory/cover is what you need to be scouting hard to find. Water / swamp / swale, also areas I would be looking for.

[headgear]

Sounds like hill country then, you need to work those topos. I assume you have soaked up the Hill Country dvd? That really explains everything in a way I can't post on the forums but to sum it up work those bedding points and thermal tunnels on the ridges during the rut and some mature buck encounters should start to happen a little more regular. With that said it still won't be easy, even the best of the best don't get a ton of opportunities every year.

[UofLbowhunter]

I dont know for sure about this ( meaning i dont know how your big woods look ) but i do believe the southern facing slopes could have more vegatation on them . Could be a place to try for some browsing areas.

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[mainebowhunter]

Here is something to think about. Not sure its even a possibility. But I am going throw this out there. Take it for what its worth.

I looked up the public ground you were referring to. In Maine, there is a lot of ground like that. I can find places that have thousands upon thousands of acres of nothing but hills and timber. I avoid it like the plague as a bowhunter. My chances are so much better to find bucks using smaller pieces of ground in pieces of woods that are 2000 acres in size rather than 10,000 acres in size. The more broken up it is, the more it interests me. I would much rather scout and hunt 10K acres that has houses, roads, lakes, ponds, hay fields, meadows, cutovers -- all things that break the area up.

Any of the public ground that abuts any kind of ag or any kind of houses would interest me more so than the great big woods.

That being said, I went and downloaded a .kmz file of all of the state forest. Once I did that stuff started to make a bit more sense.

These areas are where I would focus my attention. Bunch of public land that moves in and around houses and is more broken up. Maybe that gets more pressure. But just looking at this stuff, purely from a terrain point of view, its where I choose to try and spend my time.



Another section


When I look to travel to places to hunt, I am always looking for small pockets of public ground that might get missed by someone else. I am always looking for the places where deer are feeding, spots where I narrow that down rather than "feeding in the woods". Then I figure they have to be bedding somewhere in a reasonable distance. Then you can start apply all of the hill country principles.

But thats just me. Maybe your looking for the big woods experience and you have exhausted all of the other possibilities. I am just kinding thinking out loud here.

[JoeRE]

I have hunted some areas that are not too different than that. Yes, if there are ag fields in the area deer will be all over them in the summer. Then with acorn drop, leaf drop, and increased hunting pressure I see them retreat to the bigger timber but only if they feel secure and there is food. Sounds like there is little to no browse in the timber so deer only spend a lot of time in mature hardwoods if there are acorns. Is there usually a surplus of acorns lasting until late season or do they get eaten up within days or a couple weeks? IMO bedding will still cluster around any areas that are denser cover - outside of when acorns are falling I have seen even big buck bed close to their favorite oaks in open timber.

Are you putting trail cameras on scrapes in October and only getting 2 year olds? If so I actually would disagree with with some of the previous comments and say that no, there are not older bucks at those times and in those areas. Your last post sort of alluded to that idea. Most big bucks will go around working scrapes in the pre-rut all night long in my experience, period. I am not saying there aren't big bucks in the greater area but if you can't get them on cam on scrapes, or on food late season, they probably are tucked into overlooked and next to impossible access areas you haven't found yet. Also big bucks don't just head into the center of a big piece of cover for no other reason. They want security and access to food and will go where ever that takes them. I would throw a wider net, do some scouting in areas in or next to better cover and drop some cams in out of the way spots, bet you will find more. Watch for tall rubs and big tracks when scouting. There is a distinct difference in height of a 2 year olds rub and a 4 or 5 year old buck.

[mainebowhunter]

A lot of good info here guys and I appreciate it. First I will say I think Maine is right on with needing to get around the edges or whatever else breaks up the giant timber. I had finally started to make it to some of these areas yesterday. I honestly don't think this areas gets pressured much. Jore there is always a surplus of acorns. There are more acorn trees than could ever been used over that 10k acers. This area is now supporting a very large bear population as well. As far as the cameras over scrapes, I haven't ran enough to answer that accurately. The years I have ran over an active scarp I did get some bigger bucks but it would be one pic and then never again. These deer will not tolerate any type of flash what so ever. I have transferred over to all black flash. I will scout down scrapes and have cams over them all year this year. I have ran cams in this area for years and years but always end up being deep in the woods hiding my cameras from other hunters. I am starting to think I have let this ruin me. I have found some areas with under growth lately and also areas with AG on the edges.

*Maine thanks for posting the maps!!!

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The acorn drop is the same way here this year. So really the only way I can break it down is to hunt near known bedding, run cams near known bedding and really put effort near the acorns that are dropping closest to those beds. If I step back and look at acres and acres of oak trees, you can definitely become discouraged really quick. The acorns will rot on the ground this year, just like the apples did last year. Not enough animals to clean them all up.

I kind of look at big timber much like a swamp/marsh/swale, its all about the edges. I am always looking for a way to break it down into smaller chunks. I know around where I live, with low deer densities, sometimes it just takes a lot of time to try and figure out the method your going to use to find these deer. I measured the woods / hills between the houses/farms on both sides of that ridge. Its measured 8 miles across. Really just need to figure out how to break the cover down into something manageable.

Here is an example of what I mean about the chunks. I was hunting a chunk of timber, never could figure out anything consistent with 3.5+ yr old bucks. Just no rhyme or reason to what they were doing. Random bucks would show up but never see them again. Part of it was misconception about where they were bedding, part of it was just the area. So I moved .75 miles across the road to another chunk. It was night and day. Bucks lived there. It has become one of my best spots. (now I am back to the first chunk with a renewed sense of purpose trying to understand it )

In the end, its just takes a lot of time, boots on the ground. I have 100s of hours scouting over the years.

[csoult]

I hunt an area that is almost exactly like this, but without the AG fields. Some things of note for hunting laurel...

Mountain laurel is a very unique area to hunt, but it is also where the big bucks are bedding without a doubt. They don't bed deep in the laurel like you would think, does do this and bed in circles, but bucks (from what I've seen anyway) tend to bed just inside the edge, but where they can see into an opening. I think if they get too far back in they feel trapped. If there are hills in the area the top third rule in laurel almost always holds true, but they need, and I can't stress this enough, need to be able to see out into an opening. 98% of the buck beds I've found in areas that have laurel are like this.

Below is an example of flat laurel bedding the tag on the far left is a confirmed buck bedding area, with multiple bucks bedding in this area, as confirmed by trail camera pictures (bottom tag) of bucks coming in and out of this area. The tag in the middle is the kill tree.









The next example is of hill country laurel bedding. The buck is still bedded in the laurel, but about a third down and again looking out over an opening in the laurel, both tags are beds. I assume he would switch between the two beds depending on the wind. This buck was shot coming out of his bed around the point. He was a 10 point and was about 22" wide.



The buck I shot last year in the rut ran about 200 yards and died in his bed. This bed was almost exactly like the first example.

[csoult]

I put the camera in the first example to confirm what I had suspected, and took it out the next trip back in. I will not go back in there until I plan on hunting it (conditions are right). Pennsylvania public land.

[headgear]

Another spot you might find bedding is in a mess of blow downs, in my bigwoods (not really hill country) I have a handful of beds on smaller ridges or islands. The downed trees offers some extra cover and create a nice barrier to keep predators and hunters from sneaking up on them. If you can find some blow downs on a traditionally good bedding point then those areas would be preferred more than most. These places can really be spread out too, if I have a 500 or 1000 acres section of woods I might only find 1 or 2 great bedding locations in that area that I focus on. Other times I might find 3-4 good beds in a small area, the key is these 3-4 bedding areas are close together and setup for different winds so the bucks like those areas because they have a lot of bedding options in a small secure area. Check close to those parking lots as well, the older bucks might be setup to watch your access and bust you before you hit the woods.

Like I mentioned before that 7000 acres might have only have 5 or 10 good spots to hunt mature bucks (a lot depends on your area and deer numbers) you might have to keep looking to find the best of the best. No reason to limit yourself to 7K acres if you don't have to either. I have no clue how many acres I have scouted over the years but I wouldn't doubt if that number is close to 75 or 100K acres. Out of all of that most of it is not worth hunting, some of it is only worth hunting on randoms years when a buck slips through the cracks to reach maturity. I try and add new areas to hunt every year. For me personally on public land I feel I up my odds by only hunting the best of the best spots, but that is my style and it is up to you how you want to hunt your area.

[tmarbut]

do you know that the deer are pressured enough that they are forced back to deep woods?
My thoughts are similar to Jore & Maine: keep to the edges and variety. Deer like edges.
Also, thinking about so many deer that are overlooked on public land, I'm wondering if you are going way past them as they stay on the edge of the farm land. How many bucks have been killed 100 yards from a parking lot?
Just questions I thought about as I read.

Good luck!

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[JoeRE]

Good stuff csoult I love seeing guys putting cams to work confirming bedding!

Just a general note - I have not hunted anywhere that had mature bucks using more than maybe 10% of the land - outside of the rut anyway.

Usually its even less than 10%, and that's in public areas still with good age structure that I have hunted. I might scout 1000 acres and find just a few acres in two or three spots that mature bucks seem to frequent in daylight - in and nearby the best bedding a mature buck can find. Takes a lot, and often years, to whittle down a big area to those few high odds locations for getting a shot at a big one. I think you are asking the right questions and are on the right track.

[mainebowhunter]

Good stuff csoult I love seeing guys putting cams to work confirming bedding!

Just a general note - I have not hunted anywhere that had mature bucks using more than maybe 10% of the land - outside of the rut anyway.

Usually its even less than 10%, and that's in public areas still with good age structure that I have hunted. I might scout 1000 acres and find just a few acres in two or three spots that mature bucks seem to frequent in daylight - in and nearby the best bedding a mature buck can find. [glow=red]Takes a lot, and often years[/glow], to whittle down a big area to those few high odds locations for getting a shot at a big one. I think you are asking the right questions and are on the right track.

In my state, this is year #6 and I feel like I am starting to get a handle on a bit more of my hunting areas. Definitely a marathon not a sprint.

Csoult definitely has some great "hey I hunt here" knowledge to add. Much more specific than just "you need to find cover". Good stuff.

[headgear]

Is that a river in one of the aerials that Maine posted? With all those hills I would gravitate towards any water if you could, they might not bed right on top of the river but I would bet they hang a little closer to water and that it is a frequent destination for all the deer in the area.

[justdirtyfun]

You have watched this land evolve. Pressure changed and so have the woods. Do you think the habitat was better 20 years ago or now? I have read about the north east losing diversity since the word "logging" is no longer politically correct.
Great discussion and just felt that point has not been added. Although the edge conversation is virtually the same.

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