Bigwoods Hunting - Input appreciated

[NorthernWIBowhunter]

Don't think you have to get super remote during gun season. Best success I have had has been hunting near pockets of deer and waiting for them to get pushed to me by everybody else. Part of that is knowing where guys go. They go to where the most sign is, for me it's hardwoods.

My opinion is that deer don't go far when the guns start up. They get to cover as quick as they can and hold tight until it's dark. Once it's dark, they relocate to a safer area. Part of the reason the river bottom in my area does so well. That's where they historically relocate to. Track record proves it. If I really wanted to up my odds, I would be in a swamp that has hardwoods all around me, and get out very early in the morning and just wait it out all day. Second day go to the river bottom. Not guaranteeing anything, but I'd bet on getting a shot at something. Wouldn't have high expectations if I did the swamp day 2. Not confident they stay there overnight. I think they get out of town

I have one wallhanger and another respectable buck in my book hunting a river bottom during gun season. Spent 3 years gun hunting it. Only year I didn't shoot one, I saw the biggest buck of my life midday on Sunday. Easily 140-150" buck. My longest shot was 30 yards. A bow could've easily killed them both. The one last year might've been 20 yards.

Oh and I got my gun at a garage sale for $100. Box of ammo to sight it in and good to go. Not dropping huge money on something I use 3-4 days a year.

Jonny - thank you. I've never thought of that before - not once - hunting in a place that takes advantage of the fact that the surrounding hardwoods might push deer into the thicker, wetter, swampier areas. That's a great idea. I know of a couple of spots already where that would be worth a shot. Brilliant idea!

Congrats on your bucks! That's awesome! I'm definitely going to start putting a plan together for opening weekend too. Maybe spent Saturday in a swamp, like you said, and then Sunday back in a river bottom somewhere. Does it matter at all that I might have to hunt on the ground Saturday? The swamp I have in mind that's surrounded by hardwoods has a creek running through it, and apart from one tiny island that's not on topos, it's crazy thick. So thick I've fallen in the creek before - in daylight (lol) - because I literally couldn't see more than foot or two in front of me because of all the blowdowns and tiny trees and thick underbrush/alder. I've always been kind of hesitant to ground hunt, only because I have experience doing it, but I'm starting to think that it's not so much about your setup (treestand vs blind), and it's more about the spot.

And I'm glad you mentioned that you saw it at mid day. As a kid my Dad would always sit from dawn to like 10am, then like 2pm to dark. But I've heard an awful lot of people tell me that if I could only hunt once each day, I'd be better sitting from 9:30am - 2:00pm from October 23rd - the end of gun season. 2014 was the first year I did an all day sit, and by last year I did quite a few of them, although I usually relocated at least once during the day. But during the gun season I think I'll try that more.

And thank you for the suggestion. My Dad sold my 870 Express 20ga Youth gun. I didn't even know until a few years I asked if I could take it home to sight it in. He sold his BAR 30-06 too. And not to me, lol. It was a beautiful gun. I wish I'd have known he was selling it, I'd have bought it for sentimental reasons, if nothing else. But I'll check out the garage sales, and maybe Craigslist too. Thank you for the tip!

Thanks again for taking the time to reply to questions - I'm very grateful that there are guys like you willing to help educate me on how to hunt these "ghost" bucks, lol.

[Jonny]

Don't think you have to get super remote during gun season. Best success I have had has been hunting near pockets of deer and waiting for them to get pushed to me by everybody else. Part of that is knowing where guys go. They go to where the most sign is, for me it's hardwoods.

My opinion is that deer don't go far when the guns start up. They get to cover as quick as they can and hold tight until it's dark. Once it's dark, they relocate to a safer area. Part of the reason the river bottom in my area does so well. That's where they historically relocate to. Track record proves it. If I really wanted to up my odds, I would be in a swamp that has hardwoods all around me, and get out very early in the morning and just wait it out all day. Second day go to the river bottom. Not guaranteeing anything, but I'd bet on getting a shot at something. Wouldn't have high expectations if I did the swamp day 2. Not confident they stay there overnight. I think they get out of town

I have one wallhanger and another respectable buck in my book hunting a river bottom during gun season. Spent 3 years gun hunting it. Only year I didn't shoot one, I saw the biggest buck of my life midday on Sunday. Easily 140-150" buck. My longest shot was 30 yards. A bow could've easily killed them both. The one last year might've been 20 yards.

Oh and I got my gun at a garage sale for $100. Box of ammo to sight it in and good to go. Not dropping huge money on something I use 3-4 days a year.

Jonny - thank you. I've never thought of that before - not once - hunting in a place that takes advantage of the fact that the surrounding hardwoods might push deer into the thicker, wetter, swampier areas. That's a great idea. I know of a couple of spots already where that would be worth a shot. Brilliant idea!

Congrats on your bucks! That's awesome! I'm definitely going to start putting a plan together for opening weekend too. Maybe spent Saturday in a swamp, like you said, and then Sunday back in a river bottom somewhere. Does it matter at all that I might have to hunt on the ground Saturday? The swamp I have in mind that's surrounded by hardwoods has a creek running through it, and apart from one tiny island that's not on topos, it's crazy thick. So thick I've fallen in the creek before - in daylight (lol) - because I literally couldn't see more than foot or two in front of me because of all the blowdowns and tiny trees and thick underbrush/alder. I've always been kind of hesitant to ground hunt, only because I have experience doing it, but I'm starting to think that it's not so much about your setup (treestand vs blind), and it's more about the spot.

And I'm glad you mentioned that you saw it at mid day. As a kid my Dad would always sit from dawn to like 10am, then like 2pm to dark. But I've heard an awful lot of people tell me that if I could only hunt once each day, I'd be better sitting from 9:30am - 2:00pm from October 23rd - the end of gun season. 2014 was the first year I did an all day sit, and by last year I did quite a few of them, although I usually relocated at least once during the day. But during the gun season I think I'll try that more.

And thank you for the suggestion. My Dad sold my 870 Express 20ga Youth gun. I didn't even know until a few years I asked if I could take it home to sight it in. He sold his BAR 30-06 too. And not to me, lol. It was a beautiful gun. I wish I'd have known he was selling it, I'd have bought it for sentimental reasons, if nothing else. But I'll check out the garage sales, and maybe Craigslist too. Thank you for the tip!

Thanks again for taking the time to reply to questions - I'm very grateful that there are guys like you willing to help educate me on how to hunt these "ghost" bucks, lol.

Yeah for gun season my best advice is sit dark to dark Saturday and Sunday. I shot my biggest buck at 8:30am in a funnel escaping the hardwoods going to the river bottom, opening day. The next year I saw a giant in the same stand but couldn't get a shot since my gun was on the ground, just got back from lunch. He was coming up out of a thick area dropping down into the bottom. That was midday on Sunday. I shot my buck last year around 3 on Sunday after it winded my dad and bolted across the creek right into my crosshairs.

This year knowing what I know, I will be sitting dark to dark all weekend, and probably Monday and Tuesday as well. Don't worry about being on the ground, but you will be limited since you can't see as much. My gun spot would be an okay ground spot in that I am on top of a ridge running through the bottom, but I would also be missing a lot of area as well. My river bottom has series of ridges running through it. Sometimes the deer run on top, and sometimes on the bottom. My dad couldn't get a shot at a buck last year because a buck came down the one gulley he couldn't shoot.

If I did Saturday in a swamp or thick area surrounded by hardwoods, that would be my homerun swing. The river bottom is my fall back, I know I will see something spot. The best opening day spot I have ever seen was one my dad hunted 15 years ago for a couple seasons. Sat in a high spot and overlooked 3 small pothole swamps. Huge tracts of hardwoods in 2 directions and some bigger swamps that got pounded during gun season. Very overlooked, or nobody knew it was there. Hunted it 2 years, shot a huge doe year one, and the biggest bodied buck I have ever seen in person year 2. Hardwoods were logged the year after and the spot was worthless. Both deer shot by 9am opening day. So that's the swampy area surrounded by hardwoods I would target opening day. Deer are feeding all night, once it gets light and shots fired, where is the closest safe area they go. They don't want to travel a mile back to a remote thick river bottom. They want to bed down as fast as they can in an area they feel safe.

[headgear]

Thank you headgear for your input. I really appreciate it. Let me ask you a question. I do a ton of off-season scouting, summer scouting, etc. Of course before I ever walk a property, I cyberscout an area. So my question is - if I scout an area, in person, and don't find much fresh sign - do I write it off and forget it? Just as an example I scout a couple places last week. One of them was beautiful, had thick cover, was remote/secluded, and had an area TORN UP with old rubs, but none of it was fresh. The rubs were 1-3 seasons old. I found perhaps two piles of droppings, and cut one fresh track (there weren't many places I could see tracks). Would you just move on to the next area? Or would you hunt there anyway and see what's going on? It's a river bottom area, and the area I scouted has a big hardwood island rising about 70' off the river bottom floor. The island itself is actually pretty big. Maybe 6-8 acres in size. The island itself is pretty open, though right now there's a lot of waist high undergrowth. On the south end is an alder swamp for about 1/4 mile. Every other direction is open river bottom (wet, open, some trees), except West, where there's a thin Tamarack/Cedar floating bog that's about 40 yards across. I really thought it'd hold a lot of fresh sign, but I scoured that island, and some of the surrounding areas, and saw almost no fresh sign. Just wondering what you'd do in an instance like that.

I would probably still throw a hunt at it, in the bigwoods sign like that can be rare so when you find it make sure to keep tabs on the area. A lot of spots I hunt are based on old sign I find, if you can find many years worth of rubs that is a good thing, even if they aren't fresh it might mean a new buck could move in at any time. What you will find is some bedding gets used every year and some doesn't but when an area heats up you want to know that area well and be able to setup on them. I often find sections of land I hunt go hot and cold by the season, it might just take some time for a buck to grow old in that area and call it home. I re-scout a lot of the stuff I hunt year after year to see what gets used annually and what doesn't, that doesn't stop me from hunting both but it allows me to prioritize my bedding areas to focus on the annual stuff but also to keep tabs on the other areas as well. I had one spot that went cold and I kind of abandoned it only to re-scout it a few years later and find it was hot again, never shot a deer there but had a great encounter with a big 10 that slipped by me just out of range in thick cover. Basically you have to be very flexible and adapt to what is going on in your different areas. In bigwoods, at least the woods I hunt these annual bedding spots are rare and with miles of land and endless bedding options it can be hard to catch them using the area. Countless times I will find fresh sign only to find that the buck might have moved on or I was just a day or two behind them but that kind of goes with the territory. Keep up the scouting and over time you will have a much better idea what is happening. Sometimes you just have to throw the stand on your back and setup when you find fresh stuff, sometimes I end up doing that and not finding anything fresh so I just keep on scouting or setup when I run out of land or I get way back to the last spot. Maybe I hunt an area with 3 known beds, and slowly work my way back and check near each one for fresh sign, if I don't find any I move onto the next spot. If I find good sign I setup and see what happens, if nothing shows I will try and stay in that area until I hunted all the known beds to see if I can find the buck that laid down that sign. Sometimes you don't have time to scout like this and you have to take guess at where to hunt based off wind or your gut or time of year. After a few seasons you pick up on when bedding areas get used so you take your best guess. Sometimes spots are so far back that it takes hours to get there, you hope to find fresh sign but that doesn't always happen so I just hunt it anyway and have seen and shot deer that way so don't get too worried if you don't find fresh sign. It's really all about upping your odds and putting yourself in the best position you can to shoot a nice buck, have to be patient and persistent and it will pay off eventually.

[Steve Heiting]

Thank you Steve for you comments and tips. You're definitely right about the deer numbers. If you had to guess, how many bucks do you think there are up here per square mile? Mature bucks, that is. Do you think 1 mature buck per square mile is reasonable, or is even that too high an estimate?

And yes, I noticed the decline too. The last time I had a decent buck within range was 2012 - a nice 8-pointer came in behind me on Halloween but never offered a shot. Never saw him again. 2013 I saw two spikers, perhaps 1/2 dozen does, and a couple coyotes, and that's it. 2014 and 2015 were worse. Last year I saw more deer, but only one buck the entire season - a decent little 6 pointer which I shot on 11/11. My first buck! It was quite an experience!

Anyway, I like your idea about running trailcams in funnels to get an inventory. I've been trying to set mine up in remote locations where I think a big guy is hiding, but I wind up getting almost no pics, and even then have yet to get a pic of a single mature buck. The largest buck I've photographed this calendar year is pictured below. I also had a black bear rip my camera off the tree in Price County Forest about 3 weeks ago. But I want to try that - setting 'em up in funnels.

Any suggestions for mid-season camera placement, if you're trying to find out if any area has anything mature on it? I'm kind of at wits end with the trailcameras, to be honest. I just can't seem to figure out if I'm looking in the wrong spots, or if my camera locations are wrong. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

The biggest buck I've gotten a pic of this year. This was taken back in Flambeau River State forest. Nothing wrong with that buck, but I've set my sights on taking a mature animal this year.

Congrats on your first buck. My first was also a 6-pointer ... 40 years ago this year!

Don't think you need to get extremely remote in your searching. Lots of people don't like baiting and feeding, but after the winter of 2013-14 I had only a single stand that had any "shooter" bucks at it, and it happens to be a half-mile from where a guy fed them through the winter. Of the four I considered shooters in 2014, I got two of them -- a 9-pointer in 2014 and a 10-pointer in 2015. The other two were nice 8's but I haven't seen either of them for two years, so I guess they're gone. There are two different 8's there this year, both likely 3.5 YO bucks.

I found that particular stand/funnel using Google Earth. Everything uses it -- I've had deer, wolves, coyotes, bears, turkeys, porcupines and bobcats show up on my trail cam. Loggers had left an island of pines in the middle of a clearcut, and everything crossing the clearcut goes to the island before continuing on. I've seen as many as five bucks (all were small) from that stand in a day, and have killed three bucks from it. I consider it one stand, but I actually use two different trees depending on wind. The farthest is only about 300 yards from a paved road.

Funnels are anything that force or influence deer to walk that way as they travel from Point A to B. Like us, they almost always look for the easiest route. I start by looking for relatively recent cuttings because deer use them for food. I view Google Earth and then walk the perimeters of the cuts and try to figure out where the deer bed, how they approach the cut, and where my best stands may be. The funnel can be topography in the form of a ridge, waterbody or swamp, or it can be forest edge. If it's a good funnel, it will have a trail because the deer are using it, and that's where the camera goes. Sometimes you may find a secondary, parallel trail, and that's often the one being used by bucks.

Set your cam waist-high about 10-30 feet from where you expect the deer to walk, and try to aim it to the north so the sun is behind it. I usually put my cams up on a rainy day around July 1, check them on a rainy day around August 1 to make sure they are functioning and bears haven't messed with them, and leave them until a rainy day in early September. Two months or so should give you an inventory of what's available. I like rainy days because they wash away my scent.

Hills that top out at 1,600 feet or more in Vilas and Oneida counties usually have oaks on them. In years of good acorns, they'll suck deer in until the acorns are gone. They're tougher to hunt because funnels are more difficult to find and the deer will often bed right on the hill or its sides. Something I tried last year that worked is to grab acorns and if you see a deer in the oaks, start dropping the acorns one by one from your stand so they make noise. Actually letting them hit your rubber boot top and than clanging down through the stand makes more noise and gets noticed. For some reason they think new-fallen acorns are better, so if they hear your acorns falling, they may end up right beneath you. Now, even though you're using acorns, this may be considered baiting -- if that worries you or your local warden, a pocketful of pebbles works just as well.

Re: bears and trail cams, well, they're a fact of life. I've had bears push them and pull them down, but never has one been wrecked, though the last pic a buddy's camera ever took was of the inside of a bear's mouth! I don't buy bear boxes anymore because trail cam shapes keep changing, making the boxes obsolete quickly.

Re: one mature buck/square mile, I think that's optimistic. It's probably true in some locations but definitely isn't the case everywhere.

[Jonny]

I'm definitely going to try the dropping acorns trick. That's pretty clever

[Net Guy]

NorthernWIBowhunter - Great questions you keep asking. You found the right site to do it. The hunters on this site are great, and the wealth of experience and knowledge is unbelievable! I recommend to stay active on this site and spend some time in the "all-time best tactical threads" - gold mine. With that said, I'll attempt to answer a few of the questions you asked me. Hope they help.

"When you find thick brush with water in/around it, do you mostly setup on the edges of that, like fingers/points, etc, or do you actually go into it and hunt too?" I will hunt the edges because it's too difficult to hunt inside the tag alders. Would have to be from the ground and I would be too noisy trying to penetrate it. Most of the beds I find in the tag alders are closer to the edge anyway. My favorite spot (where I killed my buck last year) is on the edge of a small tag alder swamp surrounded my hardwoods and tamaracks in all directions. What makes this spot good is that there is a really thick area of brush in the main woods that the deer bed in too. So I setup in between the bedding areas. Last year, during the rut, the bucks would come out of the tag alder bedding to check the hardwoods bedding area.

" Will bucks move in that open grass? Or do they prefer the side where the alder borders that hardwoods?" The answer is both. They will definitely move through both, depends on where they feel safer. I'd try an observation stand on both sides to see if you can identify a pattern. The bucks will bed right in that tall grass too. Most likely where the grass borders the tag alders.

"Question for you about - when you mention tag alder/tamarack swamps in big woods, do you mean like an island of tamarack/alder surrounded by big woods?" Similar to the first question I answered, but another spot I found scouting this spring has got me really excited. It is a small tamarack island surrounded by marsh grass which is then surrounded by tag alders, then finally surrounded by all hardwoods. This area is pretty small, but I found the best bedding and deer sign I've seen in years here. Very overlooked spot. Hopefully, it's not a bust.

" Do you typically hunt the edges of that, or do you go into it at all?" For this particular hunt, I am going to setup outside the tamarack island and do some observation/kill sits. I know of 3-4 exit routes they could take so I want to be careful with this one. Since I live in Milwaukee, my time is limited, but since I really like this area, I'm going to take it slow. Maybe I don't get an opportunity this year, but I use this year as intel for future years. We'll see how it goes. Either way, I like to ease my way into spots with observation site before just diving in. That goes for most of my hunting areas, not just up north.

Again, there's a wealth of knowledge and awesome threads on here. I recommend you follow Dan's 2017 journal. Great info there.

[BigStick]

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Hunting the big woods can be very challenging. I gun hunt and occasionally bow hunt in Price County and it has its challenges. I am still new to the Beast style of hunting and haven't applied it up there much yet. I wish I would have known all of this years ago when the deer herd was much stronger up there. Things sure have changed. We've had years that our camp has seen more wolves than bucks. Deer numbers seem to be coming back around near our property and the public that we hunt but still struggling to see the mature bucks. I'm hoping to change that with all the intel I've learned from this forum and the many great people on here.

I wish I would have known more about this years ago so I could have learned more from each mature buck we did kill. We have always hunted it like the majority of people in the area do, put out a corn pile in the same spots year in and year out. We had 2 stands that we would shoot mature bucks out of, they never came to the corn pile, they just happened to always walk by within gun range. Now I've learned that they were walking by, they were bedded less than 100 yards away! Our 2 best stands were set up over the buck bedding areas. We wouldn't shoot mature deer every year out of these stands, but more like every 3-5 years. The bucks aren't always there, they don't bed in the same areas regularly like much of southern WI. Both the beds are right on transitions, one is on a finger, and the other is about 250 yards away on a point into a small tamarack swamp. These beds really are right where they should be. Once you find a mature buck bed, make sure you figure out why he bedded there and hunt that bed when the situation is right. Long story short, my point is, don't give up. You will find these beds and it will get easier.

As far as your trail cams, we rarely get mature bucks on camera. We probably see more in person than what get caught on camera. I think a lot of this has to do with the bucks travel. They don't walk the same trails and move the same way as other deer. I've often noticed that mature bucks use trails that are 20-50 yards away from the primary trail. I think they use these trails to monitor the travel on these other trails.

Hope this helps a little.

Thank you for you input BigStick. I too really wish I had known all of this stuff years ago. Especially when I hunted down in SE WI. My Dad got me into hunting - and I loved hunting with him - but he was never very serious, and often selected stand sites based on how they looked, how pretty they were, etc. We never hunted the wind. I didn't even know that was a "thing" until I started reading hunting magazines when I was about 14.

Anyway - I see your point. It sounds like big buck activity, even in a large plot of timber - can be hit or miss. One year there's a giant, but you might 2, 3, or even 4 years before there's another shooter around. I guess I really wonder how many deer per square mile there are up here. I think the DNR says 20 or so, which means, statistically, like what? 1 mature buck? Or is it more like 0.5 mature bucks per square mile, do you think?

And thank you also for the tips and input on your experience. I'll keep looking for bedding where it's supposed to be. The more I read the comments posted on here the more I feel better about everything. It's been a rough summer in terms of my scouting. But I'm beginning to understand a lot more about bigwoods deer from everyone's comments here and feel like I just need to persevere and not give up. Thank you again!

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I'm like you, and many others, my Dad got me into hunting too. He is probably the biggest reason that I continue to hunt Northern WI, it gives me a chance to spend a few days with him and other family at deer camp. I really think the deer population is on the rebound the last couple of years. I think the number of mature bucks should increase in the next 3-5 years. This is a great thread with a lot of great information. I'm looking forward to applying some of this myself.

I've always tried to hunt areas adjacent to where others will be hunting. You need to put in a little more time in the stand, but basically every surrounding hunter is doing a mini drive right to you. I've shot several deer this way. I would even sit tight and am always the last guy back to camp. I let them push all the deer right to me.

Best of luck this season! Keep positive and something will come from it.