Areas without shooters.

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justdirtyfun
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby justdirtyfun » Wed Jul 07, 2021 3:01 am

Are mineral sites legal for you?
DaveTxxxxx from Texas has posted a lot. He searches far and wide for good bucks and leans on his mineral sites and cameras.
I am considering trying it this year.


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Tennhunter3
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby Tennhunter3 » Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:31 am

justdirtyfun wrote:Are mineral sites legal for you?
DaveTxxxxx from Texas has posted a lot. He searches far and wide for good bucks and leans on his mineral sites and cameras.
I am considering trying it this year.


Its a grey area here in TN.
Loose salt ,mineral is legal yet illegal since it can occur naturally this law probably changes warden to warden.

Corn, salt blocks, other attractant are illegal.

So I think its legal as long as it is in loose form and not a block.

Everytime I've told a warden about bait piles they ask if it is salt. If it is salt they do nothing about it at all.
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby Coalcracker » Thu Jul 08, 2021 12:13 am

How elusive are they? VERY!

I'm fortunate to have access on 900 acres of private, managed property. Its hunted consistently by 10 guys in bow season and more in rifle. We all run cameras, mostly on food plots. All of the surrounding properties are also hunted pretty hard.

Three particular bucks come to mind:

Non-typical #1- Killed at 9.5 years old on the property during rifle while chasing a doe during second week of December. This buck was captured on camera a HANDFUL of times from the age of 5.5 to 9.5. One year there were no pictures at all. The only time this buck was seen in person was the day he was killed. Lab aged.

Typical- Big 9pt. typical frame. Missed in bow season at approx. 4.5 years old. Seen in person by (2) bow hunters at age 6.5. Many pictures during the summer from camera over mineral lick on a bench at age 7.5. Removed the mineral lick and he continued to travel same trail....until opening day of bow season. Captured on camera one time several hundred yards away along same elevation line. The same elevation my in-laws and I were hunting throughout the season. Only one picture on a food plot at age 8.5, during bow season in the middle of the morning!! Not seen thereafter. Unknown demise or if he's still alive, he would be approx. 10.5 this year.

Non-typical #2- Multiple sightings and pictures at approx. 3.5 and 4.5. Missed by rifle hunter at 4.5. ONE picture at age 5.5 chasing a doe in mid-Nov., at night on a food plot and one sighting by muzzleloader hunter on last day of late season during a one man push. He will be approx. 6.5 years old this year.

This experience has taught me how well these older bucks avoid demise by hunters. I've also learned to look in more detail. On the public land I hunt, the sign might not be everywhere. I have to look harder in some cases and I've learned to look in very specific places. If its not there than move on to the next key spot but in most cases there will be sign.
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby Hawthorne » Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:28 am

Heck yeah there is a ton of dead zone where I hunt. Probably 90-95 % of the land on public. I’ve seen 50 deer hole up in a small area maybe 2 acres.Gun pressure can effect areas for a long time. No safe escape routes into no mans land the deer just get bumped around into other pressure like a pin ball machine keeping the age structure young. We have really long gun seasons. I remember talking to an older gentleman in the parking lot years ago. I’m like there’s 20,000 acres here to hunt. He said yeah but most of it is deerless. He was right
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby phade » Thu Jul 08, 2021 5:57 am

This is a fascinating topic to me. We all bring unique perspectives to it.

In my work career, the term directionally accurate is used when you believe you have the answer but cannot definitively prove it. Sort of like circumstantial evidence in a courtroom, I guess. You can see and smell the smoke, you can taste it, but you can't find the fire and say - there it is. Yet, you know there is a fire because of the smoke.

Finding a mature buck is like that.

I believe there are dead zones - in some cases circumstantial/temporary and in some more lasting. If I run cams, scout, glass, and speak with neighbors/fact find, and no mature bucks reveals itself, then I am going to believe that there is not one there at that moment - as long as I believe I do not have a blind spot I am overlooking. I've seen cases where a buck evades a cam or series of cams, but gets caught with eyeballs or the rumormill, or vice versa where cams prove a buck is there. I haven't yet seen a buck evade its existence being known to a hunter by all of them simultaneously over the course of a year. I'm sure there are exceptions but I think it's a trap to hunt where your goals are not reasonably showing attainable. Learn, don't think you know it all, but trust yourself when you do a good job. Trust what your directional results are telling you.
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby Tennhunter3 » Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:41 am

I read in a article pretty sure it was either Qdma or Outdoor life article years ago that said mature bucks live most of their lives in 5 percent of their home range.

Home ranges seem to go from 80 acres all the way to 400.

Some bucks in Texas or the plains may cover upto a 840 acres but this wasn't the norm. The one and two year olds traveled much further. The older a buck got the smaller is core gets.

If the average home range is around 400 acres that means his core where he spends most of his life is 20 acres which is still extremely tiny. Its a needle in a haystack.

I'm sure that I've passed on hunting a few areas that have held a shooter over the years.

I hear others talking about sign and seen the sign in Dan's videos. No matter how much I scout my areas don't seem to have large concentrations of sign.

When I do find alot of sign its usually a nighttime scrape line.
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby mheichelbech » Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:38 pm

My brother had an area where he would, year in and year out, pretty nice 2 year olds or maybe 3 year olds and then never see them again on camera. Crazy…a one year older and they know to stay away.
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby Swedishbowhunter » Thu Jul 08, 2021 2:01 pm

Tennhunter3 wrote:
PAbowhunter10 wrote:I truly believe mature bucks elude cameras after finding them. I say this from experience. On several occasions I have put out cameras in July/August timeframe. Then in late September I would pull the cards and have several pictures of does, fawns, and immature bucks. Then I would find that one picture of a mature buck in velvet, usually not too long after I had originally set the camera, maybe a week or so. Then nothing else…. Again, this had happened on several occasions. Do I believe the buck got up and relocated, not necessarily. But I do believe they are taking alternative routes to purposely avoid that spot where the camera is located.
I believe cameras are a useful tool when used in the right way… but I don’t believe you need them to be successful. If you put in your hours scouting, shining, and glassing I believe your chances are better then using cameras alone. I simply use cameras as a tool to check buck inventory during the summer/fall months. Outside of that they play a very minimal role in my game plan for the season. Nothing beats getting out in the field/woods and putting boots on the ground. I have located more mature bucks shining and glassing in the past two years than with trail cameras.
I believe there was a thread not too long ago about the biggest challenge faced annually with trying to kill a mature buck… and I believe Lockdown stated finding a mature buck to hunt… and I would have to agree 100%.



Sadly shining is illegal here.
And as far as glassing we have very few places that we can in big woods. A few hardwood bottoms, swamp bottoms but we have no fields on our wmas.
I wish it
Definitely wish we had the visibility of some other states at times. We have fields all over here just not near our wmas for some reason. A few of our northwest wmas have fields surrounding them but the majority don't.

Shining is a double edged sword, yes it can help you locate good bucks, but I believe it is a poachers #1 tool to outlaw bucks. I believe we loose too many bucks to outlawing by shining.
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby Uncle Lou » Thu Jul 08, 2021 2:37 pm

shootem and eatem
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby mheichelbech » Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:29 am

In my experience, mature bucks are similar to human. You take a neighborhood that’s bad or going bad (analogous to hunting pressure), some people will move at the first sign of bad activity, some will move only if something happens to them or very near them and some will simply adapt and never move. A lot of bad neighborhoods, parents won’t let their kids be out at night or after a certain time. Parents try to stop their kids from hanging around with other kids deemed to be bad or to avoid certain areas.
It’s similar with bucks, some leave at the first hint of pressure, some it may take more pressure and some leave but adapt by being good at avoiding hunters and hunter points of activity (stands, trail cams, etc). If I feel like I have properly hunted an area by hunting the right spots, low pressure, etc. and I’m not seeing a buck or bucks then I go somewhere else. Doesn’t matter if the buck is there or not, if he isn’t appearing when and where I can hunt him then there is no point in wasting time on it unless I see some sort of intelligence to indicate a change in tactics would work.
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby greenhorndave » Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:32 am

mheichelbech wrote:In my experience, mature bucks are similar to human. You take a neighborhood that’s bad or going bad (analogous to hunting pressure), some people will move at the first sign of bad activity, some will move only if something happens to them or very near them and some will simply adapt and never move. A lot of bad neighborhoods, parents won’t let their kids be out at night or after a certain time. Parents try to stop their kids from hanging around with other kids deemed to be bad or to avoid certain areas.
It’s similar with bucks, some leave at the first hint of pressure, some it may take more pressure and some leave but adapt by being good at avoiding hunters and hunter points of activity (stands, trail cams, etc). If I feel like I have properly hunted an area by hunting the right spots, low pressure, etc. and I’m not seeing a buck or bucks then I go somewhere else. Doesn’t matter if the buck is there or not, if he isn’t appearing when and where I can hunt him then there is no point in wasting time on it unless I see some sort of intelligence to indicate a change in tactics would work.

This is a good way to think about it. That’s something I could probably benefit from.
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Re: Areas without shooters.

Unread postby Deerkins » Fri Jul 09, 2021 7:30 am

Good posts. I’ll say that in most areas, there’s far more dead zones then good zones for big deer. The crappier your hunting area, the more effort you’re going to have to make, in tracking down the good ones.


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