Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Sat Mar 10, 2012 9:14 am

I've done most of my hunting there during the rut. I've noticed that some days you'll see several bucks using a certain funnel. The next day could be nothing, or vice versa. Many people talk about being mobile from year to year in the big woods. I've had success being mobile in the same day. I've noticed that if one buck goes through a certain area, odds are other deer that day will use the same area, even if from different angles, directions, etc. If I see a buck going through the woods a longs ways off, you can bet that I'm taking the stand down right then and there and moving towards that area, because it's hot. Wind direction sometimes doesn't even seem to fit, but it can be used for a starting point. Though with high winds low/thick areas seem to produce better, but you could say that about anywhere.


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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby jeff Sturgis » Thu Mar 15, 2012 2:29 am

1. The amount of sign means a lot more...and ther is a lot less of it. Be prepared to recognize rublines that travel a mile or more and to not get too excited about the first couple hundred yards...
2. Old sign is worth more than new sign. Old signs reflects a history of use, and will be used again by a mature buck.
3. As others have said mobility is the key. If I have 2 days to hunt in MIs firearm season I will have 4-5 mature buck spots in mind, I will look for sign nearby to indicate an older buck is using the stand locations I am familiar with...and I will find that sign within a few days of the opner, plan a quick set up and go in for the hunt.
4. You need to hunt people...as much or more than deer. Learn the parking spots, # of cars, # of boots per car, and the direction they travel. Remember each typical human intrusion carries with it a mini deer drive...plan accordingly.
5. Cover your tracks...avoid ribbons, eyes, markers, breaking ferns near your vehicle and stepping on track holders like stand or mud.
6. As others have said...look for habitat and lay of the land changes. The more in one spot, the more remote they are...the higher the % of mature buck or deer use in general.
7. Use the large non-deer areas to block your scent downwind...large beaver ponds, open marshes, big open hardwoods, etc.
8. Get in early, and wait for the deer to come to you...as Dan said mature bucks move around quite well during daylight hours back in the big woods secure hunter-free areas.
9. Deer aren't used to human scent so plan on entering to your spot...and back out, knowing that if enter too far in, it only takes 1 time for a mature buck to hit your scent and ruin your hunt in that spot for the rest of the season.
10. Deer aren't used to human intrusion, so at the same time they can be less cautious, meaning they aren't searching for tresstands and deer blinds...subtle is key, but just blending in is way more important than being 30' in the air.
11. Hope your buddys can help you drag the sucker out! Thanks Skip and Ben ;)

Those are a few thoughts for now....

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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby G3s » Sat Jun 15, 2013 3:54 pm

The big woods is where I call home. I spend a lot of time in the uncut areas of the UP every fall. I find deer are active more during mid day than first last light, may be a predator issue. I find that funnels, feeding areas, concentrated sign is limited at best in my area(absolutely no oaks) I have said before and havent changed. I stick to hunting rivers, I scout a ton, find the highest amount of sign at a crossing and commit that spot to memory. In the west central U.P the terrain varies very little, it is cedar swamp and short maple ridges for miles and miles. Very little difference for miles on end. IF I can find hot river crossing shere the topography is a little lower(10 foot) than the surrounding banks I can count on that spot to produce lots of sightings. I have also found that if I find a good trail paralleling the river, I sit on the other side of the river, for some reason the deer see the river as an safety border...they can be on one side, if I am on the other side and walk out in plain sight they seems to stay at ease and not run for parts unknown.
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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby Dhurtubise » Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:53 am

G3s wrote:The big woods is where I call home. I spend a lot of time in the uncut areas of the UP every fall. I find deer are active more during mid day than first last light, may be a predator issue. I find that funnels, feeding areas, concentrated sign is limited at best in my area(absolutely no oaks) I have said before and havent changed. I stick to hunting rivers, I scout a ton, find the highest amount of sign at a crossing and commit that spot to memory. In the west central U.P the terrain varies very little, it is cedar swamp and short maple ridges for miles and miles. Very little difference for miles on end. IF I can find hot river crossing shere the topography is a little lower(10 foot) than the surrounding banks I can count on that spot to produce lots of sightings. I have also found that if I find a good trail paralleling the river, I sit on the other side of the river, for some reason the deer see the river as an safety border...they can be on one side, if I am on the other side and walk out in plain sight they seems to stay at ease and not run for parts unknown.


That's really interesting. How deep and wide are these rivers you are talking about. One place I Hunt has a creek that may be 10 yards wide and in most places you can cross with Hip boots. A few spots you could cross with rubber boots by hopping from rock to rock. In narrow areas it is 5 to 7 yards wide. Would you consider this too small for the deer to consider it a barrier?

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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby headgear » Tue Jun 18, 2013 2:23 am

One thing I have been paying closer attention to is wolf or other predator pressure. They can greatly affect deer movement and the pressure is hard to predict so you have to be paying attention and always on the look out when you are in the woods. In most cases one or two animals won't ruin an area, a pack of animals will have a much greater influence, however if they are just passing through an area in a group they are not much of a threat. Plenty of times I have seen wolfs and eer on the same sit so you have to know when to hang tight or make a move, sometimes its a guessing game. Now when a pack is hunting look out because there will be some major changes. These animals can blanket huge areas in just a few hours and you won't see a deer for 3-4 days to sometimes a week. A lot of the regular hunters think the wolves chase the deer right out of the area and that can happen but a lot of times those deer just bed down and don't move. They also change there bedding patterns when the pressure is high and head for the big swamps. They might stay in the same area but hunters just don't see them because most of them are hunting the high ground. Wolves are like us in a sense we have larger feet and don't travel all that fast in wet areas, as we all know the deer have no problem moving and moving fast through the wet/nasty stuff. So if you can figure out when the pressure is up and get to a wolf safe zone bedding area you could score big.
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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby KLEMZ » Wed Aug 28, 2013 1:25 pm

headgear wrote:One thing I have been paying closer attention to is wolf or other predator pressure. They can greatly affect deer movement and the pressure is hard to predict so you have to be paying attention and always on the look out when you are in the woods. In most cases one or two animals won't ruin an area, a pack of animals will have a much greater influence, however if they are just passing through an area in a group they are not much of a threat. Plenty of times I have seen wolfs and eer on the same sit so you have to know when to hang tight or make a move, sometimes its a guessing game. Now when a pack is hunting look out because there will be some major changes. These animals can blanket huge areas in just a few hours and you won't see a deer for 3-4 days to sometimes a week. A lot of the regular hunters think the wolves chase the deer right out of the area and that can happen but a lot of times those deer just bed down and don't move. They also change there bedding patterns when the pressure is high and head for the big swamps. They might stay in the same area but hunters just don't see them because most of them are hunting the high ground. Wolves are like us in a sense we have larger feet and don't travel all that fast in wet areas, as we all know the deer have no problem moving and moving fast through the wet/nasty stuff. So if you can figure out when the pressure is up and get to a wolf safe zone bedding area you could score big.


This is a unique post. I have not read much at all here on the beast about wolves and their affect on hunting deer. I hunt in wolf country, and there have been week long hunts that I literally saw more wolves than deer while on stand (November rut hunts). I did not realize that deer will relocate to swamps to gain an advantage over the wolves when they are in the area. This is awesome information!!
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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby headgear » Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:06 am

Klemz just something I pieced together over the years, still kind of working on it. The old timers we hunted with use to say go back into the swamps to find the big bucks, well I would do that and rarely even see a deer. Every now and then I would run into a pile of deer and a few shooters while the rest of the crew I hunted with didn't see a thing on the high ground. Most of the action I was seeing was a head scratcher and seems kind of random until I thought about the wolves.

Here is a good example of a bedding area when wolf pressure is up. You can see the high ground transition line at the bottom of the page, I also marked a few bedding areas close to the transition line that get used when the deer don't feel the pressure. However when the pressure is up the deer seem to move further back, the circled areas are about 3/4 mile from the high ground. In this particular area the further you move back the deeper the water gets, it is mostly bog with brush and cattails with 1-2 feet of standing water. The tamaracks grow on a bunch of small humps that the deer bed on. Like I said I am still trying to figure this all out and I have yet to connect on a mature buck this way but there seems to be some potential here.

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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby christian1 » Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:26 am

Lots of good info. I agree that you can use other hunters as mini deer drives. I had success with that during bow and gun last year.

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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby Exophysical » Thu Aug 29, 2013 5:53 am

G3s wrote:The big woods is where I call home. I spend a lot of time in the uncut areas of the UP every fall. I find deer are active more during mid day than first last light, may be a predator issue. I find that funnels, feeding areas, concentrated sign is limited at best in my area(absolutely no oaks) I have said before and havent changed. I stick to hunting rivers, I scout a ton, find the highest amount of sign at a crossing and commit that spot to memory. In the west central U.P the terrain varies very little, it is cedar swamp and short maple ridges for miles and miles. Very little difference for miles on end. IF I can find hot river crossing shere the topography is a little lower(10 foot) than the surrounding banks I can count on that spot to produce lots of sightings. I have also found that if I find a good trail paralleling the river, I sit on the other side of the river, for some reason the deer see the river as an safety border...they can be on one side, if I am on the other side and walk out in plain sight they seems to stay at ease and not run for parts unknown.


I agree with the river being a safety border for deer, but I also think this has to do with the way the wind works in a river valley. It will generaly go down the ravine and peel off to each side in little eddys, this can mean that no matter how far down wind an animal tries to come in on you he cant smell you if he's on the other side of the river. I use this quite often when calling moose or elk.

I hunt big timber almost exclusively, while I don't pretend to be an expert here is what little I know about patterning them. One of my best setups is I try to locate a cut block or pipeline where the deer are feeding, I then try to find a smaller cutline or trail that the deer will need to cross to on the way to the cutline and I hunt that trail. While big timber deer move within the timber during the day they can get pretty skittish about showing themselves in the open before dark if they are even a little bit pressured. I can more often catch them crossing some smaller opening while en route.
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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby Exophysical » Thu Aug 29, 2013 6:00 am

headgear wrote:One thing I have been paying closer attention to is wolf or other predator pressure. They can greatly affect deer movement and the pressure is hard to predict so you have to be paying attention and always on the look out when you are in the woods. In most cases one or two animals won't ruin an area, a pack of animals will have a much greater influence, however if they are just passing through an area in a group they are not much of a threat. Plenty of times I have seen wolfs and eer on the same sit so you have to know when to hang tight or make a move, sometimes its a guessing game. Now when a pack is hunting look out because there will be some major changes. These animals can blanket huge areas in just a few hours and you won't see a deer for 3-4 days to sometimes a week. A lot of the regular hunters think the wolves chase the deer right out of the area and that can happen but a lot of times those deer just bed down and don't move. They also change there bedding patterns when the pressure is high and head for the big swamps. They might stay in the same area but hunters just don't see them because most of them are hunting the high ground. Wolves are like us in a sense we have larger feet and don't travel all that fast in wet areas, as we all know the deer have no problem moving and moving fast through the wet/nasty stuff. So if you can figure out when the pressure is up and get to a wolf safe zone bedding area you could score big.


Another thing I have seen them do when pressured hard by wolves is to move closer to human activity. I think deer have an easyer time adapting to humans than wolves do, as well I think they fear us less. Theres an area I hunt that has a couple oil wells and some lease roads on it, when the wolf sign gets plentiful the deer seem to move closer to the lease roads.
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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby headgear » Thu Aug 29, 2013 6:32 am

Exophysical wrote:Another thing I have seen them do when pressured hard by wolves is to move closer to human activity. I think deer have an easyer time adapting to humans than wolves do, as well I think they fear us less. Theres an area I hunt that has a couple oil wells and some lease roads on it, when the wolf sign gets plentiful the deer seem to move closer to the lease roads.


Very good point, I see the same thing here! As the wolf population boomed in Northern MN over the past decade they did what they do best and ate a lot of deer. The DNR gave out a few too many doe permits so our huntable population of deer crashed down pretty hard. However guys hunting closer to cities and human populations had a lot of deer in their area, the wolves pushed them in. There are plenty of wolf sighting in and around the smaller towns and townships but you don't have the big pressure of a pack sweeping the area.
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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby BassBoysLLP » Thu Aug 29, 2013 6:33 am

Count the tracks if the conditions or terrain allow. If the tracks in and out don't equate, hang a stand. Action is often right around the corner. During the rut, a doe can be delayed by a rutting buck. There is a good chance she will bring him right past you.

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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby Exophysical » Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:31 am

headgear wrote:
Exophysical wrote:Another thing I have seen them do when pressured hard by wolves is to move closer to human activity. I think deer have an easyer time adapting to humans than wolves do, as well I think they fear us less. Theres an area I hunt that has a couple oil wells and some lease roads on it, when the wolf sign gets plentiful the deer seem to move closer to the lease roads.


Very good point, I see the same thing here! As the wolf population boomed in Northern MN over the past decade they did what they do best and ate a lot of deer. The DNR gave out a few too many doe permits so our huntable population of deer crashed down pretty hard. However guys hunting closer to cities and human populations had a lot of deer in their area, the wolves pushed them in. There are plenty of wolf sighting in and around the smaller towns and townships but you don't have the big pressure of a pack sweeping the area.


Quite a few animals will do this, for a long time there have not been very many moose near some of the native reserves around here. With the wolf populations booming I have seen more moose around the reserves in the last couple years than I have in a very long time. I greatly doubt that the moose population is rebounding, the moose are simply being pushed from one predator to another.
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Re: Northwoods/BigWoods observations... please contribute

Unread postby Dewey » Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:41 am

headgear wrote:
Exophysical wrote:Another thing I have seen them do when pressured hard by wolves is to move closer to human activity. I think deer have an easyer time adapting to humans than wolves do, as well I think they fear us less. Theres an area I hunt that has a couple oil wells and some lease roads on it, when the wolf sign gets plentiful the deer seem to move closer to the lease roads.


Very good point, I see the same thing here! As the wolf population boomed in Northern MN over the past decade they did what they do best and ate a lot of deer. The DNR gave out a few too many doe permits so our huntable population of deer crashed down pretty hard. However guys hunting closer to cities and human populations had a lot of deer in their area, the wolves pushed them in. There are plenty of wolf sighting in and around the smaller towns and townships but you don't have the big pressure of a pack sweeping the area.

We see this in some areas of northern WI. One area I know this is happening for sure is in Boulder Junction. The deer herd in town is ridiculous and I was told by a local that the reason for this is the large wolf population surrounding the town pushing the deer in. He said every once in awhile the wolves are grabbing one from the edges of town and seem to be getting more aggresive as time goes on worrying the locals.

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