Do You Have What It Takes To Hunt Big Woods?

[matt1336]

I did some still hunting near Phillips this year on opening day of rifle season. It was great. I'm going to do the same this season- only in a different chunk of property....a bigger section- price county and cheqomagon nf

[cedarsavage]

I have been hunting Price and Sawyer co. Wis. for 28 yrs? I hunt the Flambeau River State Forest that is attached to Price co. forest. That is about 105,000 ac.? To the west of the state forest is Sawyer co. FCL. If I head west form my cabin you will walk 18 miles before getting on to private chunks of land. There are only a few private "40s' on the way. I guess that is big woods but there is a county highway to cross and a few dirt roads too. I have found in about 30 yrs of gun and 25 with a bow is that there is very little pattern to a buck and none for a big buck, except one, and that is a hot doe. If there is a hot doe , you will have a big buck around and likely see him in the daytime.. One example of many is We got quite a bruiser on the cam in August 1, 2015. We never got him on the cam again. We have several cams on about 1 sq. mi of land we hunt regularly and other " spots" too. There is no feeding pattern , travel routes , or bedding areas of a big buck. None. Many sarcastic people on other hotshot message boards say I need to learn to get off the computer and learn to scout. Then I see their big buck pics of their bucks with picked corn in the backdrop. Another example: Opening day bear 2005. I see a nice buck , sure enough, about 18" spread, 11 points with a drop tine on the left side. Could have shot it ten times. Even raised my gun and pretended. Never saw me but was 3 days before bow season. Never saw that deer before or after alive or on the cam and noone else in our group did neither. If he is there you should get him on the cam once a month or so. I have river frontage and believe they follow the river for as much as 25 miles up and down river. I have gotten only a few big bucks on a trail cam more than a once. This tells me they are so nomadic they can't be patterned. I have never found a buck bed that was used on a regular basis, never, except once in 1989. I was walking real slow while grouse hunting. I hear a "tsh" sound. I stop for a minute wondering what it was. Just then a huge buck comes blasting out from under a downed tree with high grass growing over it, making it like a tent in there. He crawled right in there and I could not see him at 15' away. He did not come back the rest of the year . Next year I checked the spot on Labor day and saw a deer had been using the same bed. Most likely him and I checked back several years after that and decided it had been totally abandoned as a bed. This was only about 3/4 mi. off the end of the road. The only pattern on a small buck is a very constant pattern . I can use this pattern and get a smaller buck every single year with a bow and gun. That is a corn pile. I refuse to use a buck as a target so I never hunt over corn anymore. In all our years of hunting over corn, we have seen exactly 3 big bucks come into corn and only when there was a hot doe there. Once, Nov. 4, 1995. a 14 point with a droptine on the left side. Never saw him before or after. The second a 10 point shot in gun season 3 1/2 yr old buck and my BIL saw one before he bow hunted. Another HUGE problem is that the last 4-5 yrs or so , there have been so many big bucks die from hard winters due to them rutting themselves almost to death just to try to find a doe to breed. By winter time they are in bad shape and the wolves will have little problem pulling them down in a tough winter. AND, since the wolves have come in , , it has only gotten worse . Not just cause of wolf kills, but because the deer adapted to the wolves. You will very rarely see more than 2 deer at a time, and very rarely use all the old deer trails for travel routes . As soon as the deer develop a pattern , , , the wolves start to pattern them. This makes them much harder to hunt since the wolves came . I follow deer tracks in the fresh snow sometimes for a mile or so. The do not use trails their ancestors used for many years except for maybe 100' or so. They wonder like they are lost, they browse with no pattern, bed down where there are no other beds in the snow , and when they get back up to browse they dont go back the way they came. This is my experience . However, the only time I see the slightest pattern is a 1 to 5 yr old clear cut, and then it is only does for some reason. This is where I hunt in hopes the few does there are goes into heat. The does seem to browse the outskirts of the clear cut but still very random according to my trail cams out 52 weeks a year. They will be there a few days in a row, but then gone a whole week. Chased by wolves ? Dont know but I dont get wolves on the cam at all. It is very hard to hunt them. To make matters even worser, I can hardly have them in bow range without them seeing me. They just see me darn near every time. It is extremely hard to draw my arrow back on a deer there and it too has gotten worse since the wolves came.I have no problem in southern Wis. drawing back on a deer. They rarely see me down here. It has to be they they are so cautious that anything , just anything put them on high alert. Even the nubby buck I saw this gun season , he was alone and took off before he even crossed my path and was up wind of me and my trail . I hope this is not too long winded and may be a strange post. I could go on and say "I get bucks in the big woods", and " just scout and you'l score" . In 28 years I got 2 bucks without corn . One , a mice 7 point in 1989 and a nice 8 point in 2009. Since then , I have seen one buck, for gun and bow. a spike . However, I dont hunt it that much anymore. On the bright side i have never seen a bow hunter in 25 years and a gun hunter since 2009. later, ihookem.

That's pretty similar to my experiences. I haven't found any bare dirt beds like I did in lower Michigan, i find hair in beds, but not in the quantities I did in farmland. Most of the pictures I get of big bucks, are once, or once a month. I got two pictures of a good buck a month apart, the second picture, if I remember correctly was the only deer I got on camera for 10ish days. I've noticed how high strung they are too, it's like they have a 6th sense. It might be due to the fact that they're hunted 365 days between wolves, cougars, bears and humans.

[Edcyclopedia]

one of the biggest differences I have found hunting the big woods verses other type of cover is you have to be mobile and scout in season a lot more. These deer shift around a lot and pre season scouting probably wont put you on deer. This was hard for me to get thru my head because scouting in season was a good way to ruin a hunt in other situations. True big woods bucks will put up with a bit of human intrusion. I have also noticed that they will move a bit more during the day. They are creatures of habit as well and will run the same trails year after year which can cut square miles of land down to a few trails. Learn their trails and figure out where they are at the time and you have a fighting chance at tagging one. I average seeing about one deer per day and I have years of experience so don't expect to see lots of deer.

Magic as usual you have a great way of explaining how the bigwoods work, so many times i ready you posts and do nothing but completely agree with them. Like you mentioned pre season scouting is spotty at best, if you rely on that lone you are in trouble. It can get you in the game but more often than not you will pack up for the night scratching your head or just missing your target after finding fresh sign in the area. So many times I scout and setup only to suspect the buck was there and then he moved on. Like you mentioned, most of my success has come from learning when they use certain areas, nailing their habits from previous years has been key, finding that fresh sign and not relying on old intel, and of course a little luck never hurts. A very challenging hunting situation to say the least, you have to make the most of your opportunities because you might only get one chance a season. Not that I havn't had great years with multiple encounters but they are var more rare.

Sounds like a man-crush to me

[Nocturnal]

I know deer are extremely hard to pattern in this setting. But I know big bucks stick to a general area. Yes they can bed just about anywhere. But I have also seen them bed in the same swamp and rarely leaving that security. Once the rut kicks in it is easier to see more deer. but the ones you had on camera in sept and Oct seem to disappear for the most part. By me there are pockets of deer. A lot of the areas are mostly void of deer. But there is some consistency in areas that hold deer year round. I wouldn't say they are impossible to pattern but they sure don't stick to the same pattern for long..

[Jonny]

I know deer are extremely hard to pattern in this setting. But I know big bucks stick to a general area. Yes they can bed just about anywhere. But I have also seen them bed in the same swamp and rarely leaving that security. Once the rut kicks in it is easier to see more deer. but the ones you had on camera in sept and Oct seem to disappear for the most part. By me there are pockets of deer. A lot of the areas are mostly void of deer. But there is some consistency in areas that hold deer year round. I wouldn't say they are impossible to pattern but they sure don't stick to the same pattern for long..

Up by me you can look at an aerial and cross off half the area where you will find zero deer sign. Only bad part is you still have 100,000 acres to look at.

I went to dans workshop and it was crazy how predictable the beds are and they are pretty much used every year. Big woods, you get one logging operation to hit the right area and everything changes. Bad acorn year, everything changes. Obviously getting a mature buck in farm land or marshes is not easy, but at least you know there is a good chance you can find a good bed that will be used when you offseason scout.

Like magic said, in season scouting is probably the only way to find the deer. I'm trying to use offseason to learn the land.

[Nocturnal]

I know deer are extremely hard to pattern in this setting. But I know big bucks stick to a general area. Yes they can bed just about anywhere. But I have also seen them bed in the same swamp and rarely leaving that security. Once the rut kicks in it is easier to see more deer. but the ones you had on camera in sept and Oct seem to disappear for the most part. By me there are pockets of deer. A lot of the areas are mostly void of deer. But there is some consistency in areas that hold deer year round. I wouldn't say they are impossible to pattern but they sure don't stick to the same pattern for long..

Up by me you can look at an aerial and cross off half the area where you will find zero deer sign. Only bad part is you still have 100,000 acres to look at.

I went to dans workshop and it was crazy how predictable the beds are and they are pretty much used every year. Big woods, you get one logging operation to hit the right area and everything changes. Bad acorn year, everything changes. Obviously getting a mature buck in farm land or marshes is not easy, but at least you know there is a good chance you can find a good bed that will be used when you offseason scout.

Like magic said, in season scouting is probably the only way to find the deer. I'm trying to use offseason to learn the land.

No... I agree... and I know in season scouting is most valuable tool while hunting it. What I'm saying is there are areas that are just as predictable as anywhere else no matter a great or terrible acorn drop. I know the far north population is decimated. However I think some people may get discouraged after reading the responses of some that have commented. Without a doubt hunting deer in the north has more of a challenge. But it is not impossible to stay on deer or bucks no matter the time of season.

[Jonny]

I know deer are extremely hard to pattern in this setting. But I know big bucks stick to a general area. Yes they can bed just about anywhere. But I have also seen them bed in the same swamp and rarely leaving that security. Once the rut kicks in it is easier to see more deer. but the ones you had on camera in sept and Oct seem to disappear for the most part. By me there are pockets of deer. A lot of the areas are mostly void of deer. But there is some consistency in areas that hold deer year round. I wouldn't say they are impossible to pattern but they sure don't stick to the same pattern for long..

Up by me you can look at an aerial and cross off half the area where you will find zero deer sign. Only bad part is you still have 100,000 acres to look at.

I went to dans workshop and it was crazy how predictable the beds are and they are pretty much used every year. Big woods, you get one logging operation to hit the right area and everything changes. Bad acorn year, everything changes. Obviously getting a mature buck in farm land or marshes is not easy, but at least you know there is a good chance you can find a good bed that will be used when you offseason scout.

Like magic said, in season scouting is probably the only way to find the deer. I'm trying to use offseason to learn the land.

No... I agree... and I know in season scouting is most valuable tool while hunting it. What I'm saying is there are areas that are just as predictable as anywhere else no matter a great or terrible acorn drop. I know the far north population is decimated. However I think some people may get discouraged after reading the responses of some that have commented. Without a doubt hunting deer in the north has more of a challenge. But it is not impossible to stay on deer or bucks no matter the time of season.

Yep. If it was impossible we wouldn't be there. I do agree there are areas that will typically hold deer every year. It's just hard to find them. Then hunting them is another challenge.

But yet every year we all go up there and give it our all. It's an addiction

[Bonecrusher101]

My big woods is only a few miles in each direction of mature hardwoods bottom land. That's still several thousand acres of exactly the same looking never-ending swamp oaks and cypress trees. The main food source is acorns and green briar and woody browse. There are no or very few cutovers and fields within a mile of the area I hunt. There are no deer trails, but when I have seen deer they are on their feet and they are moving fast. They aren't flat out sprinting but they are usually walking or trotting very quickly when I have seen them from the stand. They don't mess around you need to get on them and shoot fairly quick before they are gone.

The deer seem to travel from small thicket usually from a blow down large tree that has opened a small window in the tree canopy. This sunlight allows green briar and cane to grow providing the only cover in a mature hardwood forest. I have scouted in post and pre seasons before without being able to nail down a certain pattern or bed. From what I have seen it is low percentages to bow hunt in October. I have had little luck seeing deer move well during the day until pre rut or rut. There are no solid patterns or trails and there are far more acorns than the critters can eat. First few weeks of November are usually good.

I have another friend that hunts this area too. I was with him on dec 26 2012 when I set up in this area and saw a nice 10 point. I marked the spot on my gps. I had also been marking all the waypoints I where I had seen or jumped bucks. He killed a decent 8 point a few years ago by hunting in the center of a large area he had previously marked waypoints in. After 4 years and missing a nice buck with my muzzleloader in this section last season I hadn't been able to capitalize. I had seen some nice bucks every season, but This wma had never been easy to me and I spent lots of time and boot leather trying to learn it.

This season it finally paid off and was easy. I killed a nice 11 point after only a few hours of the first trip I made in there this last season. Four years later after countless hours of frustration this wma was finally good to me. I figured I would try what my friend had done with hunting near his old waypoints. I had looked on my gps map and read and saw a lot of my old waypoints stacked in one area only 1/3 a mile away from where he killed his 8 point.

Mid November 2016 I walked strait to the 10 point waypoint I had marked in 2012 and set up within 30 yards of it. I used a drag rag and had a few tarsal glands and estrous pods nearby. I watched 5 does come by at 60 yards and disappear one direction, then return and go back the way they came an hour later. 30 minutes after that a solo deer came in following the same trail I took to my set up. It was the 11 point. Was he sniffing out the does? Was he following the drag rag estrous trail I laid down? I didn't give him a chance.

Was it luck? Absolutely, to some degree. When it seemed to have no pattern, year after year the deer were within the same 200 yard radius around the same time of the season. Only time will tell if the spot holds true. I think bow hunting that area during October will be counter productive. It's a very long haul 1 mile to nearest access. A mile and a half by the time you wind and work back to it. I would probably try to shoot a doe in an easier spot and wouldn't want to drag one that far if I didn't have to. There was not an abundance of deer sign in the area.

Big woods hunting!!!

[Singing Bridge]

The variety of big woods types and locations mentioned in these threads is so appealing... yet each is fraught with difficulty. The challenge of big woods reigns supreme in so many of our hunting ambitions.

[magicman54494]

The thing that draws me to the big woods is the feeling like I am hunting like people did 100 years ago. I limit my gear and just go one on one with a old buck. No fence lines or trespass signs, just miles of woods. Some days I measure success by the fact I made it out safe. I've been to places where I wonder if another human ever stood in that exact spot. Sometimes I find remnants of old logging camps that have to be over 100 years old. It is a bit humbling and puts life in perspective for me. It's a cool feeling after spending enough time in the woods when you start to feel like you are part of it instead of just intruding.

[Dhurtubise]

I pretty much only hunt big woods. There are two patterns that seem to reoccur frequently.

The first is that during the rut certain bucks seem to show up exactly the same time as the previous years. If you encountered a certain buck on November 3rd for example, a lot of times you can expect him in the area again sometime between the 1st an 5th the following year. It doesn't always work because they die, and some probably don't follow the pattern, but it's amazing how often I start getting pictures of the same deer at about the same time the following year. Sometimes it's a familiar track that tells me he's back.

The second is that they run circuits (at least around here - but both the Benoits and Blood also count on this). You find this out when you start tracking them. Often I'll be following the day's track and I'm running into his other tracks all day at various times over several miles. I assume this circuit changes over the season, but when I've got snow I can usually get back on a buck even if I left his tracks 3 or 4 days prior. There are areas he's going to travel through and you can generally pick up the track at one of those spots.

[stash59]

Man all this makes me feel pretty good. Though I missed every bow buck I had a shot on (buck fever and poor traditional shooting ability). I saw quite a few. A couple true slobs were missed. Killed a 3 YO and a 2 YO with the gun. In about a 4 year time span. If I hadn't caught elk fever and moved out west. Who knows what I may have come up with. Course this was all back in the 80's. Maybe the wolf population has changed things now. Although I saw plenty of wolf sign and heard them quite a bit back then anyways.

I believe the deer are found in pockets of more diverse habitats. They're not always deep in a swamp if there isn't food reasonably close by. Or in areas of big timber. I even found very few, if any small pockets of oaks, which were often void of acorns. And was also not right on or near any clearcuts.

A mixture of multiple species of trees and brush. Along with small openings on dry ground, which means forbes are available. Indicates food is there. Thick areas and deep water around these gives security for bedding. Edges between vegetation types often means sunnier spots with young trees and plants. Meaning that the browse that bigwoods deer crave can grow. I've found edges like this that went on for a couple miles. A stream or river is a big plus. While the average deer density for the deer management unit may be lower than 10 per sq. mi. The larger diverse pockets may actually carry 15/sq. mi. Being at least a mile from roads keeps the pressure down. Especially with a good water barrier.

Now this doesn't mean they don't lay tracks elsewhere. They just use these areas more. Especially without human pressure.

I feel this is why during the prerut I saw so many bucks. They'd cruise from pocket to pocket. If I was In a buck travel corridor (indicated by rub and or scrape lines) in one of these pockets I could have a chance to see a buck at any time of the day and did. Saw most between 9 AM and 2 PM. These pockets hold the small doe family groups because of all of the above. Calling and rattling worked often.

I've now figured out how to recognize these areas on aerials. If your county has GIS info on vegetation types it also helps. I do admit that some DMU's have very few or small pockets as I described. In these areas think beavers. They flood and cut trees. Causing some mini pockets to often take shape.

I can't wait to regain my health so I can hit my old stomping grounds again. Plus expand into new areas. Especially with all of my newly learned Beast knowledge. I may not find worn down beds. But I'll find bedding areas. Which will hopefully increase a chance for sightings. Especially during the prerut and rut phases.

Or,,,,,,, maybe I just got lucky!!!!

[tgreeno]

I did gun hunt up in Vilas county for 3 or 4 years with limited success. Though I liked the solitude & quiet of the "Big Woods", it was just too much driving to ever get any amount of real solid scouting accomplished. It kinda felt like I was hunting out of state, on not great ground. I'm so used to having short drives to scout multiple times a week. And hunting 3-4 days a week.

[headgear]

Sounds like a man-crush to me

Jealous Ed?

[jwilkstn]

My big woods are more difficult due to topography than the distance between roads. All the roads are on the ridgetops, but are separated by steep hollows 800 feet or more deep. Dragging a kill out from halfway down in a hollow is out of the question. I keep a frame pack in the truck with game bags instead.