Approach/Access - Hill Country

[whi52873]

I know there are several threads related to your approach/access but I can't find one specifically related to Hill Country. The hill country I hunt is nothing but big woods timber with no ag for miles and miles. The terrain is really rocky and is a small mountain range (no flat bottoms or fields). All the food is up top for the most part - the forestry department performs TSI and thins on top of the ridges which makes for high stem count browse and nasty cover.

A few things I am having a hard time wrapping my head around and need some Hill Country hunters advice on:

I always (99% of the time) will access from the bottom. I consider the "bottom" to be a wide ditch, drainage, ravine, draw, or anything that separates two ridges/points from one another which brings up my first question.

1. Specifically for an afternoon hunt, how do you approach a ridge/point with the wind in your favor without the deer pegging you as you access? If I try to access the ridge/point with the wind in my face the deer are bedded facing me looking down towards the bottom. This seems to be especially hard once the leaves fall and you can see for several hundreds of yards.

I know many of you will say "set up a couple hundred yards away on an exit route from the bed". I always assumed the deer would exit their beds and head towards the bottom to have a thermal advantage. After hunting the bottoms several times over the years without seeing anything, I finally figured out what they were doing after I watched two bucks stand up on a ridge I was facing this year. They both were bedded on the top 1/3 of the ridge with the wind at their back as expected. When they stood up, they both walked down towards the bottom until they were both about halfway down the ridge and then staged up and started browsing. As it got darker, they turned and started slowly working back up the ridge where they came from. I assume this is because a majority of the food was located on top of the ridge and they dropped a little in elevation to have a thermal advantage as they browsed back up the hill. See picture below for example - Blue waypoint is my treestand location, Red waypoint is where the bucks stood up out of their bed, Blue line is where they traveled after getting up, and red line is my access.

Hill Country Example.JPG

2. How would you go about accessing and hunting these types of scenarios? The top is super thick briar's, blackberry, and maple/oak saplings. If I tried to access using a just off wind from the top, I would sound like an elephant walking through the briar thickets. If I access from the bottom like I did in the picture, I will never get a shot because there is no food in the bottoms to draw the deer except some some red oaks. Once the white oaks are gone up top it almost seems like the deer prefer the woody browse over the red oaks located in the bottoms.

If anybody has any advice on accessing terrain like this or hill country in general, it would be greatly appreciated. How do you access hill country in the mornings/afternoons?

[Jdw]

If you know where the bed is I would try to side hill while using a point or roll in the terrain to get to approx the same elevation he is on and as close as possible to where he can see without getting busted.
Some places I have hunted you can set up on the back side of the point and climb just high enough to look over.

[rfickes87]

I very rarely hunt a bed in hill country. Typically for me its a bedding area. I killed mine this year by coming in from the side with a wind that worked in my favor. I creeped in and set up about 120-150 yards away.

If you know exactly where that bed is (and that he is using it) you should also know exactly how far down hill he can see. Since you would have taken note of that when you scouted it on foot. That is a process Dan teaches in his videos. For next year, learn how far he can see in each good bed you find and pick trees to climb for different winds. Then you could decide and choose from whatever direction works best for you. Do not base your entry off any one particular rule. Each scenario is different.

I get what your asking but no one can really tell you for sure or they'd be lying. Obvious if its too thick you can access from behind him. It has to be from the sides or downhill. But you really need to be taking note of what he can see from that bed when you are there.

[brancher147]

I hunt some similar places. Some I need wind, rain or leaves on the trees to get into without spooking deer. Some I can use the terrain to hide. And some I move on to other spots because swirling winds or unable to access without spooking deer. There is no easy way to do it and that’s why I have usually a few or more of these type spots that I can burn through because after a few sits the deer are usually on to you.

[whi52873]

I very rarely hunt a bed in hill country. Typically for me its a bedding area. I killed mine this year by coming in from the side with a wind that worked in my favor. I creeped in and set up about 120-150 yards away.

If you know exactly where that bed is (and that he is using it) you should also know exactly how far down hill he can see. Since you would have taken note of that when you scouted it on foot. That is a process Dan teaches in his videos. For next year, learn how far he can see in each good bed you find and pick trees to climb for different winds. Then you could decide and choose from whatever direction works best for you. Do not base your entry off any one particular rule. Each scenario is different.

I get what your asking but no one can really tell you for sure or they'd be lying. Obvious if its too thick you can access from behind him. It has to be from the sides or downhill. But you really need to be taking note of what he can see from that bed when you are there.

Yeah I agree, I don't hunt beds in hill country either. One specific buck can have 10 different beds he rotates on. It just so happened that from my tree stand I saw these bucks gets up. I am similar to you in that I hunt the high stem count areas where I know deer are bedding.

It just stumped me that these bucks didn't work down the ridges/points in the evenings like you would expect when the thermal drop kicks in. They worked down but only about 20 ft in elevation and staged back uphill.

It made me rethink my entire setups for evening hunts going forward. Now that I know these bucks were using those specific beds, I will get in those beds this off-season and see what they can see. Thanks for your input!

[HillCountryHunter-15]

I know there are several threads related to your approach/access but I can't find one specifically related to Hill Country. The hill country I hunt is nothing but big woods timber with no ag for miles and miles. The terrain is really rocky and is a small mountain range (no flat bottoms or fields). All the food is up top for the most part - the forestry department performs TSI and thins on top of the ridges which makes for high stem count browse and nasty cover.

A few things I am having a hard time wrapping my head around and need some Hill Country hunters advice on:

I always (99% of the time) will access from the bottom. I consider the "bottom" to be a wide ditch, drainage, ravine, draw, or anything that separates two ridges/points from one another which brings up my first question.

1. Specifically for an afternoon hunt, how do you approach a ridge/point with the wind in your favor without the deer pegging you as you access? If I try to access the ridge/point with the wind in my face the deer are bedded facing me looking down towards the bottom. This seems to be especially hard once the leaves fall and you can see for several hundreds of yards.

I know many of you will say "set up a couple hundred yards away on an exit route from the bed". I always assumed the deer would exit their beds and head towards the bottom to have a thermal advantage. After hunting the bottoms several times over the years without seeing anything, I finally figured out what they were doing after I watched two bucks stand up on a ridge I was facing this year. They both were bedded on the top 1/3 of the ridge with the wind at their back as expected. When they stood up, they both walked down towards the bottom until they were both about halfway down the ridge and then staged up and started browsing. As it got darker, they turned and started slowly working back up the ridge where they came from. I assume this is because a majority of the food was located on top of the ridge and they dropped a little in elevation to have a thermal advantage as they browsed back up the hill. See picture below for example - Blue waypoint is my treestand location, Red waypoint is where the bucks stood up out of their bed, Blue line is where they traveled after getting up, and red line is my access.

Hill Country Example.JPG

2. How would you go about accessing and hunting these types of scenarios? The top is super thick briar's, blackberry, and maple/oak saplings. If I tried to access using a just off wind from the top, I would sound like an elephant walking through the briar thickets. If I access from the bottom like I did in the picture, I will never get a shot because there is no food in the bottoms to draw the deer except some some red oaks. Once the white oaks are gone up top it almost seems like the deer prefer the woody browse over the red oaks located in the bottoms.

If anybody has any advice on accessing terrain like this or hill country in general, it would be greatly appreciated. How do you access hill country in the mornings/afternoons?

I have the same situation as you discuss and struggle with it as well. About 95% of the public land around here is national forest land and nothing but hill country. When I have scouted these secondary points I have found a majority of the sign to be up on top and I am guessing like you said is because of the vast majority of food sources they have on the top rather than on the bottom.

Below is an example of a few secondary points I in season scouted this past fall. I found 4x as much sign (Rubs, scrapes, droppings, etc.) on the middle point rather than the other two (put a circle where I found that sign on the picture). I never did hunt it this past fall due to not finding the time to get over to this spot and also struggling to find a way to access it. I found a few beds on the military crest of the middle point but none of them were heavily used, just light indentations you could tell that something had been laying there. So I guess my question would be like yours, if I had a south/southwest wind and suspected deer to be bedded on this middle point, what would my access look like to be able to hunt the top of this point?

[RiverBottoms]

Do you have Dan's hill country bedding DVD? To me, hill country is the trickiest terrain to figure out, but there is some good info in there.

[whi52873]

Do you have Dan's hill country bedding DVD? To me, hill country is the trickiest terrain to figure out, but there is some good info in there.

Yes I have it. He doesn't touch on how to access areas in depth. In the DVD, Dan pretty much hunts a specific buck bed exit route and its usually always below the buck because you typically would expect the buck to drop late in the evening due to thermals.

This isn't the case in my area. I think the Hill Country Dan gave examples of had fields/ag or some type of food source in the bottoms that would draw the deer down. The "bottoms" in the area I hunt are 30-40 foot wide ditches/draws separating the ridges/points.

Everything else in the DVD is applicable to my area and 100% accurate.

[whi52873]

I know there are several threads related to your approach/access but I can't find one specifically related to Hill Country. The hill country I hunt is nothing but big woods timber with no ag for miles and miles. The terrain is really rocky and is a small mountain range (no flat bottoms or fields). All the food is up top for the most part - the forestry department performs TSI and thins on top of the ridges which makes for high stem count browse and nasty cover.

A few things I am having a hard time wrapping my head around and need some Hill Country hunters advice on:

I always (99% of the time) will access from the bottom. I consider the "bottom" to be a wide ditch, drainage, ravine, draw, or anything that separates two ridges/points from one another which brings up my first question.

1. Specifically for an afternoon hunt, how do you approach a ridge/point with the wind in your favor without the deer pegging you as you access? If I try to access the ridge/point with the wind in my face the deer are bedded facing me looking down towards the bottom. This seems to be especially hard once the leaves fall and you can see for several hundreds of yards.

I know many of you will say "set up a couple hundred yards away on an exit route from the bed". I always assumed the deer would exit their beds and head towards the bottom to have a thermal advantage. After hunting the bottoms several times over the years without seeing anything, I finally figured out what they were doing after I watched two bucks stand up on a ridge I was facing this year. They both were bedded on the top 1/3 of the ridge with the wind at their back as expected. When they stood up, they both walked down towards the bottom until they were both about halfway down the ridge and then staged up and started browsing. As it got darker, they turned and started slowly working back up the ridge where they came from. I assume this is because a majority of the food was located on top of the ridge and they dropped a little in elevation to have a thermal advantage as they browsed back up the hill. See picture below for example - Blue waypoint is my treestand location, Red waypoint is where the bucks stood up out of their bed, Blue line is where they traveled after getting up, and red line is my access.

Hill Country Example.JPG

2. How would you go about accessing and hunting these types of scenarios? The top is super thick briar's, blackberry, and maple/oak saplings. If I tried to access using a just off wind from the top, I would sound like an elephant walking through the briar thickets. If I access from the bottom like I did in the picture, I will never get a shot because there is no food in the bottoms to draw the deer except some some red oaks. Once the white oaks are gone up top it almost seems like the deer prefer the woody browse over the red oaks located in the bottoms.

If anybody has any advice on accessing terrain like this or hill country in general, it would be greatly appreciated. How do you access hill country in the mornings/afternoons?

I have the same situation as you discuss and struggle with it as well. About 95% of the public land around here is national forest land and nothing but hill country. When I have scouted these secondary points I have found a majority of the sign to be up on top and I am guessing like you said is because of the vast majority of food sources they have on the top rather than on the bottom.

Below is an example of a few secondary points I in season scouted this past fall. I found 4x as much sign (Rubs, scrapes, droppings, etc.) on the middle point rather than the other two (put a circle where I found that sign on the picture). I never did hunt it this past fall due to not finding the time to get over to this spot and also struggling to find a way to access it. I found a few beds on the military crest of the middle point but none of them were heavily used, just light indentations you could tell that something had been laying there. So I guess my question would be like yours, if I had a south/southwest wind and suspected deer to be bedded on this middle point, what would my access look like to be able to hunt the top of this point?

Same here. 99% of the sign is on the upper 1/3 of the ridges and a majority of the sign is on secondary points rather than the main ridge system/point. I will find an occasional rub on a creek crossing but I have never found a scrape in the bottoms and have never jumped a deer in the bottoms. IMO, the deer simply don't spend any time down there.....just occasionally crossing over to the next ridge system.

Hill Country has many advantages but many disadvantages as well. And I consider access as being a disadvantage.

[HillCountryHunter-15]

I know there are several threads related to your approach/access but I can't find one specifically related to Hill Country. The hill country I hunt is nothing but big woods timber with no ag for miles and miles. The terrain is really rocky and is a small mountain range (no flat bottoms or fields). All the food is up top for the most part - the forestry department performs TSI and thins on top of the ridges which makes for high stem count browse and nasty cover.

A few things I am having a hard time wrapping my head around and need some Hill Country hunters advice on:

I always (99% of the time) will access from the bottom. I consider the "bottom" to be a wide ditch, drainage, ravine, draw, or anything that separates two ridges/points from one another which brings up my first question.

1. Specifically for an afternoon hunt, how do you approach a ridge/point with the wind in your favor without the deer pegging you as you access? If I try to access the ridge/point with the wind in my face the deer are bedded facing me looking down towards the bottom. This seems to be especially hard once the leaves fall and you can see for several hundreds of yards.

I know many of you will say "set up a couple hundred yards away on an exit route from the bed". I always assumed the deer would exit their beds and head towards the bottom to have a thermal advantage. After hunting the bottoms several times over the years without seeing anything, I finally figured out what they were doing after I watched two bucks stand up on a ridge I was facing this year. They both were bedded on the top 1/3 of the ridge with the wind at their back as expected. When they stood up, they both walked down towards the bottom until they were both about halfway down the ridge and then staged up and started browsing. As it got darker, they turned and started slowly working back up the ridge where they came from. I assume this is because a majority of the food was located on top of the ridge and they dropped a little in elevation to have a thermal advantage as they browsed back up the hill. See picture below for example - Blue waypoint is my treestand location, Red waypoint is where the bucks stood up out of their bed, Blue line is where they traveled after getting up, and red line is my access.

Hill Country Example.JPG

2. How would you go about accessing and hunting these types of scenarios? The top is super thick briar's, blackberry, and maple/oak saplings. If I tried to access using a just off wind from the top, I would sound like an elephant walking through the briar thickets. If I access from the bottom like I did in the picture, I will never get a shot because there is no food in the bottoms to draw the deer except some some red oaks. Once the white oaks are gone up top it almost seems like the deer prefer the woody browse over the red oaks located in the bottoms.

If anybody has any advice on accessing terrain like this or hill country in general, it would be greatly appreciated. How do you access hill country in the mornings/afternoons?

I have the same situation as you discuss and struggle with it as well. About 95% of the public land around here is national forest land and nothing but hill country. When I have scouted these secondary points I have found a majority of the sign to be up on top and I am guessing like you said is because of the vast majority of food sources they have on the top rather than on the bottom.

Below is an example of a few secondary points I in season scouted this past fall. I found 4x as much sign (Rubs, scrapes, droppings, etc.) on the middle point rather than the other two (put a circle where I found that sign on the picture). I never did hunt it this past fall due to not finding the time to get over to this spot and also struggling to find a way to access it. I found a few beds on the military crest of the middle point but none of them were heavily used, just light indentations you could tell that something had been laying there. So I guess my question would be like yours, if I had a south/southwest wind and suspected deer to be bedded on this middle point, what would my access look like to be able to hunt the top of this point?

Same here. 99% of the sign is on the upper 1/3 of the ridges and a majority of the sign is on secondary points rather than the main ridge system/point. I will find an occasional rub on a creek crossing but I have never found a scrape in the bottoms and have never jumped a deer in the bottoms. IMO, the deer simply don't spend any time down there.....just occasionally crossing over to the next ridge system.

Hill Country has many advantages but many disadvantages as well. And I consider access as being a disadvantage.

Access and not knowing exactly where they will be bedding. A lot of the public around here could have 3-4 secondary points that are in the same direction coming off the same main ridge and you never know which point he could be on that day. In my opinion, hill country that has more ag fields at the top and bottom are easier because you can pattern their food sources a little easier. Big woods hill country you never know because food sources are virtually all the same on the secondary points.

[HillCountryHunter-15]

I know there are several threads related to your approach/access but I can't find one specifically related to Hill Country. The hill country I hunt is nothing but big woods timber with no ag for miles and miles. The terrain is really rocky and is a small mountain range (no flat bottoms or fields). All the food is up top for the most part - the forestry department performs TSI and thins on top of the ridges which makes for high stem count browse and nasty cover.

A few things I am having a hard time wrapping my head around and need some Hill Country hunters advice on:

I always (99% of the time) will access from the bottom. I consider the "bottom" to be a wide ditch, drainage, ravine, draw, or anything that separates two ridges/points from one another which brings up my first question.

1. Specifically for an afternoon hunt, how do you approach a ridge/point with the wind in your favor without the deer pegging you as you access? If I try to access the ridge/point with the wind in my face the deer are bedded facing me looking down towards the bottom. This seems to be especially hard once the leaves fall and you can see for several hundreds of yards.

I know many of you will say "set up a couple hundred yards away on an exit route from the bed". I always assumed the deer would exit their beds and head towards the bottom to have a thermal advantage. After hunting the bottoms several times over the years without seeing anything, I finally figured out what they were doing after I watched two bucks stand up on a ridge I was facing this year. They both were bedded on the top 1/3 of the ridge with the wind at their back as expected. When they stood up, they both walked down towards the bottom until they were both about halfway down the ridge and then staged up and started browsing. As it got darker, they turned and started slowly working back up the ridge where they came from. I assume this is because a majority of the food was located on top of the ridge and they dropped a little in elevation to have a thermal advantage as they browsed back up the hill. See picture below for example - Blue waypoint is my treestand location, Red waypoint is where the bucks stood up out of their bed, Blue line is where they traveled after getting up, and red line is my access.

Hill Country Example.JPG

2. How would you go about accessing and hunting these types of scenarios? The top is super thick briar's, blackberry, and maple/oak saplings. If I tried to access using a just off wind from the top, I would sound like an elephant walking through the briar thickets. If I access from the bottom like I did in the picture, I will never get a shot because there is no food in the bottoms to draw the deer except some some red oaks. Once the white oaks are gone up top it almost seems like the deer prefer the woody browse over the red oaks located in the bottoms.

If anybody has any advice on accessing terrain like this or hill country in general, it would be greatly appreciated. How do you access hill country in the mornings/afternoons?

I have the same situation as you discuss and struggle with it as well. About 95% of the public land around here is national forest land and nothing but hill country. When I have scouted these secondary points I have found a majority of the sign to be up on top and I am guessing like you said is because of the vast majority of food sources they have on the top rather than on the bottom.

Below is an example of a few secondary points I in season scouted this past fall. I found 4x as much sign (Rubs, scrapes, droppings, etc.) on the middle point rather than the other two (put a circle where I found that sign on the picture). I never did hunt it this past fall due to not finding the time to get over to this spot and also struggling to find a way to access it. I found a few beds on the military crest of the middle point but none of them were heavily used, just light indentations you could tell that something had been laying there. So I guess my question would be like yours, if I had a south/southwest wind and suspected deer to be bedded on this middle point, what would my access look like to be able to hunt the top of this point?

Same here. 99% of the sign is on the upper 1/3 of the ridges and a majority of the sign is on secondary points rather than the main ridge system/point. I will find an occasional rub on a creek crossing but I have never found a scrape in the bottoms and have never jumped a deer in the bottoms. IMO, the deer simply don't spend any time down there.....just occasionally crossing over to the next ridge system.

Hill Country has many advantages but many disadvantages as well. And I consider access as being a disadvantage.

Heres another example that kind of explains the main ridge lines that have 3-4 secondary points coming off in the same direction. This is what 90% of our national forest land looks like, and like I said earlier, all hardwoods and no ag whatsoever.

[whi52873]

Heres another example that kind of explains the main ridge lines that have 3-4 secondary points coming off in the same direction. This is what 90% of our national forest land looks like, and like I said earlier, all hardwoods and no ag whatsoever.

Looks very similar to the WMA I hunt. Lol.

Capture.JPG

[HillCountryHunter-15]

Heres another example that kind of explains the main ridge lines that have 3-4 secondary points coming off in the same direction. This is what 90% of our national forest land looks like, and like I said earlier, all hardwoods and no ag whatsoever.

Looks very similar to the WMA I hunt. Lol.

Capture.JPG

Have you had any luck hunting the tops of those secondary points that show a lot of sign? I know you said you have trouble accessing some spots but how have you went about hunting them so far? I'm just kind of curious when a buck gets out of his bed in the evening how far he would make it up the point before it gets dark and how close I would need to get to the military crest to actually get a shot off on them.

[whi52873]

Heres another example that kind of explains the main ridge lines that have 3-4 secondary points coming off in the same direction. This is what 90% of our national forest land looks like, and like I said earlier, all hardwoods and no ag whatsoever.

Looks very similar to the WMA I hunt. Lol.

Capture.JPG

Have you had any luck hunting the tops of those secondary points that show a lot of sign? I know you said you have trouble accessing some spots but how have you went about hunting them so far? I'm just kind of curious when a buck gets out of his bed in the evening how far he would make it up the point before it gets dark and how close I would need to get to the military crest to actually get a shot off on them.

I've killed 4 bucks in 4 years so I've been lucky a few times. However, 3 of these bucks were killed between 10/28 - 11/08 when they are out cruising searching for does. Each of those times, I was setup at the head of a drainage between two secondary points....more of your typical funnel scenario. The last one I killed this year on 11/27 and he was out cruising searching for some leftover does, I assume. I lucked into killing him....I was on my way to the area I was planning to hunt and heard something walking towards me and it was the buck scent checking the downwind side of a secondary point. He ended up walking straight to me and I shot him at 25 yards on the ground.

I haven't had any success killing a buck outside of October/November when the does are not on their mind. They don't move much and typically bed in the thickest area where the amount of browse is endless. I honestly think they eat while laying in their beds. You essentially have to setup within 50-100 yards of the bed to get a shot before dark and guessing what bed they are using is near impossible.

[HillCountryHunter-15]

Heres another example that kind of explains the main ridge lines that have 3-4 secondary points coming off in the same direction. This is what 90% of our national forest land looks like, and like I said earlier, all hardwoods and no ag whatsoever.

Looks very similar to the WMA I hunt. Lol.

Capture.JPG

Have you had any luck hunting the tops of those secondary points that show a lot of sign? I know you said you have trouble accessing some spots but how have you went about hunting them so far? I'm just kind of curious when a buck gets out of his bed in the evening how far he would make it up the point before it gets dark and how close I would need to get to the military crest to actually get a shot off on them.

I've killed 4 bucks in 4 years so I've been lucky a few times. However, 3 of these bucks were killed between 10/28 - 11/08 when they are out cruising searching for does. Each of those times, I was setup at the head of a drainage between two secondary points....more of your typical funnel scenario. The last one I killed this year on 11/27 and he was out cruising searching for some leftover does, I assume. I lucked into killing him....I was on my way to the area I was planning to hunt and heard something walking towards me and it was the buck scent checking the downwind side of a secondary point. He ended up walking straight to me and I shot him at 25 yards on the ground.

I haven't had any success killing a buck outside of October/November when the does are not on their mind. They don't move much and typically bed in the thickest area where the amount of browse is endless. I honestly think they eat while laying in their beds. You essentially have to setup within 50-100 yards of the bed to get a shot before dark and guessing what bed they are using is near impossible.

I think trial and error is a big thing with the hill country were hunting. Might go several sits without a buck sighting or maybe no sighting at all but continually putting yourself in that position might be key. I don't know though, I only started applying beast tactics to the hill country around here last year so my experience with it isn't as great as others on this site.