buckeye

"Boy, when I get home I'm gonna punch your momma right in the mouth......"

ash2042

The area I hunt mostly I have hunted for years. These areas are the easiest for me to hunt because I know the area like the back of my hand. I already know of two areas where I am going to hang my stands for next year.I will go to those areas and do some scouting and if the sign isn't there I won't hang a stand. If there is good sign I will then try and find a tree that will give me the best shot oportunity. Some things I think about are, is it going to be a morning or evening stand, which direction I think the deer will be moving, can I have the sun at my back and the wind in my face.
I have a new area I get to hunt next year it covers about 300 acres of large timber. It hasn't been hunted hard or steady in over 10 years. This property is going to take alot of thought and foot work and a little studying. I know the property holds the potential for nice bucks due to the lack of hunting, I just have to find them. The property is surround by a few houses on one side and a river on the other. Like I said this property is going to take some time to figure out but I think it will be worth the effort.

Double Creek

After reading your title, the first thing that came to my mind are Bowtech, ASAT, and Enigma....... None of which I own.[8D]

Dubbya

I thought there was going to be a picture of buckeye in a pink jumpsuit with a monster deer.

On a serious note, I think that the "why" items aren't discussed more because it's easier to discuss tangibles... or things that we can see or see pictures of.

jmbuckhunter

I hunt about a 125 acre woods with a small creek running thru it. The creek has ridges from it that run up into the woods. I stay out of the bottom for the most part because the wind is too unpredictable and have been busted before. So I try to find which ridges the deer are using to get to or from the crop fields and ambush them.

The deer in this woods also make a tremendous amount of rubs. I know I can find rub lines every year in roughly the same areas. With a little fine tuning I can usually pinpoint a bucks route. That is what happened opening day this year. A couple weeks before the season I scouted a little and found a good fresh rub line. I brought my climber in opening day and had 4 bucks walk by. I got the biggest one.

I also hunt some inside corners maybe 30- 50 yds off the field edge. There is usually a pretty good trail going around the corner of the field.

If I see deer doing the same thing twice from a stand. You can bet I will be there the next time I am in the woods. Don't be afraid to move your stand. That is why I like a climber. I can be mobile, you don't always have to move too far to be in the right spot ,but if the deer aren't coming by you. Why not move?

GregH

I am all for these types of threads. I've tried a couple of times to post such threads, funnel hunting and grunt calling, to name a few. It seems that they get passed over rather quickly for some reason. But if I or someone else gets something useful out of it, it was worth it. Lets try it again.

Double Creek

It's tough to have these discussions b/c properties are so different, from county to county, much less state to state....

MOmightymite

I think that it is a hard topic to bring up because like others have said it is hard to have a mental image of other's setups when you have never seen them. Some people ask for help and give a topo map as a reference....but that can only help to a certain extent. Also, Myself and many others hunt public land and my setup changes daily, again making it hard for others to visualize.

MOTOWNHONKEY

Have you ever noticed when a buck is following a doe that isn't ready? She walks five steps, he walks five steps. She will take him out into the open, across fields, places that you normally wouldn't expect to see a muture buck at. She is annoyed by his presence but he isnt going to leave until she lets him do the deed. I watched this behavior over the years and started to see patterns that repeted themselves. As we all know when the buck is following a doe like this he is at his most vulnerable state. Shes not running from him anymore because nature has told her its about time but she isn't comfrotable with him constantly trailing her. What I have noticed is that when she gets tired and needs to bed down as in a last ditch effort to shake him she will head to the very tip of a field edge, or a finger that goes out and jettys into a crop field. Much like the cover you would hunt for quail in. Have you ever walked to your stand down a fence row where the woods start to begin only to jump a buck laying with a doe? I started hanging stands in these type areas and low and behold I'm onto something. I only go to these stands whenI know bucks are on the does, because frankly it is a super boring spot to hunt. I'm telling you if you put yourself in a stratigic spot in that finger and play the wind, mid-day she will bring him to you. Four mature bucks have meet my broadheads using this setup. I have different early and late season tactics I use to place stands if your interested. When the bucks are following try this setup, you will see what I am talking about. chris

Doubled 150

It's hard to explain what I look for without typing a book.

Here's some brief bullet points on where I like to set up and the type of sign I like to see:
[ul][*]Bottlenecks, funnels or pinch points.[*]Staging areas....I don't like to hunt field edges. I like to get back in the woods a bit from the field edge and hunt the staging area.A lot of times, the big bucks will let the does and smaller bucks head out to the field first.They will hang back in the woods until dark. I try to setup where they hang out.[*]Interior edges....like downed trees, thick cover, a small creek or a fence row inside the woods.[*]Droppings....is some of my favorite sign. They tell me if it's a buck or doe and how often deer visit the area.[*]Secondary trails....When I find a heavily used trail, I look for a secondary trail next to it. It may be 50 yards or so on one side of it. I found that the bigger bucks have a separate travel route than every other deer.[*]Scrapes....I like to hunt scrapes at certain times of the year. I don't hunt rubs that much but I do like to see them.[*]Combinations....When I can find a combination of the above mentioned things, I feel like I've found a great spot.[/ul]
The combination of staging area, interior edge, droppings and scrapes produced my avatar buck this year.