Deer hunting quesitons

[rbstern]

I trust the experience of the talented people in this forum. I thought I would ask a bunch of "noob" deer hunting questions. My only game hunting experience is doves and squirrels; deer are new to me.

Location: I have a cabin on the shore of Lake Hartwell, on the Georgia side of the Tugaloo River. The particular place I have in mind is a wooded valley, about 10 to 15 acres in size (neighbor's land...I have their permission). It's situated between some high ground where I often observe deer, and the edge of the lake. Moderately dense woods. I found a decrepit ladder stand in that patch, so I know somebody has hunted it before. I've observed deer in that valley and nearby woods. I figure it's a natural migration between their high nesting ground and their most likely source of water. There are also a couple of state wildlife management areas nearby (1000 to 2000 acres) that I may try. There are also a lot of big islands on the lake itself. Have seen deer swimming to them. The local Army COE guidelines say it's ok to hunt the lake, but they discourage the use of centerfire rifles (although it's not illegal).

Weapons: I'm going to try primitive weapon season (mid October) with a Remington Genesis .50 cal muzzleloader. Haven't received the gun yet, but I'll spend a couple of range sessions making sure I can reasonably hit what I aim at. After that, depending on the experience, I may do firearms season as well with a H&R Ultra 308 (scoped), Marlin 30-30, or Rossi 92 in 357. Although I cast and handload, I will probably use commercial ammo for this first year, to minimize the number of variables. Except the Rossi. I have some excellent 357 loads I know well.

My questions are:

What time of day will maximize my chances?

Shood I hunt from a tree stand? If so, should I try to set up the stand in advance of the hunt? What would you recommend in a climbing stand? If I stay on the ground, should I set some sort of a blind?

Any other gear I should be worried about? I have binoculars and a good knife.

What should I do about scent management, other than washing with no scent products? Is it worthwhile to use the various scent blocking clothing?

And anything else you care to comment on! Thanks!

[RP]

Well i give you my two cents worth . First I like to hunt from a stand your movement is not as inportant you can see better and scent i higher. I have not made use of binoculars much because where I hunt you cant see anything far enough away to need them but a good knife is a good ideal. One thing i would add is a thermocell for skeeters they work good and dont put of a scent that would matter. As far as your scent control if you are hunting a area where people are a normal occurance the deer dont pay it much mind but if its a remote area scent is very inportant . Most of my areas have peoples scents and noises year round and the deer dont pay it any mind sitting in my stand i can hear cars passing on the roads people on loud speakers and phones dogs barking and the deer dont even look up at them. Another place I hunt some deer I think have never smelt a human or seen one they dont take my scent as danger but as something to be wary about others in the same area know Iam a danger and that makes scent important. Iam sure others may disagree with me on this but deer react in strange ways sometimes. I have climbed a tree with a climber as two other walk to the trees they were going to hunt about 100 yards away from me and I shot a 6 pointer before they got off the ground he was not running from them just walked out about 75 ft from me and started laying down his scent. So good luck to you and safe hunting.

[chaos]

Ricky forgot to tell you that the muzzle loader is too much gun for deer. you should use a .223 :roll:

All kidding aside...Ricky offers sound advise. Get someone to teach you how to field dress the animal and study up on it a bit. In my experience, being elevated is always better than being at eye level. If you hunt out of that stand that you found, be sure to check it out for safety reasons before climbing into it before daylight.

It wouldn't hurt you to go and scout the area a bit to find out for yourself the deer patterns on the place BEFORE you stomp out in the woods on opening day.

[Thumbcocker]

Good advice so far. I like to be in the woods and set up before daylight especially where there are going to be others hunting. I have had good results shooting from a stand but don't overlook sitting on the slope of a hill overlooking the bottoms.

If you are on private land near public land and are in position early in the morning you might cathc deer moving away from the noise and smell of the "hunters" who don't leave the coffee shop until daylight. I have used hunting pressure to help fill the freezer a lot ot times.

If you are anygood at all squirrel hunting with a rifle you should be in good shape for deer. On opening day morning pay attention to the squirrels and Bluejays they will "bark" at deer just as easily as they will you.

Try to pick a spot where you are comfortable and stay as long as you can. When the coffee shop boys pack it in around 10:00 it is not uncommon for the deer to move. I take a small container of tea and several chewy granola bars. Try not to whip your head around when you hear niose in the leaves, move your eyes first then your head SLOWLY toward the sound. Brother squirrel loves to tromp around in dry leave doing a good deer impression.

If you go to the Kentucky DNR websight you can buy the very best deer field dressing/processing dvd that I have ever seen for $15 or so. Full hour from shot to freezer and you can pause it and cut some more.

While I'm on my soapbox here killing a deer is a much more emotional expreience that killing a squirrel or small critter. Make sure you have a good shot and kill them clean. The double lung shot is always fatal and usually leaves a good blood trail. I like to tell the deer thank you and put an acorn in it's mouth. That is a very ancient tradition (German I think) that shows a lot of respect for the critter.

If you can spend time before season with your binoculars early in the morning and late in the evening you can get a good feel for where the deer move to and from and that will help you decide your site selection. Spend as much time as you can watching deer to help avoid "buck fever" when the time comes.

Hunt with whatever you shoot the best. Hunt hard, kill clean, respect the critter, and dont waste the gift of the meat the animal died to give you.

You are embarking on a spiritual journey and the first deer will change you forever.

[MT Gianni]

Get a few stones that you can recognize and set them out at known distances. Your first time from a tree stand will through your ability to judge distance way off. Gianni

[uncle joe]

Everyone here gives good advice it seems. +1 on what everybody said. Except Chaos' bleed over from chat about the 223 Ricky and he have some private jousting going on ;)
like Ricky said the thermacel is the sh** if you have skeeters out when you start hunting. And like Thumbcocker said when people start leaving mid morning or coming in late, the deer start moving so stay as long into the day as you can stand. I was layed off from work on year during deer season ( what luck) and hunted all day at least till noon. I saw more deer from 10:30 till noon than any other time.
PS if you won't take long to get the kill out of the woods and skinned I would not field dress it. I have never field dressed one and almost never even open up the rib cage. I get the quarters and the backstrap and neck if I need stew meat and leave the mess inside to discard with the rest.
uj
Good luck hunting

[RugerFan]

What time of day to hunt? I guess it depends on where you think they might be bedding. Since your hunting a valley, putting a stand side hill has worked for me. Hunting early morning (Get in your tree before daylight) and evening are usually best. During the Rut hunt all day.

Yes, absolutely hunt from a tree stand. These days I bring a climber in with me when I hunt. I use the Equalizer (https://www.equalizertreestands.com/index.php). It’s unique in that you can adjust the angle as you climb which enables you to climb higher than old school climbers.

Gear I bring: Binos, knife, flashlight, spare flashlight (head lamp), rope, screw-in bow/gun hook, unscented bug spray, orange tape (to mark blood trails), limb saw or pruner, GPS (and a compass as a back up), and spare batterys for flashlight and GPS. (A laser range finder is on my wish list).

Scent Blocker clothing is worthwhile, but usually too hot to wear in Georgia for a good portion of the season.

Good luck and let us know how you do.

[MT Gianni]

Everyone here gives good advice it seems. +1 on what everybody said. Except Chaos' bleed over from chat about the 223 Ricky and he have some private jousting going on ;)
like Ricky said the thermacel is the sh** if you have skeeters out when you start hunting. And like Thumbcocker said when people start leaving mid morning or coming in late, the deer start moving so stay as long into the day as you can stand. I was layed off from work on year during deer season ( what luck) and hunted all day at least till noon. I saw more deer from 10:30 till noon than any other time.
PS if you won't take long to get the kill out of the woods and skinned I would not field dress it. I have never field dressed one and almost never even open up the rib cage. I get the quarters and the backstrap and neck if I need stew meat and leave the mess inside to discard with the rest.
uj
Good luck hunting

Check on your legality where you are at. Besides tossing the tenderloins you can be cited for wasting a game animal in Montana if you do that.

[RP]

Just thought of something to add after reading the other repleys pick your tree or tree that you may use if you are using a climber go ahead and climb each tree and trim any limbs that might be in your way. This is a good thing to do before you climb a tree just to find out you cant see also you can mark the height that is best so you do over shoot or under shoot the best spot. Remove limbs the best you can or place them in a natural manner the deer will notice at first but it will get old to them in a few days

[Lead melter]

Maybe the single most important piece of advice is to wear hunter blaze orange even if it is not required. You do not know for certain that someone else is not hunting the area. That someone else may be the one to shoot at a sound or movement.

Keeping still is the key to the hunt. A glow in the dark orange suit will really have no affect on the deer, but they will catch just about any move you make, as you should know from your squirrel hunts.

[Junior1942]

Don't go deer hunting in the morning while wearing the underwear and t-shirt you slept in. If you don't like a pre-dawn shower, wipe down your crotch and armpits and put on fresh underwear and a fresh t-shirt.

Don't wash your hunting clothes, underwear included, in regular laundry detergent. I use Tide unscented bought at Wally World.

If a machine dries your clothes instead of Mother Nature, take a whiff of that fabric softner tissue before you put it in the dryer with your favorite flannel hunting shirt.

A deer can smell perfumed human clothing from at least 100 yards away. They know what the smell means, too, and they're gone in the opposite direction and you'll never know they were there.

Watch for scented bug repellant, too, as someone mentioned. It's hard to tell when a repellant spray is ACTUALLY scent free unless you can spray and sniff. "Deep Woods" OFF! in the hunter orange can smells like a French w---e and I know because I've smelled a few.

[JSH]

All good info above. I take at least two knives, bare minimum. I also keep a plastic bag to throw the heart in.
As to washing clothes. I have used arm and hammer baking soda to wash my clothes in for years. Always hang dry out side if possible.
I also powder inside my clothes with baking soda as a deoderant.
Cheap and easy to find.
Jeff

[Junior1942]

. . . Try to pick a spot where you are comfortable and stay as long as you can. When the coffee shop boys pack it in around 10:00 it is not uncommon for the deer to move. . . . Thumbcocker, your entire post was filled with good information. Keep posting!!

Here's more about the "coffee shop boys" as you call them. My baby brother lives next to the Bayou Beouf WMA in northeast Louisiana. It's filled with hunters during deer season. It's filled with deer, too, but the deer hear and see all the human activity starting a couple of days before opening day. Opening morning as all those hunters head for their stands, the deer head for the thickets. And that's where they stay until around 10 am when they see and hear all those hunters headed out of the woods. Then they come out and nose around for breakfast under the oaks. Baby Brother doesn't even bother getting in the woods until after 10 am.

[Thumbcocker]

Some of the greatest feats of marksmanship in the history of shooting have been made from stools in coffee shops or establishments that sell harder beverages. [smilie=1:

It's amazing how distances get longer and deer get bigger in such a habitat.

[rbstern]

Great information. Thank you! I'll keep checking back on this thread if anybody has more to add.

[HABCAN]

Quoted: "Hunt with whatever you shoot the best. Hunt hard, kill clean, respect the critter, and dont waste the gift of the meat the animal died to give you.

You are embarking on a spiritual journey and the first deer will change you forever."

Thumbcocker, Sir, it is a seldom thing to see such respect for the game publicly posted. Thank you!

+1 to all advice given. I too have never shot any game before the magic hour of 10:00AM, no matter how early I started out. Maybe that is just coincidence. However, I have observed that once the nimrods are out of the field the game does begin to circulate to our advantage. Intimate knowledge of the hunted area increases year by year, season to season. Better to know one area well than to always seek out greener pastures you've never seen.

I stopped hunting long before the 'scentless' fad, so can offer no advice there: one hunts into the wind, moving at a snail's pace if moving at all, maintaining noise discipline.

Welcome to the bruderbund, and Good Luck!

[carpetman]

rbstern---Lead melter is spot on. Above all else wear blaze orange--it works. Even on private land I wear it when not required by law. In your scenario where there is the private land and the public land--by all means wear blaze orange. You figure the land is between their high nesting ground and water source. Well urr uhh I don't know much about deer nesting ground maybe someone else can provide the info there. But it is my understanding that if is on a nest it is more likely to be a dove or a squirrel which you mentioned familiarity with than it is a deer---not sure. You would think this would go without saying,but many hunters do in fact get injured trying to use a decrepit stand/ladder. What time to hunt? My observation may be different from others but when I drive highways on dark nights, I don't see as many deer. On bright nights I see more. If the deer feed all night on bright nights they seem to bed in and not be seen as much during the day and if they slept all night during the dark night they seem to be around more in the day. So I think the moon has a bearing on what time of day you are more likely to see them. Deer dont seem to pay as much attention to you if you are up high. Scent--I smoke to include smoking on a stand and have had them come in while doing so. I'm sure that makes a scent, but even so I've had deer get close from upwind/downwind so I think that factor less critical than many believe.

[missionary5155]

Scent.... apples.... I am a long time bow hunter (recurve) and I rub apple juice (cut in quarters) all over my gear and outer suit before I leave my vehicle. Boots ESPECIALLY.... I have been tracked by deer regularly right to my stand... one buck actually licked my tree cleats I had climed about 30 minutes before.
If there are no apples laying about your area (free) I have used apple juice (cheapest frozen mixed with water) and sprayed on (simple hand squezzer type). Cows, racoons, possums, fox and squirrels seem to like the scent also.

[6pt-sika]

I've been hunting now for 40 years !

Although not always deer !

However for about the last 18 years I have been pretty much deer only !

Anyway I hunt two places pretty much now . The first being my own 60 acres behind my home . And the other being the Blackwater Refuge in Dorchester County Maryland .

At my house I never ever gut a deer in the woods any longer . I always bring them out whole on the back of my ATV . The biggest reason I do this is to keep the neighbors dogs from coming in the woods in the mornings looking for gut piles and scaring off deer . At the refuge I don't have a choice as ATV's are not allowed and on top of that the refuge is about 3 hours from my home in Virginia !

I usually however carry one knife with me at home or in Maryland ! It's a Beretta three blade folder . One blade is of the regular clip point design , then one is a saw blade while the third is a protected point knife with a guthook which comes in quite handy for me ! Usually when I go to Maryland I make sure this knife is shaving sharp on the clip point blade ! And if I have to dress a deer or two its no problem !

I almost always hunt from treestands and in the refuge in some of the parts I hunt it is mandatory for you to be 8 feet of the ground ! At home I try to get 20-30 feet up .

For scent I use whitetail doe estrus at home from ML season into the first couple weeks of the VA gun season . In Maryland I use Sika doe bomb and or doe foam for the early ML and gun season ! During the archery season in Maryland or Virginia I rarely use any scents .

Over the years I have had pretty decent success . Here in Virginia as well as Maryland the bag limits are pretty liberal ! And most years that I've killed in double digits . But I must admit the majority of the deer I killed are cut up and given to friends or donated to the local food kitchen for those that can use it ! Hence if I kill a dozen or two none is wasted and some folks maybe have a little better meal to eat .

[6pt-sika]

Maybe the single most important piece of advice is to wear hunter blaze orange even if it is not required.

Very sound advice !

And even when I'm riding my ATV in or out of the woods I have an orange cap on top my head !

If I am somewhere that I happen to hunt from the ground I keep the cap and a vest on !



I agree that blaze orange is a good thing

[badgeredd]

Something that I didn't see anyone else mention about scents. Whatever scent you choose to use, be sure it is native to your area. Deer will cut and run from an un-natural scent just as fast as from smelling a predator (you will be one). Here in Michigan I use cedar oil (spay mist bottle) and have taken a freshly cut pine bough and rubbed it on my clothing. Natural scent in the area and they work to help hide or mask any human scent. Other that that these fellows are giving sound advice, including wearing at least some hunter orange.
One thing that I have seen newbies do that may be of some use to you. Scout out your area but don't over-do it. Most of my buddies will check out an area 2 or at the most 3 times before hunting. Usually the last time at least a week before season opens. Helps to make sure one doesn't spook the game.
That's my 2 pennies worth.

[Thumbcocker]

A good aerial photo map of your hunting area is worth getting for some "scouting". You can usually get an aerial map form the county assessor or the ASCS for a few dollars. Try to get one taken in the winter when the leaves are off.

[KCSO]

I'll only add one thing, all the time is the best time to hunt! I have had deer come by the stand at high noon and I've had them not move till after dark. Every time I think I know what a deer will and won't do I get another surprise. The more time you spend in the stand the better your chances.

[6pt-sika]

I have had deer come by the stand at high noon and I've had them not move till after dark.

I used to laugh at my great grandparents ! They planted by the almanac and the moon !

Well I have found you can use them both for predictions on "when" deer should be moving !

It took me about 5 years to believe it when I was told that deer moved at midnight and noon during the full moon ! I know this sounds kinda bogus but it's true most of the time !

Also when a storm front is coming in deer move a heck of alot !

Now personally I like to hunt the first 2 or 3 hours in the AM and the last couple before dark ! But like anyhting else it doesn't always work the way I like ! So one has to adapt and overcome :drinks:

[geezer56]

I've seen more deer between 9:30 AM and 1:00 PM than any other time of day. The biggest deer I ever shot was the day I got to the woods late and didn't climb the tree til about 8:00. The large 8 pt came by about 10:00 AM. I heard someone leave about 30 minutes before the buck came thru. He was looking behind him, much more than he was looking around nearby. Good for me, not so good for him.

[Lloyd Smale]

Not me! Your leaving 10-20 lbs of good hamburger meat in the woods. I was allways taught that if i was going to shoot it i was to use it. There are times that its neccisary like when the animal is to big to drag but i still would take the time to bone it out properly. Another thing to consider is leaving a carcus in the the woods is going to be big time fuel for the anti hunters. They dont want to walk up on bambi ripped to shreds in the woods.
Everyone here gives good advice it seems. +1 on what everybody said. Except Chaos' bleed over from chat about the 223 Ricky and he have some private jousting going on ;)
like Ricky said the thermacel is the sh** if you have skeeters out when you start hunting. And like Thumbcocker said when people start leaving mid morning or coming in late, the deer start moving so stay as long into the day as you can stand. I was layed off from work on year during deer season ( what luck) and hunted all day at least till noon. I saw more deer from 10:30 till noon than any other time.
PS if you won't take long to get the kill out of the woods and skinned I would not field dress it. I have never field dressed one and almost never even open up the rib cage. I get the quarters and the backstrap and neck if I need stew meat and leave the mess inside to discard with the rest.
uj
Good luck hunting

[357maximum]

Not me! Your leaving 10-20 lbs of good hamburger meat in the woods. I was allways taught that if i was going to shoot it i was to use it. There are times that its neccisary like when the animal is to big to drag but i still would take the time to bone it out properly. Another thing to consider is leaving a carcus in the the woods is going to be big time fuel for the anti hunters. They dont want to walk up on bambi ripped to shreds in the woods.

Not to mention the fact that them nice eating inner tenders are in there....thats breakfast for the day after the kill. Lloyd is totally correct....about everything else.

If any of the guys I hunt with seen someone tend to a deer in the quartered manner the offender would be wearing their **** for a hat at best. When I throw a carcass in the back 20 it goes into a designated spot, and there is no nutritional value for the critters to eat off from it...anything less is totally and utterly irresponsible.....not to mention plain wrong.......only taking the neck if you "need stew meat"...what...JOE ...you are kidding me right?

[EMC45]

I agree Max and Lloyd. I killed my first 2 last year and I took everything I could. Leg shanks, neck meat, everything. It is a disservice to do any less. It all eats so why not?