Well guess I will add in to this myself. I'm new to deer hunting myself this season will be my third. First season definitely didn't go to well and was cut short with my first son being born. That said i still learned alot and i improved going into my second season.

From the first season (This might pertain more to my location and state) - I got the same advice find well used trails things like that. My issue was being in the coastal NC you will really only find them trails being a new hunter during the winter. In the spring and summer the foliage grows far too fast and thick that unless you have a trained eye for it you will miss the details. So advice right after deer season and possibly going out shed hunting will help develop this. I also made the mistake that because i constantly seen deer tracks on a dirt road that this must have been one of those travel corridors i heard so much about. What i learned was 1. those tracks that look like 5 different deer may actually be just 1 using that walkway but because we havent had rain or wind the previous week tracks remain intact so it looked like more deer and 2. the deer as soon as they pick up on the fact that its hunting season will not be seen there again. If they do it is usually tracks that you can tell the deer ran across it. He no longer wants to get caught in the open so any larger opening that he knows hunters travel he will run across or cross in the dark.

Second i always heard find the food source and water source. Well that became another issue for me. I stuck to creeks and ponds and such on public land that also was near food plots the commission tilled and planted every year. The problem was again being where i am it rains in the summer and into the fall a lot so the deer don't have a need for a sustained water source like ponds, rivers, creeks, etc. They could find water just about anywhere. And for food. Well bow season starts in mid September and the temps are still in upper 80's to 90's so food was everywhere. It wasn't like other areas where the deer had a preferred source. The deer had plenty of food probably not 50 yards from his bedding site. What I had to learn though was not just the food, they had plenty of that but what foods they would eat first and as the season moved on what plants do they move on to before all else is gone. Like all i heard about was deer would eat acorns first its what they love. Well after sitting a week or two in a cluster of oaks i didnt see a single deer. Why it was marsh oak acorns that i was sitting under which from other hunters i finally learned was probably the last of the acorn group to be eating. So i had to find new food sources and had to rethink what i thought of as food for them.

The last thing i picked up on is exactly what was mentioned here. I thought staying around the food plots would increase my chances of seeing a deer. You would think as the season gets later and food begins to get scarce they would turn to the later planted food plot for food. Well I had a better chance of having multiple hunters walking right to and through the food plot I was set up on then seeing a deer. Had a gentlemen the first season start smoking as he was looking for tracks in the food plot with me not 50 yards away. So needless to say i have learned to stay away from these areas and position myself near bedding sites and these food plots because of that i have seen more deer pass by on my second season from this as the deer where skirting the food plot but the hunters in or on the food plot where pushing them in my direction and back to there bedding areas.


I hope i at least helped. My father and grandfather both hunt its just something I never got into really until 2 years ago. I hunted squirrel and rabbits but never deer and finally the bug bit me from nowhere. Hearing alot of the advice even from my father and others on this site. It sounds all good and they make it seem like its just that simple but from a completely new and inexperienced deer hunter i found out that without someone going out into the woods with you and showing these details majority of it just goes straight over our heads. What looks like a funnel, or pinch or even a great food and bedding area to me was nothing like what my father finally got the time to show me in my second season.


So in the end my advice would be to 1. just get out there. I started going out into the woods any chance i got just to walk around and see what i see, even in the summer. You learn the land and you find where trees are growing where food sources are growing. When you pick up on details and learn you get closer. Then comes the fun part. Damn near having a heart attack because now you see what they are talking about but you take it a little too far and jump a deer not 5 yards away bedded down that you had no idea was there. Thats when you start to learn to not push too far into a deers habitat that he calls home.

2. Find someone to show you what they know. They can explain things to you but if they explain that it looks like a cluster of trees well the whole damn woods looks like a cluster of trees. Its when they get out there with you and show what they mean that it dawns on you what they where saying.

Im still learning and have a long ways to go but did get my first shot with a bow this last season (Missed arrow hit a branch and went high). Also had my first stare down with a little fork tine buck. Thought it was a squirrel still clamoring through the leaves behind me (The squirrel was there for 2 hrs that morning and that noise has been quiet for at least 1/2hr when i started hearing leave again). Finally turned around to look around the big pine i was sitting at the base of to see the buck stop in his tracks and just stare at me. We just sat there staring for what seemed like 15 minutes before he slowly backup and and went back into a thicket. Few minutes later seen him another 200 yards down running out the thicket and as far away from where i was as he could get.