NC8pointBuck

I plan on bowhunting next year,will be the first time i have ever tried it.Now i hunt in the woods,no crop feilds or anything like that around me.Where should i set up my stand?What do i look for when scouting over the summer before the season starts?? Only food i know of will be acorns and any bait i put out,mainly corn.Thanks for any help

wareaglecj

From my experience - white oaks, white oaks, and white oaks. If you have them look no further. If not, then look for persimmon trees, muscadines, red oaks, etc. If you find fruit producing trees you might want to fertilize them this spring. You don't need food plots to successfully bowhunt as there are plenty of other food sources out there... Can't help you with the corn because it is illegal here to use that as bait. I don't agree with the law, but it is what it is.

Good luck with your new addiction!

chazspot

Like wareaglecj says, white oaks are a great target. Especially in early season. If you bait them early season then they will eventually hit your bait almost daily and keep on hitting it as long as you provide the corn. If you hunt the bait pile hard then you will pressure them to stop coming into it or just at night.

Hunt the bait pile until you take a couple deer there, and then move to a different location. Look for cover and water and set up off game trails in that area. Always check the wind when deciding on a stand site. You don't want your scent blowing across the game trails that the deer will be using. After hunting the area for awhile you will gain awareness of when and where they move. Adjust accordingly throughout the season.

The most important thing you can do to put this all together successfully is practice with your bow. Can't emphasize that enough. You can have deer all around you, but if you are not confident shooting your bow then everything else won't matter.

GMMAT

When scouting a new property, the best advice I can give you is.....find the does, first.

Even if you're not able to locate buck bedding areas, knowing where the does are at any given time will get you through a hunting season. If you know where they are, you'll know where the bucks WILL BE.

Set up some observation stands.....or, climb and observe from a safe distance. If you have deer on your property, you should be able to find them fairly easily.

DlaxNY

Up north in NY, bow season falls during the beginning of the rut, so the deer are out and moving, no need to worry about food and such. We just look for the travel corridors between bedding areas / food, which essentially are the woods between crop fields and meadows. Try and avoid low areas if you get much rain during the fall. We hunt valleys / swamps and they usually avoid drainage areas, guess they don't like muddy hoofs

Terasec

Might be specific to where you hunt,
By my land up near watertown, they love the swamp more so than drier areas, and their bedding areas tend to be close to swampy areas,
All part of scouting and knowing the area where you hunt I guess

nodog

First time bow hunting or first time hunting?

Find the deer, get there without them knowing it, be prepared to shot one when they come by. Find where they walk this winter and pick your site, determine what shots you'll be most likely to take and leave, practice through the summer as you'll have to this fall AS YOU'LL HAVE TOO. Pick the day, get there very early and stand still using bino's to pick apart the landscape, see them before they see you. Make the shot count.

halfbakedi420

i wish you would read the 5 thousand "i injured a deer" threads in yer free time. ya need to practice with everything you plan on wearing when hunting, on yer person. shoot from yer stand all off season. practice practice practice. when ya can group a dozen in a 6 inch circle, hunt from half that distance. the deer will come after ya got all this, but this is really the most important part. not, where the deer are. good luck and i hope to see you got that monster deer next year. took me many a moons to get my 1st deer with a bow.