patterning deer
 

I am having trouble patterning the deer on my farm. We have 250 acres of private ground that ive grown up on and hunted for over 20 years. It is all timber, mostly white oak, with some post oak and black oaks mixed in . We have 5 food plots of clover mixes and winter wheat, we are surrounded by private property and all the neighbors have clearcuts along our property lines. Sounds good dont it, but I have never been able to pattern the deer. They dont travel trails and dont seem to bed anywhere in particular. The deer just seem to wander around and eat acorns, and with no idea which spot to hunt I see a lot of deer out of range and have to rely on a lot of luck. Ive taken a lot of trophy deer, but I think I could do better if I had a better ideawhere they traveled. Any suggestions?

RE: patterning deer
 

BASED ONLY WHAT YOU HAVE SAID,I WOULD SCOUT THE CLERCUT BORDERS FOR ENTRANCE OR EXIT SIGN.WITH ALL THE MAST YOU DESCRIBED,IT IS APPARENT THAT THERE IS SO MUCH FOOD THAT THEY DO NOT NEED A PATTERN.IN A GOOD MAST YEAR,THE FOOD PLOTS PROBABLY DON' T GET MUCH ATTENTION UNTIL THE WEATHER AND RAIN ROT THE ACORNS.I WOULD SET UP HOUSEKEEPING ON THE CLEARCUT LINE BECAUSE THEY ARE PROBABLY BEDDING THERE.TRACKS LEAVING YOUR PROPERTY WOULD INDICATE EARLY AM STAND AND TRACKS COMING ONTO YOUR PROPERTY WOULD INDICATE LATE AFTERNOON STAND.I HAD THE SAME PROBLEMS LAST SEASON WITH ACORNS ON EVERY TREE.WHEN THE RUT KICKED IN I SAW THE DEER THAT WERE MAKING THE SIGN I COULD NOT FIND EARLY IN THE SEASON.GOOD LUCK!

RE: patterning deer
 

From your description, sounds like a deer hunter' s piece of heaven to me. Look for obvious bedding areas, water holes and crossings, rublines and scrapes. The last four will lead you to the bedding areas. I would look for and set up in obvious funnels surrounding these areas.

I hunt a property that has all of the deer' s favorites, beans, wheat, corn, clover, milo, acorns, paw-paws, and all the browse they could ever want. There is over 90 acres of river bottom timber, plus a major creek that feeds into the river. There is an old river channel that is dry most of the year from when the river changed it' s course, the deer use it to travel. Anyway you enter the property you are apt to run into deer. I have hunted it 14 years, and have found that no matter how many hours of scouting I put into it, the deer show up where I am not at.

Thats why they call it hunting. Appreciate it, embrace it and protect it.

RE: patterning deer
 

If you get snow, that should give you a good idea where they' re moving from where the tracks are the most numerous.

RE: patterning deer
 

Angus that sounds like a great piece of property, you did not mention water, nor any thickets or swampland on the property. If there are no thickets/swampy areas and no water, what I would do is first find the thickets near your property and set up a tree stand in an area where you can see the deer coming or going from those areas onto your property. The deer are bedding some where. Water is another place to check out via tree stand preseason, if there is no water on your property, than find the nearest source near your property and set a treestand and watch.

I try to be as non-intrusive as possible preseason scouting until I have a good idea of their patterns. From the amount of oak you mention you will need to locate the bedding and or the water sources because once they have left those areas they have no reason to go in any particular pattern. As other have said funnels are another area to concentrate on, you mention you have food plots, more than likely they will enter and exit the plots at a low point along the field edge, however if there is a spit of woods runs into the food plot they will sometimes use this spit of woods to slide into the field, it lets them check out more of the field without being seen.

Deer in areas with lots of food are hard to pattern, I found through some heavy scouting in one place I hunt that there were three groups of doe that came through the area, but due to tons of food everywhere and an abundant supply of water through out that they did not have a " daily" pattern, instead they had a 3-4 day pattern, the bucks once the rut was on had no pattern except where the does went. One group of three doe came through this one are ever 2-3 days, there was another group of 5 doe that came through every three to 4 days and another group of 7 that came along about every 4 days, the bucks patterns were determined by the receptive doe.

RE: patterning deer
 

Tazman, you asked about water and bedding areas, there is a spring fed creek that goes through the middle of the property starting at my biggest food plot, there is also a lot of small (4 to6 foot diameter) sinkholes scattered around so water is usually close by. As for bedding , I know that they use the clearcuts but we are surrounded by them and there is trails going everywhere into and out of all of them. Ive even tried using my trailcam and cant consistently get a particular deer over one or two times. The bedding puzzle is the hardest for me to figure out. I spend days and days scouting for beds, and only find random beds even the clearcuts.

RE: patterning deer
 

Your whole property could be a daytime " core area" where the deer bed during the day. I' ve known bucks to use a 300 acre " refuge" as their daytime " core area." I' d sit and watch those clear cuts in the morning and evening, to see which deer are moving where, and when they move.

If you want to post this question on the " T.R.' s Tips" forum I' ll put up some information for you.

T.R.