Making them feel at Home
 

It seems this year I have a lot of giant bucks around the small woods I will be bowhunting in, but they never seem to stick around. The small woods is surrounded by alfalfa, and across the road a ways is a soybean field and more woods. What can i do to make them come to my woods and stay there earlier in the season. I won' t bait or use food plots. Any ideas?

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

you just put won' t in front of the only two ways!!!!

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

HELLO?!

BUCK " SLAYER" ?!?!?!?

Simple here dude! They are not going to be " hanging around" waiting for you top get in stand and shoot them. If you are seeing them then most likely you can shoot them! There are moving thru, to food, to bedding, from percevied dangers, WHATEVER!

I don' t think they are flying through or being transported like Star Trek so you set up along travel routes (not on them!) and back a little off funnels.

AND DON' T STINK THE PLACE UP GOING IN AND OUT!

Then pick ya one anf focus on " gettin' a little somethin' " .

Uncle Matt (in IL)

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

If you won' t put the time in to food plots to hold the does and bucks, you may have to change your handle to just Wisconsin..........:D

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

food plots and baiting isn' t a time waster to me.

I think its unethical

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

*sigh*

Listen, the only way deer will stay in an area is if there is some sort of food or cover there for them. More than likely, your area is only a quality deer area during the summer, and during hunting season they find a different, more suitable range. The only way to change that is to change something about the area - i.e. change a food source.

You can fertilize the indigenous food sources, or you can put in a food plot. Calling a food plot unethical is about the least intelligent thing you can do. You do realize that you can put in a food plot and not hunt over it, right?

Otherwise, you' re doomed to watch the summer deer leave your area year...after year... after year, until you develop the idea that the rest of us have known about for years - go where the deer are.

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

If you don' t want to put out bait or make a food plot then you might just want to quit hunting,,,if you don' t give them a reason to stay they won' t be there during the hunting season

put yourself a food plot in one part of your land then hunt the trails that lead to your food plot or the travel routes they take going to the other food sources in the area

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

Maybe you could list the only ethical ways there are to deer hunt. I' m curious.

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

how about following the deer and hunting where they move off to??? you know they are deer...they arent goind REALLY far....so find out where the DO go and hunt that area.....deer have areas for season.....its where the food is at....near the fields would probally be a good place to look in the fall....find their new beds and the trails they use to get to the fields and hunt around their travel route....dont wait around for deer that arent there...you gota HUNT the deer and find them to be successfull

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

Set up some decoys with estrus scent. Call, rattle or use attractant scents. But; if you do any of these you' re doing the same as baiting. You' re changing the deer' s normal patterns by trying to lure the deer into an area that it wouldn' t naturally be in. At least with food plots you' re improving deer and wildlife nutrition, whether you hunt over them or not.

Dan O.

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

Good point Dan O.

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

I agree with others that the only way to get these deer to stay is food(plot or baiting), but I also think we shoud not jump on him because of a decision he has made. Just setup overlooking and downwind from a travel route, hunt cautiously to keep the area fresh, and put in some hours and you should have a good chance......Good Luck.

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

I think the overriding point here, is not to jump on him for not using food plots, but the simple fact that food is the only way to do what he' s looking to do. If you' re going to dismiss food plots out of hand, you simply have to follow the deer.

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

[X(][X(][X(][:-]:)

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

I don' t mind when people jump on me when i talk about baiting, i' m used to it because I always say the same thing, and everyone always just reacts the same way.
Setting up on natural food sources is fine (and since farm fields can' t be rid of and they' ve been around a long time, it is natural).
I think it takes a real hunter to take a deer without a bait pile, or food purposly planted for deer, or nutrition blocks (theres a way to take a true trophy[&:]

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

Farm fields......natural........[&:]:D[&:]

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

where i live, its been 50% farmfields forever.

so if your going to talk, please know what your talking about

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

I won' t talk about bait or food plots, since another thread is going on and I am done with the endless debate and BS, about a real hunter and so on...[X(]!

If you have alfalfa and soy beans, those are possibly a food source, no? Have you viewed the bucks feeding in either? If so then you need to formulate a plan to hunt them coming and going. If the bucks are just cruising through, ain' t nothing you can do (that you want to do) that will hold them, so give up that thought. If this is the case focus on where they are going and coming from, pick spots that with different winds, times, etc would be advantageuos to hunger down and wait. I would suggest you find where they call home and then find out where they are feeding. Catch my drift find out where they are going and coming from, then you' ll be able to form a plan to intercept them..never had much luck tying up a buck so i could shot him where I wanted too, I go to them.

One more question are any does around the area??? If not you will have to find them, especially as rut nears cause your bucks will be with the ladies.

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

I have to disagree about the ' 50% farm fields forever' part, maybe for a couple of hundred years. Agriculture fields are about as natural as climbing stands, rifles, shotguns, compound bows, cover scents, bait, scent lock suits, sex scents and dozens of other items and methods that are used to tilt the possibility of harvesting a deer to the favor of a hunter.

RE: Making them feel at Home
 

since you don' t want to hunt over a food plot,,,go to where the deer are and don' t wait for the deer to come to you