deerhunter1224

How can you get travel patterns of deer? I am out looking for deer a few times a week and never see much. I know there are high number of deer around me. I hunt right along a river and there are crops all over.

johnch

I like to watch ridge points, creek crossings , corners in the field by a woods ect. with a spoting scope for the last 30 min before dark . If a corn field is next to the river , find a area with tracks after a rain or just look at the corn for dammage. Don't over do the scouting you can cause the deer to change . I set several hang on stands at good looking spots at least a month before season . Try canoeing in .

timbercruiser

Get a few trail cameras and set them on some trails.

Deerslayer_37

Find funnel areas. These are areas that force the deer into a smaller space than the surrounding area. for example, a brushy fence line that seperates two fields and connects two woods would be almsot perfect. bottle neck areas. trail intersections where two or more trails come together. watch where the deer come out of the woods. Those trails are called run ways. follow those runways back to the bedding area for a great set up in the bucks bedroom. good luck

slayer

skeeter 7MM

Bed and Breakfast are keys to piecing together movements. It sounds like you have an idea about the breakfast part, so start looking for home -bedding areas. The best route is jump on a trail and go, along the way look for areas for transition/staging(open meadow, cut out, fenceline, cutlines, etc) and land structure(funnels, bottlenecks, draws, ridges, etc). Usually these deeper areas are where you'll want to be come hunting season but not advised to sit and scout close to season. While walking look for previous sign left, tracks, paths, cutter trails, interstects, rubs. The best possible place to sit is the area that draws the safe aspects to the game but is in direct line with the things they do daily-bed and breakfast! Bare in mind at all times wind direction and this is where scouting pays huge dividends, you'll know where they are and where they are going and how to best set up pertaining to the daily wind. If you already know where they bed and eat, than just be patient check field edges after a rain to determine what the scoop is, then start watching from a distance at peak feeding times.

IMO the best time to scout is the first day after season close through the winter, in may areas deer yard up for the winter and move off their fall grounds, but sign is abdundant and harm to the area is near nill in regards to pressure or over pressence. While you missed it this year just remember next year when your sad about another season that their is a way to keep hunting!

TURKEY FAN

Where i hunt the big boys dont come out till mid november.......where there at in the early season i have no i deer.

trophyhuntr

use a spotting scope from high advantage point if you can and watch them at 1hr before up to dark come in and out of fields, but stay way away from them

NorthernHunter

Scouting and more scouting. I returned to a few of my regular hunting areas during mid winter when there is fresh snow on the ground or within 2-3 days of a snowfall. This makes it so easy to discover where the funnels are located and where most of the traffic is going/coming. Seriously, this past winter I took my 5 year old on a plastic sled and pulled him along thru the woods. He enjoyed the adventure and I got a bonus afternoon scouting trip completed. I have been hunting this one little area for about 10 years now and thought I knew it like the back of my hand. I discovered thru tracking in the snow that there are a few shoots or travel paths that the deer use which I have always ignored. Not this season! So, that scouting evidence is stored in the back of my head.

I also take a trip in late April to see if any news paths develop. April is a godo time because the ground is still wet and moist and it's easy to see frequently used paths. In fact, in the next week or two I will return to this one swamp I hunt in order to scout new locations that are difficult to get to when there has been too much rain. We haven't had much rain the past 2 months so access to these areas will make scouting easy. Come the fall, even with decent rain, I will know the safer routes to obtain access to these areas.

Basically, scout a few times per year making sure not to over-scout to spook the deer. I tend to watch from afar come August (1 month prior to my opener) as not to spook the deer from my internal hunting areas. Rather, I look from the perimeter to see where deer are coming into/out of my grounds.

adams

I've found exactly the opposite where I hunt. You can spot nice bucks all through the summer if you're looking in the right places at the right times. Come those first cool evenings in September the bucks wise up and start their disappearing act.