nodog

I've heard of people using a GPS to find funnels but have never tried it myself. They walk as many deer trails as they can find with the GPS keeping track of where they went and later make a full map of where they walked.
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Yep. GPS. Great tool and alot of fun.

I hunt them both. Don't think one is harder than another. The hardest is small woodlots. You have to be a ghost or hope that while your on stand someone in a nearby woodlot isn't. They come through my little lot some times weeks apart.

btomlin

I'm not sure I have hunted both types. I have hunted some "woodlots" that are anywhere from 40-200 acres, but don't know if that is qualifing as 'big woods'. I hunt a few different smaller spots so I'm not hunting the same deer all the time, unless he's a good one. This year I had 3 stands within 100yrds for all winds, because I knew some good bucks were using a certain area.

IMO, both types should be hunted the same way when you break it down to funnels, bottlenecks, and saddles. These features are present in both types of habitat. Both types will have 'influences' that drive the deer through certain areas. It is just easier to find these areas in more open country. What I have found is in big woods you will prob. find these areas simply by doing your post season scouting. I walk through the woods will give away these terrian features that the deer use to make life easier. You will most likely be taking the same paths, because like whitetails, we are pretty lazy ourselves. It's not really even about being lazy, but being smart.

Jimmy S

I don't think I agree with this. I can probably scout a small area and be satisfied with my plan of attack in a relatively small amount of time, especially small pockets of woods near farmlands.

If I hunt massive big woods like in northern Maine that are owned by paper companies, I may never get a good lay of the land. These stretches of woods are measured in square miles not yards or acres. Hunting deep woods that contain hugh cedar swamps can be 15 miles X 30 miles with no tar road in between. To me that would make it much more tougher.....

Sure, I can look for the same things no matter what the terrain, but getting a clear picture of what the deer are doing, when hunting massive land areas, may be next to impossible. ...Just my 2 cents.

justhuntitall

Big woods for sure are harder to hunt.

Todd1700

I hunt on family land here in Alabama that is very thick timber and I bowhunt in Southern Illinois each year on land that is about 70% cropland and 30 Percent woods. Big woods are way harder hands down.

Here in Alabama some of these large blocks of standing Pine are huge and have few distinguishing features to channel deer. Also on most of our land a deer can find excellent bedding areas, shelter, plenty of browse and water all within a very small area. Meaning? He doesn't really have to move that much if he doesn't want to.

In Southern Illinois it's much easier to know where to set up and things like bedding areas and food sources are more spread out. If you have a stand of timber thats connected to another stand of timber by a narrow arm of trees left growing along the banks of a creek and everything else is wide open field, well, it doesn't take a genius to spot how the deer are going to move from one track of timber to the other and a quick check of the creek bank for tracks will confirm it. Well not just tracks, cattle trails would describe it more accurately.

silentassassin

lol, that's funny that you can tell me more about the area that I hunt than I can though you have never seen it and have no idea where it is[&:][8D]

Yes, Yes, Yes, I have been hunting the area for 15 years now and I spend as much time every year scouting as I do hunting and I spend as much time looking at topo's and aerials as I do scouting or hunting. The funnels just aren't there. There aren't any old fences or hiking trails. This is just bottom land big timber with nothing distinguishing about the terrain. It all looks the same. There isn't 15 ft of elevation change from the lowest point to the highest point on the whole place. Plus these are river bottom deer that grow up and live yearly in the water. I hunted there last year when the water was so high that it was 4 tenths from going out. At this time I was hunting some private ground that adjoins that refuge that is a little higher than most of the refuge. I set up on what we call a "high dob" that was a couple of acres of dry ground in a literal sea of water. Every deer that came by that day came by in belly deep water and never even veered toward the high dob and all from different directions. Now if the high water won't even funnel these deer what makes you think a slight elevation change will? I can answer that for you. It won't. But the things you described aren't funnels by definition. These deer are hard to hunt and even harder to pattern. The most successful hunter that hunts the area spends 2 days scouting for every day he spends hunting and he has been hunting the bottoms for 30 years. With the amount of time that he has spent on the area in the past 30 years you would think he could go in and hunt areas the dictate deer movement and be successful. But he can't. He will flat out tell you that to hunt the area that you need to forget every thing that you know about it and not to try and rely on areas that you have seen or killed deer in the past because you just can't be successful there that way. The deer just migrate to much and there aren't any areas that you can just go back to hunt after hunt or year after year and kill deer. With his tract record of killing big deer on the area if he can't find them then they just aren't there. The only way to hunt these deer successfully is with boat gas and boot rubber.

jpm8920

I have to say that big woods is harder (and IMO, more satisfying) to hunt. I used to hunt a farm in southern NY, and after one season, we had the place pegged. We were scoring very consistently. It just seemed much easier to pattern the deer and find there travel/feeding areas. Now I hunt in a very mountainous and heavily forested area of the Catskills and it is a whole different ballgame.

First of all, on the couple mountains that I hunt, there is barely a piece of land on the whole thing that is flat. This just makes walking and scouting hard enough. Also, I am constantly suprised as to where I am finding deer and deer sign. When I first started hunting the area, I would try to hunt the swamps, and clearcuts. Now I am finding deer on very steep hills with 20-30 foot ledges. I can't believe deer would be in these areas, but sure enough, when I walk these ridges, I am finding deer sign. I am a pretty young guy, so accessing these areas is possible for me, but for my father, these areas are out-of-the-question. The thick cover also makes it tough, especially in bow season. Trying to get a clear lane to shoot in isn't always easy. And one of the biggest impedences for me is trying to find a place for my climber. The trees in my area are mostly hemlock, ash, and other hardwoods that are not very accommodating to treestands. They are full of branches and twists that are always a challenge.

But when all is said and done, and you finally see the one or two bucks you'll see all season, you realize that all of your work has paid off. It is a very satisfying feeling.