Hey everybody,
I’m not new to hunting but new to hunting this part of the country. I have been scouting an area and got some decent pictures of deer on the trail cams but they are all at night. It’s not an area that I can bait. There are no fields within about a mile or two of where I’m hunting and there seems to be scattered hard mast around.
Is this common to have all your picutres at night here? Do the deer change their movement patterns at all as it gets cooler or should I move and try to find closer to where they are during the day? Thanks for any insight anyone has.
18ft Polar CC 115 Yam.
“Pamplona is no place to bring your wife” Earnest Hemmingway
Deer are mostly nocturnal feeders. Why most everyone used to hunt with dogs to get them out of our thick swamps and forest. Times have changed and large land tracts have shrunk.
I don’t think there is any magic rhyme or reason, just be diligent and hunt regular. You’ll catch one on the move sooner or later. Before and after rut try a week before and after a new moon, deer seem to come out a bit earlier or if you can catch a hard rain right before night fall they’ll come out sooner.
When the rut is full in, you never know when you might see a buck. Many have been killed in the middle of the day.
Not sure where you are hunting and how much land, but the bad thing about hunting a smaller area or public one is you never know what or who may change their behavior.
“If Bruce Jenner can keep his wiener and be called a woman, I can keep my firearms and be considered disarmed.”
I don’t know where you are hunting or how much pressure that area gets but I would have a hard time believing that a deer beds 12 + hours a day and only feeds at night. If your camera is in an Oak hammock now I would move it to nearby pines and see what it picks up lots of eats in the highlands right now. Try and find a well traveled game crossing X and see what happens of course those acorns are going to start dropping soon and that is going to change the game. Soon after that the pre rut and rut will start and that changes the game again. My thoughts for hunting this early in the year is sit where I can see a long way in multiple directions in the pines or next to them.
If your in oaks surrounded by a swamp I would bet those deer are in the swamp bedded on cypress islands in middle of swamp. Try and find a well traveled berm and set a camera up on that.
The place we hunt is pretty much the same deal. Got to find travel corridors and the main crossings. Wind here usually NE and now and then a S or SW. They bed in clearcuts or thickets of pines and brush. You got to hunt in woods and catch them in route to feed. As long as you come in and hunt down wind you can get um. Don’t waist your time and school the deer going in on wrong wind.
The place we hunt is pretty much the same deal. Got to find travel corridors and the main crossings. Wind here usually NE and now and then a S or SW. They bed in clearcuts or thickets of pines and brush. You got to hunt in woods and catch them in route to feed. As long as you come in and hunt down wind you can get um. Don’t waist your time and school the deer going in on wrong wind.
J Ford
Or, school the deer to your scent. … If you can frequent your hunting area very often. Some will call B.S., but deer that get used to a certain humans scent won’t spook as easy. Heck I’ve watched guys pee in a bottle and carry it out with them, not me! If the urge hits me I pee out the deer stand. If I were to bow hunt, I’d be a little more cautious of my scent and movement, but I’m usually shooting 100-200 yards out.
What’s neat is how a big buck will spook a young one more than anything else at times. I honestly think a lot of people over think deer hunting and a lot of success is just pure luck of the draw, and going often.
“If Bruce Jenner can keep his wiener and be called a woman, I can keep my firearms and be considered disarmed.”
There is a measure of truth to what Fred said. I live in a suburban subdivision and pretty much everyone is out to work or at school by 7:30 am. All the joggers have left and it’s quite. That’s when I see the deer moving more. Especially on the new moons when it’s alot darker. Point is I have a few cameras I run in the back yard prior to hunting season to test them it out, I put corn out and I have had no less than 15 different deer show up to eat. It’s all what they get used to I guess.
Disregard the dates.
[URL=http://s248.photobucket.com/user/Pendalinps/media/Outdoors/WGI_0001_zps321a96c3.jpg.html]
[/URL]
JT
If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else? Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
