Help hunting eastern whitetails in timber

[beginnerhunter]

I know this is a primarily western hunting forum, but a lot of folks here grew up hunting in timber for whitetails so maybe you have some insight.

I'm going to hunt mostly hardwood forests in mountainous terrain on public land. The areas are roughly 85,000+ contiguous acres. There is some road access in some places and wilderness areas in others. Where I am you aren't allowed to take ATVs off of the gravel roads. This is mostly mature timber so you can see in the woods but binoculars are essentially useless. I will hunt with a bow and rifle. This is general season, no tags needed, going to be an orange army, lol.

So what should I do to be successful? Should I take a climber and perch above a game trail? Should I still hunt? Anybody have advice on still hunting? Should I just give up and build a box stand with a heater on a deer lease?? My plan was to walk in before morning along a trail at the bottom of a ridge, climb near the top, and slowly move along the side of the mountain against the wind. Or possibly seek out a nice saddle and sit there. I'm used to sitting in a stand on private land and hunting areas I know deer usually go so this is new to me. I may have some chances to do more scouting this summer but with all of the ticks, chiggers, mosquitoes, and snakes we have it's kind of a bad time to be stomping through the brush!

Anyways, if any of you have done this a lot (eastern mountain/hardwood public land hunting), let me know what I should be doing. Thanks.

 

[teej89]

I grew up hunting in PA in the mountains(hills to everyone else here lol) and all timber not many crop fields and our game plan was to get a topo find the ridges and hunt hollows and saddles. Every rifle season I'd sit over the same saddle b/c the gun club adjoining us always put on a huge drive and this saddle was filled w/ mountain laurel so they'd drive parallel to the ridge and the deer would cut up the ridge through the mountain laurel off their property and right up to yours truly.

 

[SFC B]

I would say, especially on public land you don't have done apt, use the topos to find some ridges and adjoining water sources. I hunted blackies and WTs in WA state with similar topography (and VERY dense cover) and had good luck setting up on the game trails that ran between the 2 especially. It seemed with both species that a general rule, with variations course was that the deer moved up in the morning to find cover and bed and down to water in the evenings. I would start there. In my time hunting in IN (no real elevation changes in the North where I hunt) I found similar movement but simply to and from cover/bedding to water(and crops to eat). My 2cents

 

[DRAFTSTUD]

Download the Hunstand program and outline your areas. Do your research on where any High wind have laid over trees opening up the Browse areas. Has there or will there be any logging in the area you wish to hunt, deer will move into these areas to browse the tops. A slow walk though fresh cutovers are real good ways to spend a morning, pausing often to "spook" the deer. Good Luck! John

 

[tarheel]

Without knowing what forest you're hunting and it's surrounding lands it's a bit difficult to advise. Most Eastern hardwood forests hold much fewer deer per mile than does adjoining land where agriculture or timbering operations provide food for whitetail. They're welfare animals and thrive around humans in much greater numbers than they would when relying on browse and acorns or fruit from abandoned orchards.
Best to set up in a pinch point between bedding areas and feeding areas, but finding those spots requires either lots of scouting and sign reading or just blind luck. Leave a few for seed.

 

[PAhunter]

I have hunted for a couple of decades now in the kind of conditions that you describe. Good advice in this thread so far.

1) If you choose to still hunt during firearms season along a ridge near the military crest (my personal favorite method when gun hunting, BTW), I will say that binoculars are NOT useless, and I feel severely handicapped if I forget mine for some reason. Yes, I "think" I can see through the woods, but there can be literally no end to the number of stumps/logs/rocks that look like parts of a deer. With binoculars I can quickly determine if I am looking at part of a deer or at some inanimate object.

2) Is the rut in full swing during firearms season in the state you are hunting, or is it post rut? When I hunt in PA, I see very little rut activity since the firearms season occurs after Thanksgiving. In KY, on the other hand, firearms season opens right at the peak of the rut; I see far more voluntary deer movement in that time frame and therefore spend much more time hunting stationary stands in travel funnels than I do on the move.

3) Hunt the edges. Even in mostly mature timber, there are all kinds of subtle edges that we often overlook. The deer relate heavily to those edges though, so you can use them to your advantage. Examples: where laurel thickets meet open hardwoods, evergreens/hardwood edges, power line or gas line ROWs, swamp edges, cutover edges, tornado/wind damage areas, breaks in terrain, .... often the property boundary between public and private is good, for a host of reasons (obviously we need to respect the boundary though!).

And as others have mentioned, use all of that hunting pressure on high-use days to your advantage.

 

[rlmmatt]

I grew up hunting public land in Tn. Still hunting with the orange army is a real good way to get shot don't due it. Go out and scout around for a good trail and put a climber up be there at least as hour before daylight and make certain what you shot at. I've had people walk right under me two hours after sun up. Some of my best luck was finding large fallen trees with root balls and get in the hole over looking the trail from the ground.

 

[PAhunter]

Still hunting with the orange army is a real good way to get shot don't due it.

I don't think that statistics back up this statement.

 

[Matt/VT]

So much depends on where you are and what the deer densities are. There is not a lot of difference between hunting public land ( if you are in big woods = backcountry) whitetails in the east and elk in the west. The deer, especially bucks, will move away from pressure and into hard-to-access areas (topography or nasty cover). People are also the same, with smaller percentages going in further. While a treestand will be effective, still hunting can be effective if you are where the bucks are- that's the part to figure out. If you are in an area that gets snow, don't be afraid to try to track one down!

 

[1_pointer]

I have hunted for a couple of decades now in the kind of conditions that you describe. Good advice in this thread so far.

1) If you choose to still hunt during firearms season along a ridge near the military crest (my personal favorite method when gun hunting, BTW), I will say that binoculars are NOT useless, and I feel severely handicapped if I forget mine for some reason. Yes, I "think" I can see through the woods, but there can be literally no end to the number of stumps/logs/rocks that look like parts of a deer. With binoculars I can quickly determine if I am looking at part of a deer or at some inanimate object.

2) Is the rut in full swing during firearms season in the state you are hunting, or is it post rut? When I hunt in PA, I see very little rut activity since the firearms season occurs after Thanksgiving. In KY, on the other hand, firearms season opens right at the peak of the rut; I see far more voluntary deer movement in that time frame and therefore spend much more time hunting stationary stands in travel funnels than I do on the move.

3) Hunt the edges. Even in mostly mature timber, there are all kinds of subtle edges that we often overlook. The deer relate heavily to those edges though, so you can use them to your advantage. Examples: where laurel thickets meet open hardwoods, evergreens/hardwood edges, power line or gas line ROWs, swamp edges, cutover edges, tornado/wind damage areas, breaks in terrain, .... often the property boundary between public and private is good, for a host of reasons (obviously we need to respect the boundary though!).

And as others have mentioned, use all of that hunting pressure on high-use days to your advantage.

Read this a couple of times, especially the first and last point. IME, public land whitetail hunts are more about hunting the deer as they are getting away from folks vs. hunting them doing "deery" things. I like saddles and obvious bottlenecks.

Staying all day or at least longer than the others can be a big help. Lots of deer get pushed around by folks going back for biscuits and gravy.

 

[opslt79]

I am fortunate to be able to hunt between 20 and 40 days each year for eastern whitetails, depending on my work schedule and success rate. I hunt about 50/50 between farm lots and Wayne National forest, in SE Ohio that has large tracts of hardwood. Generally I hunt from a tree stand (climber or lock-on) when bow hunting, and still hunt during gun season. When hunting the forest lands, I try to find a bench of saddle that has mature oaks or hickory. Whitetail, like most animals don't like to waste energy and will look for the easy travel routes. Use the terrain and take advantage of their predictable tendencies. A little scouting and knowledge of land will go a long way.

One tip on still hunting; if you hunt 90 degrees to the wind, you can hunt in AND out of the woods. If you hunt directly into the wind, you'll have less than favorable conditions as you come out.

 

[beginnerhunter]

Thanks for the replies.

The firearm season is usually peak rut. The deer density should be considered fairly low as there is very little agricultural activity in these areas. One of them is 175000 acres with 221 antlered deer harvested last year. The other one is 85000 acres with 82 antlered deer harvested. The smaller one is much more rugged/steep terrain.

There are a few "food plots" maintained by the game and fish scattered throughout the areas. I think they are perennial clover. Would they be worth looking at?

It sounds like I'm going to need to do more scouting.

 

[beginnerhunter]

Also, no snow . It's the Arkansas Ouachita mountains.

 

[JDH]

I have hunted for a couple of decades now in the kind of conditions that you describe. Good advice in this thread so far.

1) If you choose to still hunt during firearms season along a ridge near the military crest (my personal favorite method when gun hunting, BTW), I will say that binoculars are NOT useless, and I feel severely handicapped if I forget mine for some reason. Yes, I "think" I can see through the woods, but there can be literally no end to the number of stumps/logs/rocks that look like parts of a deer. With binoculars I can quickly determine if I am looking at part of a deer or at some inanimate object.

2) Is the rut in full swing during firearms season in the state you are hunting, or is it post rut? When I hunt in PA, I see very little rut activity since the firearms season occurs after Thanksgiving. In KY, on the other hand, firearms season opens right at the peak of the rut; I see far more voluntary deer movement in that time frame and therefore spend much more time hunting stationary stands in travel funnels than I do on the move.

3) Hunt the edges. Even in mostly mature timber, there are all kinds of subtle edges that we often overlook. The deer relate heavily to those edges though, so you can use them to your advantage. Examples: where laurel thickets meet open hardwoods, evergreens/hardwood edges, power line or gas line ROWs, swamp edges, cutover edges, tornado/wind damage areas, breaks in terrain, .... often the property boundary between public and private is good, for a host of reasons (obviously we need to respect the boundary though!).

And as others have mentioned, use all of that hunting pressure on high-use days to your advantage.

A couple of years ago I moved and was forced to start hunting hilly, timbered areas. #3 is definitely something that I noticed as a big draw. I hunt the edge between public and private for a couple of reasons, one being their is a grassy area on private near it. Their is also a large creek on one side. The smaller ditches that flow into the creek have some swampy areas that provide a "subtle edge" that the deer seem drawn too. Only one of these areas is visible from Google Earth so it may take some in person scouting to find these areas.

 

[PAhunter]

The firearm season is usually peak rut. The deer density should be considered fairly low as there is very little agricultural activity in these areas. One of them is 175000 acres with 221 antlered deer harvested last year. The other one is 85000 acres with 82 antlered deer harvested. The smaller one is much more rugged/steep terrain.

Those kinds of numbers usually seem to reflect areas where there are pockets of decent deer density, but vast areas where there are almost no deer at all; and that can be especially true during the rut when the bucks are with, or actively seeking, the does. In that scenario if I am in a new area and really can't scout "on the ground" in advance, I use Google Earth to plot likely routes for still hunting based on terrain and visible cover types. When I hit the woods, I don't slow to true still hunting pace and definitely don't sit down unless I come upon either the deer themselves or obvious concentrations of fresh deer sign (not just buck sign if I'm hunting the rut). Even then, I am not likely to spend more than a couple of hours in a stationary position.

In archery season if the pressure is not high, hunting trails near the plots may be worthwhile, but if there is truly an 'orange army' in the area for firearms season, I don't waste time on them then.

Still hunting advice in the hardwoods, once you know you are in a good area? Move as slowly as you can stand to go. Then slow down to half of that speed. Chances are that you will still be moving fast enough to bump more deer than you'd like to.

 

[beginnerhunter]

Okay. I will put this info to use. Bow season probably won't have much pressure at all so I may try the food plots. I may do more still hunting during rifle since leaves will be off and chances of needing to move due to hunters will increase.

Thanks again and keep it coming!

 

[RUT JUNKEY]

Some great advice so far. Here's my 2 cents. I tend to "hunt" the does more than the bucks, if you find and pattern the does its just a matter of time! If the pre rut is on I like to concentrate on the downwind edge of the bedding areas, as most of the big bucks I see or kill will troll here to check the whole bedding area for a doe in heat instead of going in and out of the thicket ( less work for them). I am a tree stand hunter about 99% of the time, so get 20+ feet up and wait...all day if possible. (especially during the peak of the rut) I am also a huge fan of natural bottle necks, water source, and whatever type of food source is available. I also use a set of rattling horns, if you don't have set...get some! Most of the big bucks I have taken were shortly after a rattling sequence. As always, on public ground, get deep away from mowed paths, roads, anything "easy". If the place is full of other hunters, use that...stay all day and outlast them...they WILL move deer I promise! Good luck.