crunchy roads and blacktails

[JDHasty]

Tree stands are your friend.  The first one I bought sat in the back of my garage a couple of years and then we put it up and twenty minutes after it was first occupied, by a first time hunter..... blacktail down. 

It wasn't frost that weekend, it was dry as heck and the dry leaves were killing us.

I now own seven.

My first one was almost a gift, a Cabela's manager hooked me up when they first opened, I think I paid $44 for it.  I had never used one, now they are my first choice of how to hunt blacktails.

[predatorG]

My brother and dad saw 5 deer at 2:00 in a year old clearcut today. Couldn't seal the deal.

[lamrith]

Nothing at all moving where I was today.  Cold, foggy and nothing moving.  I sat from 9:20-3, within 100yrds of place I saw does multiple times yesterday.

[JDHasty]

Dry leaves used to kill us on blacktails, then we went to setting up a LOT of ladder stands (I am 56 and refuse to use a stand that does not have an attached ladder or a shooting rail to catch me when, not if, I fall asleep in a stand) and these have to be set up in late summer.  I know that I diverge from your current predicament, but that is most of what I have to offer you.  Be prepared next year.   

The damnable BT bucks are hard to bag once they reach maturity and I am notoriously noisy anyway in the woods.  I guess that if not having a treestand already set up.... I would say that that buck was there for a reason and maybe some estrous urine might get him where you want him with archery tackle, that and a Primos Can or maybe just tickling a rattle bag or antlers might get him curious enough to check YOU out.  It is still a long shot, but what do you have to lose? 

You are not going to get close enough to him, before he busts you, if you are moving on potato chips.  These old buggers didn't get old by not checking out every sound around them.  They, the mature bucks, stop dead and check you out when they hear you, and I say that as a guy that hunts in and around were human activity is a daily occurrence to them.

Where I hunt it is said:  deer are everywhere.  A biologist told me there are 180+ blacktails/square mile.  40% are bucks and ~30% of them are three point or better.  So if we accept that half of those are mature bucks that means that the mature buck you saw was probably one of ~five that saw, herd or winded you and you don't know about.  Any mature blacktail is a trophy in my book and you, my friend, have located a place that mature bucks can be found.  Good job! 

There is a cat from Oregon who wrote a book and he pounds the ground with a club and rattles like there is a big buck fight going on.  I think his name is Hogan.  I haven't used his techniques, but I think it would maybe work in a place where you have been busted by a mature buck.  My thoughts are:  the one that busted you was there for a reason and the reason he was there is why I think that you just might have found a location that, for whatever reason, attracts mature bucks. 

What I am saying is that if he was there...  you do the math.  Get set up and see if you can get him, or another mature buck moving your way on your terms.  You shoot a mature BT buck w/archery tackle and you, my friend, are a man amongst men. 

Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.  What do you have to lose though?  Your eyes have told you this:  mature BT bucks are hanging out right here at this time of year.  The four you didn't see and the one you did are more likely than not going to be there than any other place you try to still hunt through the next time you are there.

Get in quietly as possible and set up and say to yourself that that buck was not on the trail that I found him using a trail the does were using, but he is looking for a doe to go down that path.  Try to get a mature buck to "come looking"  for a doe in estrous along that path. 

I'm not an expert, but I like to play the averages.             

[TheHunt]

If I was archery hunting I would be baiting with a tree stand. I would be putting everything out there.   Apples, corn, Wet COB, and alfalfa.    Hot doe urine. 

[JDHasty]

If I was archery hunting I would be baiting with a tree stand. I would be putting everything out there.   Apples, corn, Wet COB, and alfalfa.    Hot doe urine.

Me too. 

Get the herd coming in to feed and the bucks will check it out this time of year.  I've watched bucks check out an apple tree that had a half-dozen apples laying under it and never stop for a bite, but they still will check them out.  I can guarantee you that other BT bucks checked it from back where I could not see them. 

The estrous urine might be what gets them to actually check the bait site.  If the doe herd is checking and feeding there the BT bucks will be close, I guarantee it and there is precious little I will guarantee when it comes to BT bucks.  They will be checking it, your job is to get them where you can get a good shot.

If the does are not dropping estrous urine, you do the math.  Put it out and then sit it out.
 
The rub is that even getting the doe herds started on even wet COB sometimes takes more time than you have.

If you had a couple months to get them in on apples and then get them eating wet COB...  I think you have found a location and the estrous urine and an auditory enticement to get them to where their nose leads them to their demise is all you have going for you this late in the season. 

Again, I am not an expert.   But getting mature bucks going on corn or wet cob takes more time than you have this season.  Even when they are hard on cracked corn or wet COB, once the rut starts the heard still feeds but the bucks just don't show to feed like they do in the summer. 

I think they get close enough to check it out and then move on to check the next place does congregate.  Even the ones that were feeding all summer.  YMMV     

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Snarky, Instead of walking on the roads, try getting into the timber. If it's not too cold the limbs will  keep the frost off the ground just like they keep snow off the ground. Roads don't have thermal cover above them, especially in open clearcuts.

Other than that, as mentioned, stands are a good idea, and the longer before dawn you get there, the more settled down the animals will be.

[fishnfur]

   Sometimes, under the 15 year old reprod, the ground doesn't fully heave from frost. 

When it got to this time of the year in past seasons, I was more than willing to take a doe if it was permitted in the unit I was hunting.  They taste the same and fill your belly just as well.

Now that the cold has had time to work on the brush, if you can still find an active food source showing recent browsing and/or other fresh sign, I'd sit on it.  Those deer are cold and have to eat to stay warm.  If all the leaves are gone, all bets are off because they will browse on woody stems (which are everywhere) and less nutritious plants like salal and sword fern tips.  In my mind, that means less chance of finding them in any given spot.  They will travel less looking for food and just be harder in general to find.

[predatorG]

The timber is a great spit to be. If you can find a food and water source very close by each other, sit on a trail between them. The timber will also help to keep you warm.

[fishnfur]

Quit talking - you're scaring the animals.  Go. Hunt.  Kill.  Eat!

[predatorG]

Typing helps me keep my fingers from falling off...

[fishnfur]

   

Good luck!

[Fl0und3rz]

Tag

[Firedogg]

Crunch ten steps, wait 15 minutes, repeat

  If you feel you need to move around this is the way to do it. You can cover some ground, hopefully not jump something, and maybe that nice buck you did jump will circle back while you sit perfectly still (this includes movement to snack on stuff, stay still).

[predatorG]

Rough stuff. Sounds like you need to implicate a predator management program  I'm sure there's plenty of people here that will help you out!