Late Season Blacktail-Getting Discouraged

[Boss .300 winmag]

What Boss 300 said..... You gotta get in the thick stuff where they are. I finally saw a deer ( first one this season when I was actually out stomping around 2 days ago). I forced myself to go take a look at an area i had been in 3 times already.....it was the 3rd hike of the day. I had been on all sides of an old clear cut and hadn't seen any fresh sign coming and going into it. Now this is an old cut.....jackfirs 12 or 14 feet tall, vine maples e everywhere, and BlackBerry vines that are out to dump you on your face. I was disgusted that there was still no sign as decided to cut across instead of making the loop and having to hike back around to the gate uphill. Guess where they are living g right now........right out in the middle of all that brush crap! I saw 3.....but would have had better luck with a club or a spear  They are just hanging right in the thick stuff....no need for them to go anywhere, one step and they are out of sight. Gotta figure out how to get a little elevation on them...heck I  even thought of packing in a ladder to gain a couple feet and see a little farther   

Keep plugging away at it.....poke your nose in to places you wouldn't think they could be in......they are where you find them!
Good luck!

So here's my question: Let's say the deer are in this god-awful nightmare bush, that you can't move into without sounding like a 3-ring circus trampling through a forest, how do you actually achieve any sort of shot-lane on that?

Just hope there is a shooting lane when you find them.😉

[Crunchy]

Sounds like you havent gotten the deer patterned.  They have to feed and bed.  It all isn't done in the same place.  Need to find their travel routes. Should be pretty easy just by driving the roads and looking for the deer trails that cross the roads and go into the timber or clearcut edges.  Get out and look for fresh track.  If you are in the right spot you should be seeing deer move the first two hrs of light and last hour.

[blackveltbowhunter]

LJ,

   It is all situation dependent. From your description, I would do one of two things. Attempt to pattern and set up a blind or stand to ambush. OR find an area more conducive to hunting.

   Its no secret deer will ball up in brushy holes givne pressure in hard hunted areas. But my experience has been that they are extrememly difficult to hunt in that scenario given the limited knowledge you have of the area.  If they have food, they may not move enough to successfully ambush moving from feed to bed, as they are bedding where they are eating. Weather might move them, Loss of decent browse might move them those answers take time to figure out. Scouting information of the area at this time of year is paramount to success in this scenario. If you have spent some time scouting or shed hunting this area in this time frame in years past then let that info guide you. Otherwise with limited time I wouldn't waste it. I would find deer in a more huntable location and go from there unless I was targeting a specific animal.

   

[ljsommer]

That's a burning question I've had for a while: In a region where every plant in view is lush and green, why would an animal even have to travel for food? People keep talking about "finding the feeding spot" vs "the bed spot", and while I understand that a feed spot might not be a good bed spot, wouldn't the reverse usually be true - that often bed spots are just totally surrounded by food? When I am in the woods I am looking around constantly and I just see lush greenery everywhere.

[Duckslayer89]

That's a burning question I've had for a while: In a region where every plant in view is lush and green, why would an animal even have to travel for food? People keep talking about "finding the feeding spot" vs "the bed spot", and while I understand that a feed spot might not be a good bed spot, wouldn't the reverse usually be true - that often bed spots are just totally surrounded by food? When I am in the woods I am looking around constantly and I just see lush greenery everywhere.

My late season tactic is driving roads slowly with dark timber/tall reprod on one side and fresh clear cuts with 3-4 foot trees on the other side right before dark or right at first light and I’ve drawn back on deer the last 3 out of 4 times Hunting and killed a buck the last time going out. Usually wearing sweat pants staying warm it’s fun and productive

[ljsommer]

That's a burning question I've had for a while: In a region where every plant in view is lush and green, why would an animal even have to travel for food? People keep talking about "finding the feeding spot" vs "the bed spot", and while I understand that a feed spot might not be a good bed spot, wouldn't the reverse usually be true - that often bed spots are just totally surrounded by food? When I am in the woods I am looking around constantly and I just see lush greenery everywhere.

My late season tactic is driving roads slowly with dark timber/tall reprod on one side and fresh clear cuts with 3-4 foot trees on the other side right before dark or right at first light and I’ve drawn back on deer the last 3 out of 4 times Hunting and killed a buck the last time going out. Usually wearing sweat pants staying warm it’s fun and productive

 You know people talk about this a lot, the whole "driving roads" thing and I've never understood it because I haven't ever found a huntable area that has unlocked gates - I am going in on foot for miles to even get to a cut. Where the hell are these driveable roads?!

I've been out at sunrise and sunset routinely for a while at my spot and it's just a ghost town, which leads me to think the deer are just staying put at the bedding spots and munching on whatever they have in the fridge at the time

[Duckslayer89]

That's a burning question I've had for a while: In a region where every plant in view is lush and green, why would an animal even have to travel for food? People keep talking about "finding the feeding spot" vs "the bed spot", and while I understand that a feed spot might not be a good bed spot, wouldn't the reverse usually be true - that often bed spots are just totally surrounded by food? When I am in the woods I am looking around constantly and I just see lush greenery everywhere.

My late season tactic is driving roads slowly with dark timber/tall reprod on one side and fresh clear cuts with 3-4 foot trees on the other side right before dark or right at first light and I’ve drawn back on deer the last 3 out of 4 times Hunting and killed a buck the last time going out. Usually wearing sweat pants staying warm it’s fun and productive

 You know people talk about this a lot, the whole "driving roads" thing and I've never understood it because I haven't ever found a huntable area that has unlocked gates - I am going in on foot for miles to even get to a cut. Where the hell are these driveable roads?!

I've been out at sunrise and sunset routinely for a while at my spot and it's just a ghost town, which leads me to think the deer are just staying put at the bedding spots and munching on whatever they have in the fridge at the time

Ya some areas don’t really have clear cuts I guess if they aren’t managed for timber harvest. I hunt an area that had tons of clear cuts. I would buy a mountain bike for locked gates. That’s my favorite way of hunting, cruise around jumping clear cuts on the bike. Then you can fly out right before dark.

[blackveltbowhunter]

That's a burning question I've had for a while: In a region where every plant in view is lush and green, why would an animal even have to travel for food? People keep talking about "finding the feeding spot" vs "the bed spot", and while I understand that a feed spot might not be a good bed spot, wouldn't the reverse usually be true - that often bed spots are just totally surrounded by food? When I am in the woods I am looking around constantly and I just see lush greenery everywhere.

    Its not that they can't/won't eat alot of what surrounds them, they can just be picky  

BT are more difficult to hunt for that reason IMO. (Compared to muleys, Not much experience with WT). Deer within a few sqare miles may be operating in different ways simply based on "preffered" food sources within that area. In on area maybe the herd is using a grown up cut for feed and bedding in 25 year old timber with ferns and vineys several hundred yards away. A mile down the road the deer are using 12 year old reprod exclusivley, and moving not at all. In another maybe the repord has a large swamp with mixed viney, alders and tall timber, and they are feeding in that area and bedding in the security of reprod. The point is all of them will have a "preference" based on availability, pressure in area, and time of year. An example would be apples. Deer will be hitting browse hard in deep cover, or grass and green up from pastures in late summer early fall, but as soon as apples hit the pattern may change entirely and deer will move significantly to adjust to that preffered food. As that food becomes less preffered or pressure pushes them off of it, they switch to alternate food sources. I beleive their is always a preffered food and try to locate it.

[fishnfur]

Good input there.

RE: bedding and feeding areas - deer and other animals bed away from where they feed (I believe) because the food attracts a lot of other animals, some of which are predators waiting for animals to come in and feed.  Deer are secretive in nature and don't want animal traffic around their bedding areas (other animal's noises and movement cause stress, as do predators close to their beds), they just want to hide and stay alive till it's time to eat again.  It makes sense that they travel away from their bedding spots to feed and then leave when they are done eating. 

If you find the spot where they are feeding regularly, you will likely find bedding deer within a few hundred yards of that spot (Sometimes only  20 - 50 yards), most often uphill, and typically in brushy, swordfern and vine maple forested areas. 

[Pacific]

Yep, the shooting lane is the hard part! There are some "openings" in all this and a nice little canyon running through the middle....I just get so bored sitting in one place for very long, but going to have to get used to it. Back when I hunted with a rifle, I killed a couple of nice bucks in this type of stuff....close enough to almost touch and couldn't tell if a buck or not until they got on the other side of a draw where I could see the whole animal.....little tougher with the bow, though    I still have Saturday and Sunday to give it the ol' college try, though!

[Mallardmasher]

It may be lush and green, but it is not growing, when plants hibernate or go dormate, they store their reserves in their trunks or roots, the lush green you see contains very lo protein, about half of what they need daily, so they bed and eat in a very small area, to avoid burning any more energy then they have to, when green up occurs, protein skyrockets, and deer become active. You must find their home they will no venture far from it

[ljsommer]

It may be lush and green, but it is not growing, when plants hibernate or go dormate, they store their reserves in their trunks or roots, the lush green you see contains very lo protein, about half of what they need daily, so they bed and eat in a very small area, to avoid burning any more energy then they have to, when green up occurs, protein skyrockets, and deer become active. You must find their home they will no venture far from it

Ahh that's very interesting, thank you. Do you know what plant species deer are eating post-rut? What should I be looking for when I am out there?

[JimmyHoffa]

I think they like salal around now and also like to eat from the freshly downed branches.

[ljsommer]

I think they like salal around now and also like to eat from the freshly downed branches.

So would you imagine they are bedding/eating in large power line cuts? Those big exposed areas of nasty stuff under power lines?

[Boss .300 winmag]

I think they like salal around now and also like to eat from the freshly downed branches.

So would you imagine they are bedding/eating in large power line cuts? Those big exposed areas of nasty stuff under power lines?

Very well could be, try it.