POST SEASON SEARCH

By Bill Winke

To simplify your scouting this year, first find all the dots – the endpoints - and then everything else will seem easy.  You simply connect them with the most logical lines (not always straight) revealing the best places for your stands.  You can call these places Point A and Point B, but regardless of what you call them, they are the places where a buck is likely to be at a certain time of the day and where he is likely to go next. 

A buck's Point A and Point B change from one part of the day to the next and from one part of the season to the next.  So, before you set foot in the woods, think through all the possible endpoints first. 

During the early season, until about three weeks before breeding begins, a buck goes back and forth between his feeding and bedding areas.  So put buck bedding areas and any reasonable feeding area on your list of endpoints. 

Later, during the rut, he will be most preoccupied with doe bedding areas and doe feeding areas (which are generally the same as buck feeding areas).  He will travel between several doe bedding areas each morning and will head toward the doe feeding areas each evening.  Sometimes he will be following a doe and sometimes he will simply be looking for one.  Add doe bedding areas to your list of places to find. 

Then comes late season when he will once again travel between his bedding areas to common feeding areas and back again.

So, really the list is pretty darn short, three items: buck bedding areas, general feeding areas and doe bedding areas.

FINDING THE ENDPOINTS

Many bowhunters make the mistake of stopping at the field edge when scouting for food sources.  In many parts of the country, deer also feed heavily on mast (primarily acorns) and fruit (persimmons, apples and pears).  Most oak trees hold their leaves longer than other deciduous trees.  If you get up on a high point, you can often find the oak groves quite easily.  They are the areas where the trees are still holding onto to some of their leaves.  Of the oaks, the white, burr, chestnut and red oaks drop early in the fall.  In other areas of the country you will have your own set of oak subspecies.  If you don’t know when each drops its acorns, go online and look up acorns or oak trees on any good search engine. 

The most likely subspecies to rain fresh acorns during November in the Midwest and upper Midwest where I do most of my hunting is the shingle oak.  When I find a grove of shingle oaks, I definitely note the location because these trees draw deer heavily during the middle of the season. 

Finding all the possible feeding areas is one goal of your winter scouting trips, but it is not quite enough.  You still need to categorize them by the season in which deer are most likely to use them.  Generally, in the early season they will be in the soybeans (if the leaves are still green), alfalfa and clover.  They will be starting in the corn by October 1.  If it is a good mast year, they will definitely be on the white and red oak groves munching acorns.  Later in the season, they will shift more toward corn, sorghum and other grains, where available.  Other late season sources include green forage such as winter wheat and rye and brassicas such as Biologic, turnips and dwarf Essex rape.

Mark your map with all the likely doe bedding areas.  Does usually live in family groups, so you'll find a cluster of beds located close together rather than a single bed.  Bucks will occasionally bed on the fringes of these locations too, but to keep things simple, think of these spots primarily as doe bedding areas.  You’ll generally find doe bedding areas on the downwind sides of slopes where they can see everything downwind and smell everything upwind.

Doe bedding areas are easy to find compared to buck bedding areas.  They are also much more difficult to find than feeding areas.  In fact, of all the things you should find in the winter, these buck bedding areas will be the hardest to nail down, but likewise, they are the most important when setting up early season strategies. 

Bucks, especially mature ones, tend to bed in isolated places and are not likely to be around a lot of other deer.  You are looking for bit, single, isolated beds – always much harder to find than pods of beds that pinpoint doe bedding areas.  Look in draws, small wood lots and knobs for buck beds.  Thick cover is also a great place to find them.  Note all of them on a map because it is easy to forget these widely scattered locations. 

You’re 25% of the way done.  Don’t get distracted by sign, just yet.  At this point, your map or aerial photo will start to look like a child’s connect the dots game.  With the preliminary work done, it starts to get interesting.  Digest what you have in front of you for a few days and then make another trip to your hunting area with a new goal in mind: connecting those dots. 

CONNECT THE DOTS

This is where many bowhunters make their biggest mistake while scouting; they focus on buck sign and forget about everything else.  Buck sign is fine and good, but it ranks number five on my list of things to find in the winter.  What you learn after the season from last year’s sign is only marginally valuable.  It is hard to make something useful out of all these pieces; some sign is just random.  However, what you learn from the terrain you can take to the bank.

All too often, bucks will leave little sign in the areas they only pass through quickly, but these places are generally the best ambush sites because the bucks don’t linger there.  You can get in an out without spooking anything.  Sign is a part of the puzzle, but be careful not to overemphasize it.

Any feature of the terrain that will keep a buck out of sight is a good place for you to start looking.  He will also use the easy route whenever it doesn’t put him in danger.  Both of these aspects of a buck's choice in travel routes are dependent upon the terrain.  In areas where the ground is broken, understanding the terrain is one of the most important things you can do to up your odds of picking great stand locations.  Anticipating how a buck will travel through the hills and valleys is an under-appreciated skill.

A saddle on a ridgeline and a low swale across an open field are examples of positive terrain features –bucks seek these terrain features when they’re traveling.  There are also many others – use your imagination. 

A deep stretch of river and a sheer bluff are examples of negative features.  They force a traveling buck to make a detour.  These are the places deer avoid when traveling.  Once you find these detour signs, it isn't tough to look a little farther and figure out where the buck will go to get around the impassible object. 

Mark every dip, swale, ridge and ditch on your map, but knowing what makes up a possible travel route is not enough; the route itself still has to serve a purpose.  Why would a buck be using it in the first place?  This is where the game gets fun.  Now is when you can finally start deciding how to draw the lines that connect the many dots on your map.  Ideally, you should start making some of these connections while you are still scouting – or at least while you still have time to go back for another look. 

Your first attempt will be only that, a rough draft.  You need a little more on the ground time to find the very best stand locations.  You need two more pieces for your puzzle.

PICKING A STAND LOCATION

It's not enough to know Point A and Point B, and the likely travel routes between them, you also have to scout up the place along these routes (or find different routes) where the wind is in your favor. 

When hunting broken ground, the best spot for your stand often becomes a real mind-bender.  Some good-looking choices simply can't be hunted because of swirling winds, and those that set up well for the wind are often less than ideal travel routes.  It may take a couple of years of watching and fine-tuning to figure out the perfect place for the stand.  Occasionally, though, you'll strike upon that "no-brainer" stand site where everything comes together on paper and in the woods.  To find it, you must first understand and scout the wind. 

Don’t take this step for granted.  You can waste entire seasons hunting great-looking spots with questionable wind, all the while wondering why the deer seem to have abandoned your hunting area. 

You can be sure the wind will swirl in any protected pocket of terrain or cover.  Gusty conditions are the worst, be even steady winds will cause swirling in these places.  Don’t be lured into hunting a spot that is likely to have a swirling wind, hoping it won’t hurt you. It always does, eventually.  Take a hard look at every possible stand site and determine which wind directions will put the stand in a protected pocket.  If you can’t find a wind direction where it won’t swirl, you had better leave the spot and look for a better location.

Winter is the best time to scout the wind.  The foliage is nearly identical to what you find in November.  Carry some wind floaters and toss them as you go.  They are best for seeing the true affects of swirling.  Each new wind direction brings a different set of conditions, so you should never stop scouting the wind.  Every time you walk through your hunting area bring the floaters and let them fly often.  You will gain a great education, amazed by the amount of swirling that occurs in your hunting area.

Now you should scout for the final piece of the puzzle: your entry and exit routes.  They are critical.  No stand is a good choice if you can’t get to and from it without alerting deer.  If you plan to hunt an area (not just one stand) several times throughout the season, your exit route is just as important as your entry route.  You can educate just as many deer with a poor exit route as you can with a poor entry route. 

During the season, whenever a deer sees you, hears you, smells your airborne scent or hits your scent on the ground (even hours after you leave the woods) it becomes a little more cautious in that immediate area.  With repeated encounters, it will quickly learn to avoid the area altogether.  The goal is to find a route that will keep every deer from knowing you're around even if that means you have to go well out of your way.  Now is the best time to scout up (and clean up) entry and exit routes for your stands. 

When accessing a stand near a feeding area, for example, the morning entry route should make a wide loop around the food source (ideally coming from the opposite direction) to avoid running into deer that are probably milling or bedded on the field edge working their way slowly into the cover.  Likewise, select your evening exit path with an eye toward keeping your presence hidden from deer that are already feeding.

If you go through this four step scouting process, you will have some great stand locations.  Do the rest of the work now, too.  Get the shooting lanes cut and the paths prepared.  You may even choose to put your stands up if you are sure they won’t be stolen.  The more work you can do now, the easier it will be to relax and enjoy yourself during the hunting season.  .

Post-season scouting is the time when good deer hunters get their business done.  Focus your efforts on learning four things: the ends points (where deer bed and feed), the terrain (how deer use it), the wind (where it swirls) and the best routes in and out of the area (where deer won’t detect your passing).  Once your scouting turns up these important elements, the best tree for your stand will become obvious.  You will start looking at your hunting area with a lot clearer head, with a solid plan.  Next fall is going to be a lot of fun.

Sidebar: Gearing Up

Scouting is pretty darn low-tech for the most part.  An open mind is the most important thing you can take with you, but a few items will make the time more enjoyable and somewhat more profitable.  Obviously, a great map is important.  I use the Internet now to find and order aerial photos and topographical maps.  You can customize the maps exactly the way you want them.  For example, MyTopo.com allows you to frame the exact area you want on your map or photo and you can choose the features that it displays and even the scale.  Laminated maps are great because they are more durable and you can write on them with dry-erase markers without permanent effect.

You also need a comfortable pair of boots.  This is the time when you can and should comb every single inch of your hunting area so learn all the subtle terrain breaks and wind swirls.  You’ll surely log a few miles in the process, and you will probably bust a few thickets.  That’s where a good set of brush pants are really nice.  Local hunting stores carry these for upland bird hunters as do most mail order hunting catalogs and websites.  Of course, a midsize daypack is also nice to carry your maps, compass for checking wind direction and lunch.

Sidebar: Other Post Season Chores

Post-season scouting trips are also the perfect time to cut travel routes through ditches and creeks.  These features make awesome hunter access routes and you should use them wherever you find them.  There is no easier way to slip past a nearby a deer in the darkness than by walking in ditches and creeks. 

It can be tough to walk through these places because deadfalls tend to accumulate and they catch a lot of debris during runoff.  The branches and small trees can make ditches impassible for a hunter.  Take a chainsaw and cut a path through every ditch that you think you might use.  This small step will pay big dividends come fall because you will really come to enjoy sneaking in and out without hearing any disgusting alarm snorts.