Patterning deer in large expanses of timberlands ?

[moleman]

My normal stomping grounds consist of a patchwork quilt of crops and woods which makes patterning deer movement fairly easy, but as of late ive had the opportunity to hunt some huge state and national forest areas.
My question is this, with the awsome mast crop we have had this yr., and forage everywhere, where does a guy start when trying to figure out deer patterns in these huge expanses of timber with no crops for miles?
Being one who has always hunted farmland, im a little out of my element here and could use some suggestions.

[threeunder]

Here in Virginia, we call it "big woods" hunting as opposed to "woodlot" hunting.
There's no doubt hunting big woods is a much harder game.  Lots of acorns makes it even tougher.
Scouting will find the acorns that the deer are actually eating.  If your mast crop is that good, there will be acorns (like white oak acorns) that they will key on first, and then proceed to the less desirable ones.
Assuming I can find where they are currently feeding, I then try to look at the woods as fields.
Here's what I'm talking about.  If you will consider big, mature timber as a field (ie somewhere you wouldn't normally find a deer bedding during the day) you will have half your work done through elimination.  By eliminating the really open woods and concentrating on geographic features (funnels, rivers, cliffs) and thick undergrowth (laurel thickets, ivy thickets, storm/blowdown damage) you should be able to come up with a reasonable idea of #1 where they are bedding, #2 where they are eating, and #3 their travel routes.
Now with those areas/routes in mind and remembering where your "fields" are...focus on the edges within the big woods.  Whitetails relate to edges a tremendous amount.
If you look at the woods as a whole you see nothing but trees and trees and trees.  But picturing the big woods as your own little wood lot with adjacent fields helps you focus on where you need to be.
Big woods hunting isn't easy.  I hunt with a guy who all but loses it when he steps foot into this type of hunting.  It can be very, very intimidating.
But, I truly believe, using this line of thought, you'll end up putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
Sorry to be so lengthy.  This is actually a topic my buddies and I have discussed dozens of times.  We all pretty well agree that this helps in finding the deer.

[Bud B.]

Good post threeunder!

[ron w]

Big woods, even in vast expanses of forest look for edge.....not like field and woods, but pine to hardwood, briers to pines. Deer will relate to these " edges" just as they do to the ones your are familiar with. Combine that with saddles and creeks and you will see funnels start to appear. Do some scouting, look at a top map and you will find what you are looking for.

[wooddamon1]

Nothing to add here, great posts so far. I'm learning myself...  

[gregg dudley]

Good advice.  I'll add:  Play the wind and play the people. Big woods deer tolerate less human scent than farm country or woodlot deer do.  Watch what other people are doing and see how you can use that to your advantage.

[Scott J. Williams]

I have often been challenged with the task of unraveling the "Big Woods" puzzle. The first thing I do is get a topo map. This gives me a better idea of the lay of the land, structure is what I am looking for.  Naturally I begin by looking for changes in elevation, and wet and dry creek beds or water ways. These natural occurrences are natural travel routes.  

I find that locating these areas are far more important to do before I attempt to locate food sources. This allows me to spend my time with boots on the ground in the more likely areas.  

I deliberately avoid areas that get a lot of attention from the easy access type hunters.  Once I have located changes in elevation, these can be very subtle, I then move to a stereoscope with aerial photos, or Google maps.  In most cases, the Google maps feature provides photos that are in some cases twenty years old or older. The use of topo and Google can give you an idea of the lay of the land in some cases before they have grown up with brush and trees. One of the best resources is logging operations.  Logging operations that have been in an area within the last two years are always on the top of my list, due to the second growth cover and food have proven to be a gold mine, and have not failed me often. Old strip mining operations are much the same, providing cover, food, and structure.

Next is to spend time on the ground, marking likely spots with GPS.

[Benjy]

Originally posted by Bud B.:
Good post threeunder!

Great suggestion! It's already starting to click for me on some of the property that I hunt!

[cahaba]

Great suggestions. Also one thing I look for is pinch points or funnels ,anywhere that narrows down in the landscape or a creek that makes a sharp bend. One of my favorite pinch points is an opening 20 yards wide with a bluff on each side that opens up into an acorn flat. The bluff on one side levels out about 25 ft. high so I just set up on top with my DB chair i.e. no treestand needed. Due to the travel time to get there I have only hunted it twice and seen deer both times. I missed an 8 point the first time I hunted it. I found this area on google maps without ever scouting the place.. Good huntin...Dave

[wetfeathers]

I think that was the best way I've ever heard it explained. Thank you threeunder.  Great advice.    

[Pheonixarcher]

This is all excellent advice!  I'll throw in my two cents if you don't mind. There are three basic needs to every living thing. Food, water, and cover. It is seldom that you will find a habitat anywhere that has an abundance of all three. There will always be a limiting factor. Find out which of these three it is, and go to that place!  Also, look for alternative food sources. Deer prefer and require a diversity of food. Just because there is an abundance of acorns, does not mean that they are not hitting a specific type of browse or other forbes as well. Find that alternative food source, and you'll find the deer. Good luck, and let us know how you do. We are all still learning our selves.

[Pheonixarcher]

This is all excellent advice!  I'll throw in my two cents if you don't mind. There are three basic needs to every living thing. Food, water, and cover. It is seldom that you will find a habitat anywhere that has an abundance of all three. There will always be a limiting factor. Find out which of these three it is, and go to that place!  Also, look for alternative food sources. Deer prefer and require a diversity of food. Just because there is an abundance of acorns, does not mean that they are not hitting a specific type of browse or other forbes as well. Find that alternative food source, and you'll find the deer. Good luck, and let us know how you do. We are all still learning our selves.

[Pheonixarcher]

This little browser glitch is getting annoying. Sorry for the double post!

[Easykeeper]

In a big woods area I try to find a narrow strip of solid ground between two swamps, basically the classic funnel.  I look for a place where if a deer wants to get from this big block of woods to that other big block of woods, he has to go through here.  Within that funnel or strip of land there is usually another pinch point where you can predict that he will come through here and   right past there.  Hopefully there is a tree or blind spot where you want it...lol.  Works great for all deer, but especially for bucks when they start cruising.

Food sources are good, but the problem is they can eat anywhere and I've found they will bed in relatively open areas, not just in the really thick stuff where we expect them.  One of the favorite bedding areas in the big woods around here is a sunny, relatively open south facing slope with quick and easy access to one of the many sloughs or swamps.  They are basically bedding right next to where they are eating.

Big woods hunting is tough, especially when the acorns are plentiful and the rut is far off.  Last week of October and the first week of November (in Minnesota), find a nice funnel and watch the parade...    

[NBK]

Originally posted by Easykeeper:
In a big woods area I try to find a narrow strip of solid ground between two swamps, basically the classic funnel.  I look for a place where if a deer wants to get from this big block of woods to that other big block of woods, he has to go through here.  Within that funnel or strip of land there is usually another pinch point where you can predict that he will come through here and   right past there.  Hopefully there is a tree or blind spot where you want it...lol.  Works great for all deer, but especially for bucks when they start cruising.

Food sources are good, but the problem is they can eat anywhere and I've found they will bed in relatively open areas, not just in the really thick stuff where we expect them.  One of the favorite bedding areas in the big woods around here is a sunny, relatively open south facing slope with quick and easy access to one of the many sloughs or swamps.  They are basically bedding right next to where they are eating.

Big woods hunting is tough, especially when the acorns are plentiful and the rut is far off.  Last week of October and the first week of November (in Minnesota), find a nice funnel and watch the parade...      

X2.  Same here.  I had a post a week or so ago about bedding areas in big woods.  Last Wednesday I spent 6 hours just covering ground looking for beds.  I bumped deer out of beds on the grassy edge of a creek, at the top of a hill overlooking the creek and again up tight to the blacktop road as I was getting ready to leave. They can bed anywhere.  My money is on funnels in and around swamps/creeks etc.

[German Dog]

Originally posted by threeunder:
Here in Virginia, we call it "big woods" hunting as opposed to "woodlot" hunting.
There's no doubt hunting big woods is a much harder game.  Lots of acorns makes it even tougher.
Scouting will find the acorns that the deer are actually eating.  If your mast crop is that good, there will be acorns (like white oak acorns) that they will key on first, and then proceed to the less desirable ones.
Assuming I can find where they are currently feeding, I then try to look at the woods as fields.
Here's what I'm talking about.  If you will consider big, mature timber as a field (ie somewhere you wouldn't normally find a deer bedding during the day) you will have half your work done through elimination.  By eliminating the really open woods and concentrating on geographic features (funnels, rivers, cliffs) and thick undergrowth (laurel thickets, ivy thickets, storm/blowdown damage) you should be able to come up with a reasonable idea of #1 where they are bedding, #2 where they are eating, and #3 their travel routes.
Now with those areas/routes in mind and remembering where your "fields" are...focus on the edges within the big woods.  Whitetails relate to edges a tremendous amount.
If you look at the woods as a whole you see nothing but trees and trees and trees.  But picturing the big woods as your own little wood lot with adjacent fields helps you focus on where you need to be.
Big woods hunting isn't easy.  I hunt with a guy who all but loses it when he steps foot into this type of hunting.  It can be very, very intimidating.
But, I truly believe, using this line of thought, you'll end up putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
Sorry to be so lengthy.  This is actually a topic my buddies and I have discussed dozens of times.  We all pretty well agree that this helps in finding the deer.

Great post!   I had the same problems when I started hunting "big woods", where does one hunt?  Take the above advice as really great info and will cut years off your learning curve.  I gathered alot on info from Reading Greg Millers books about hunting big woods but like I said read the above post will get ya the same results. Another thing is that if you hunt woods where they clear cut take some time and hunt the edge of a clear cut where you can see a good distance. This will seem foolish at first over looking such  big area but it will give you an idea of where the deer  are entering the clearcut(think food) and then you can start working back from there to help pin point travel routes and bedding areas.

but again, read threeunder's post.

[awbowman]

All pretty good info.  It's harder hunting big woods, but you will soon learn that not all "woods" is created equal.  I have a buddy that swears that 90% of the deer are killed in 10% of the woods (I'd say more like 20% of the woods).  The great thing about hunting big woods is that as a group we can form sanctuaries within the lease to hold the deer on the property.

Don't let the size of the woods worry you, when you find the right spots you will know.  After that it's just a matter of keying in on the right trees dropping the best acorns in that area.

We hunt on 3,500 acres of 20,000 contiguous acres of unbroken woods and if I plotted the stand locations you would see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, good luck, nothing like being several miles back from the camp just you and your bow.

[gringol]

One thing I've noticed is the "pattern" of big woods deer is a pretty loose concept.  All the advice given so far is really good, I would just add that in a lot of cases a "well worn" big woods deer trail may only get used by one or two deer once or twice a week.  That translates into a lot more time in the woods before you bag one.

[jhg]

I hunted whitetails in the big woods of Maine  (square miles of forest) for many years.

If you look at it like the farmland you are used to- the big woods are the same- but instead of cropland and plots and obvious edge travel lanes there is the exact same thing going on in the woods but the "crops" are hidden, the travel lanes unmarked by a reference fenceline etc and the boundries are just not there.

Still the deer will act upon that area just like they do where you are used to hunting. The trick is to learn and recognize how the deer are using the area.
 The hard part is there are usually no references like property or tract boundries and so its easy to get overwhelmed. You must find a way to segement the area for yourself- whatever works. Use topography and its landmarks or whatever is easy for you to use as benchmarks.
 I always kept it simple. Each area had an "entry point" and I would stack references off of that spot(landmark) to build up a mental image of how the area looked as a whole and how the deer used it.
Break down into pieces the area you will be hunting....after you find likely feeding areas.

Finally, its very easy for a deer in the big woods to get "pushed" out. They just go over to the next area until they feel safe to return. So be careful not to make them feel pressured.

Joshua

[ChuckC]

It was stated above.  All places, no matter how big or small, have structure. .  some reason for the deer to follow THIS trail and not just wander about aimlessly.  Try not to get stuck into a mold, keep an open mind and discover what this particular piece has that funnels more deer movement here than there.  Then exploit that.

In my swamp that I hunt,  high ground is like. .  8" higher than the rest,  but it is dry, and the deer use it.  

There are reasons why they use some areas more often than others.  We need to figure out why, then how to exploit that.  Every place is different.
ChuckC