Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Plans for next deer season?

Habitat work. Always room for improvements

I’m always cutting brush, no end to that

You ain't joking hanco. Had property logged about 5 years ago and now it's really coming into its prime.

Have to re learn the property. In years past, if grass and weeds got a foot tall, it's a good growing season due to the canopy. Now this past year I had to elevate the ground blinds cuz the growth is over 6'.

We had a real decent season and now that I have an idea, it's gonna be balls to the wall on habitat

use more round - up

Rancher will not allow that, runs cows.

We are no longer allowed to feed protein are ANY supplemental feeding through feeders. CWD.

So it looks like we will be planting a spring crop.

I'm gonna be moving some feeders. This past season I placed feeders close to the blinds 50-65 yds for the grand kids. it was their first year hunting deer. they are 7 and 9 years old. It worked great for the kids, but only young Bucks would come in during day light hours. All the shooter Bucks only came in after dark. They are shooting good now and will have no problem hitting a deer at 100+ yds next season. Once rifle season opens, even the young Bucks would be very skittish coming to the feeder.

We can't use feeders either for hunting but it's basically OK to use them for wildlife viewing????

Don't make sense to me on that logic. I guess it's like the covid logic, CWD only transmits in certain ways designated by certain govt people

Next year is my daughters first year to get her own tags.. so, alpine hunting with her right after fishing season. Hopefully she can knock down 2-3 bucks in a series of multi day hunts.

Then for me, heavily timbered ridges late Oct/Early Nov. Also want to punch a few tags 100-150 miles away by boat in some virgin timber.

Gonna hunt the same lease out of the same stands. They’ve been productive for several years and that should continue.

Maine, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania

Most of the time will be on the home farm. No tree stands or blinds to deal with. Been thinking about spending some time wandering around a gamelands or state forest. Parts of the Allegheny National Forest aren’t too far away.

Dale

Not sure yet. I'll hunt idaho for deer and bow elk. I have 20 points for elk and deer in Colorado I need to burn some day. My son has max points in Wyoming for deer and elk plus 20 points for deer and elk in Arizona. Then I have a deer hunt I do in Eastern Montana every year. I think I'm going to be busy.....

staying in my home state this year goose ,duck . grouse hunt, bear hunt and deer hunt i have a cabin up at the border not many people around there .have lots of land to hunt on also.

I'd like to hunt the early bear season on our lease in Virginia. Maybe even go up there hunting during the rifle season for deer.

Sell all my stand’s except for a climber, a lock on and a pop up blind. I tag nearly all my critters on foot or at ground level on my big azz. Box stands and ladders are probably going down the road.

Deer numbers are down where we hunt in Colorado, so I’m going to save a couple of grand on tag, processing, and taxidermy and skip the NR deer license. I’ll hunt whitetail around home since I don’t have to buy a license as a Senior. I’ll probably stay in the club lease next year and I am currently investigating a private lease closer to the house.

I've hit a point in my hunting where I can have the opportunity to shoot does and small bucks pretty regularly....I have collected a number of 60-90" racks over the last years. A couple 100-115 or so. 2020 I killed a 135" 10 point in Ohio and it's kinda changed me. I was already on a mission to find bigger bucks. But killing him really kinda made me more interested in bigger racks and less interested in smaller racks. I know 135" isn't a monster and some of you pass bucks that size.


I've been scouting my butt off on public for the last several years. 9 years actually....it was 2014 when I really went hard at it.

I'd occasionally see a good one here n there...115"+ but never killed them and opportunities were very limited.

This year I decided to add a bunch of cameras to my arsenal. I really didn't run cameras much prior.

I ran 12-15 cameras in areas I scouted through the years. Areas I'd hunt or have hunted. I was kinda shocked at what they revealed. The areas I've been focusing on had nothing I'd even consider shooting even a couple years ago. Not sure why. I'm kinds thinking EHD has been hitting those specific areas.

Areas I've been driving past and not looking at had more buck than I could believe. Some nice ones but only 1 or 2 that really got me excited.


The public pressure is also getting out of control anymore...we have a mid October doe/bear muzzleloader season and the pressure is pretty dang high around here because we have the first good bear population most guys can easily drive to...that IMO hinders the rut.

I've killed a lot of deer on public. Some nice bucks...seen some gooduns over the years....but I've come to realization that I need to open my doors.

I never thought I'd pay to hunt deer...especially in my home state. But wanting to hunt bigger bucks, it's my best option.

I have 1 lease secured. We leased it in a hurry because leases go super fast around here and we were able to get it half priced since half the year is over (as they run their year..) really it was the 2nd week of rifle season. I didn't have high hopes after I started walking the place. It's big woods and mature timber. I didn't think it'd be holding what I wanna hunt....but in the late season I saw 3 mature bucks. A little bit of an unknown because late season deer are in different areas....but I know there are at least 3 good ones in the area....possibly more.

We have a line into a pretty sizeable chunk that is in the same area. It's got more guys but it's cheaper and will give me about 1000 acres to hunt. Hoping I can get onto that one.


Have another in the works I actually hunted a bit the last 2 years.


And working on another closer to the house.


My thoughts is to get into a few options...scout, cameras, hunt....then let the bad ones go and try to pick up others.


Actually just dropped some food and cameras on the one today...hopefully the good ones I saw come in and I can get their pics since I couldn't get them killed. And hopefully collect their sheds after winter.

Will scout hard as soon as winter breaks...



Also hoping to continue my out of state adventures in the fall. I hunted Ohio in 2020 and 2021. Couldn't go this season and definitely missed it. I have a blast hunting out of state and enjoy it. EHD hit the area I hunted very hard so it'll probably be at least 3 or 4 years before I consider going back. Looking at some other options...

Walking the woods scouting and checking game camera's has cost hunters big bucks figuratively and literally. That's the reason bow hunting is always before gun season. Look at aerial maps and mark the likely pinch points, travel corridors and land contours. Then have someone fly you around where you plan on hunting so you a visual of what's actually happening. You can also see how and where your neighbors are hunting.

Need to replace my blind and build a couple brush blinds