Deer Basics
Deer Hunting Tips: Deer Basics
Deer hunting is by no means easy. But for one to be able to increase the odds for success, one needs to understand the basics of deer habits. The hunter needs to take advantage of these basic factors in order to bring home the meat.
Food Sources
During the early parts of the deer hunting season, deer will be eating mostly on field crops. They will spend time throughout the day browsing on corn, beans, or other crops. This is simply because these are the most available food sources. As the season progresses, deer add acorns, persimmons, and other such temporary food sources to their diets.
The hunter needs to scout his hunting area to locate all available food sources at any given time of the season. Stands or blinds need to be set up near these areas. As the food changes, so do the set up locations.
Water Sources
Deer will require watering sources frequently during the early hunting season. They will need to hydrate several times during each day. Depending on the area, there may be many watering holes or only a select few. Deer will use lakes, ponds, swamps, creeks, and any other location that holds water.
Deer hunting near a watering hole, especially during warm weather, may offer the hunter an additional chance at that buck. An ideal set up location would be near a heavily used creel crossing or near a small pond.
Bedding Areas
The deer bedding areas will often be found in the thickest terrain found on the property. However, they will bed down in tall grass, corn fields, small patches of woods, or the top edges of hills. Deer will have several bedding areas on any given piece of land. Again, proper scouting of the area to be hunted is a must.
Set up stand locations around bedding areas. Don’t get too close as to spook the deer. Depending upon the type of area, try to stay back at least fifty to seventy five yards if possible.
Travel Zones
The travel zones are areas used by deer to move from a bedding area to a food source area, and then back again. These travel zones will change depending upon what type of food the deer are currently dieting on. A small patch of woods that leads from a bedding area to a crop field would be an obvious travel zone. But deer will take advantage of ditch banks, creek banks, and even a man made cut through.
Hunters need to place stands throughout these travel zones. Hunting the travel areas is one of the most effective ways of taking deer consistently.
Wind Direction
Always remember to keep track of wind direction. If the wind is wrong for any given stand location, don’t hunt it. Move to another area that offers a better set up. This will reduce the chances of being detected by deer. Always have several stand options available. Set up downwind of suspected deer movement.
Follow these deer hunting tips for a better chance of success. As always good luck and be safe.
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