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Mike Belt

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I always like to hunt cover or areas bordering cover. However, at Ames we have so much cover that we really have too much cover. It can be very hard to figure just how deer will use it in relation to the areas you hunt. Are any of you faced with the same and if so, what are some of the signs you look for trying to determine just how they use it?
 
Yes we have tons of pine thickets, hundreds of acres.. Look for terrain features where they'll funnel out of it... Low spots/ ravines, seem to be the best spots I can find on our property... I'm sure it varies though..
 
My lease is 32 acres. The area to my west is THICK.

Last year I spent a lot of time watching our shared property line and observed young deer moving through on the obvious trails while older deer seemed to stick to the thickest of cover which is what I would call normal behavior.

As you said the problem is the place is so large. I am not familiar with the topography but I would spend a lot of time with google earth and look for benches that are close to food sources.
 
I often run into this on the land that I hunt. I try to find terrain or vegetation funnels (points, gaps, saddles, etc), especially in relation to preferred food sources. Sometimes deer just use an area for no particular reason, though, and you just have to put in the boot leather and stand time to find these places.
 
This is indeed a tough hunting situation and have several areas where I�m in the same boat. One in particular is a solid 220 acre block of 11 year old unthinned planted pines. With the exception of a few roads and a good many monster hardwoods in the creek drains you can�t see more than about 20-30ft in there. A thinning operation is upcoming that will completely change the landscape (can�t wait!) but until that there�s been hardly any point trying to get an arrow or bullet to actually find its intended mark in here�and that�s assuming you can even SEE the silly deer.

Where I have had good success is in converting any available opening to clover or stands of desirable native forage and hunting during the all-day sits�traffic is CONSTANT. Rather than try and nail down any existing discernable pattern (there�s tracks, trails, rubs, and poo absolutely everywhere) I decided to just dive right into the middle of it and carve out something to help encourage some meaningful predictability to emerge. That something was food in the midst of the place they feel most comfortable during daylight hours.

Wind can sometimes be tricky because the deer come from every direction. Because of this I set the dinner tables atop hills wherever I was able and actually prefer to hunt these places when the wind blows really hard so my scent doesn�t swirl or eddy. During the rut bucks will loop through these blocks time and again looking to cut a doe�s track or bump from her bed and scent check.
 

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