Knowing Your Deer

[TN Larry]

"I have been watching my number one hitlist buck Javier. He came out of the rut funnel into my kill plot where I made a clean harvest. Deer cast showed good movement so I decided to go."

Did I do that right? I'm not used to these new wordings

You did good but missed a few things...........

As the buck came into my Biologic kill plot, I was hanging in my set ready for the kill. He came in downwind but thanks to Ozonics, dead down wind, and Scent Loc, I was able to put a rage in the cage, and he didn't go 20.

 

[deerhunter10]

Cover food water. Most places have decent enough cover. But do you have food year round? And water year round? Especially in this year with a bad drought. When you get those things then it's pressure and intrusion. 3 people on 400 something acres can get over hunted fast if you aren't careful. Depending on how it lays out.

 

[Kevin Snook]

Just think y'all -in a few months it will time for the endless "age and score" pics..

 

[deerhunter10]

Just think y'all -in a few months it will time for the endless "age and score" pics..

Some people trying to learn how to age deer, I don't see a problem with it.

 

[Ski]

IME 30%-50% of bucks return while the rest are transient. Maybe 10% or less return annually over their lifespan. It's about the same on all the properties i hunt regardless if ag or big woods.

I for sure name bucks. Any given season I might be monitoring a dozen or more 8pts, half dozen 10pts, etc. When I upload pics/vids to a file I assign the buck name, date, and location in the name tag. That way when I want to look at info on a specific buck all I have to do is type in his name in the search and it pulls up everything in order of timeline. I then overlay year over year to search for repeating patterns.

For instance if a buck has a jacked up rack I might name him Jack. If I search his name and see that he's been at the water hole in daylight last three years in a row on October 30th, then guess where I'm going to sit next October 30th. It's not always that precise but sometimes it is, and I've killed many really good bucks that way. Or I can search location name or date for the same type of patterning. If I didn't assign identity to the deer, locations, and dates then this type of patterning would be much harder if not impossible.

Not for everyone but I sure enjoy it and it works. Sure I can go hunt blind and shoot surprise bucks I'm unfamiliar with. And I do that on out of state and/or public land hunts. It's fun. But I also really enjoy getting to know bucks and going full serial killer on them. Can't put me into any singular box because I enjoy it all.

 

[redblood]

Just think y'all -in a few months it will time for the endless "age and score" pics..

you dont like those??? it helps us learn to age deer more effectively i feel

 

[Ski]

you dont like those??? it helps us learn to age deer more effectively i feel

I agree. I for one enjoy them immensely, as I do most thread topics. This place is a gathering of wonderful folks with a broad range of experience and perspectives they generously share.

 

[Snake]

Wish we had that much to manage, we have just 55 acres, and I may overdo it with cameras, but we do get deer that sometimes hang around.

I think what helps us is the ag land around us that gets harvested right before or during season. We keep a small portion of our land in pasture and food plots specifically for the deer. Some do hang around and some don't.

You have a beautiful place though brother !

 

[backyardtndeer]

You have a beautiful place though brother !

Thank you. We have put a lot into it.

 

[m_allison71]

"I have been watching my number one hitlist buck Javier. He came out of the rut funnel into my kill plot where I made a clean harvest. Deer cast showed good movement so I decided to go get him with my 270."

Did I do that right? I'm not used to these new wordings

Fixed it for you.

 

[hitek7]

In the 12 years we have had our lease I can't think of one mature deer we have killed that we didn't have velvet pics of or pics from the past season.

 

[backyardtndeer]

When I upload pics/vids to a file I assign the buck name, date, and location in the name tag.

What program/app are you using to keep track of all your pics?

 

[Ski]

What program/app are you using to keep track of all your pics?

No program. I just use folders on my desktop. Nothing really fancy or complicated but it's easy to keep things in order. Each season gets a new folder.

 

[deerhunter10]

No program. I just use folders on my desktop. Nothing really fancy or complicated but it's easy to keep things in order. Each season gets a new folder.

I do the same. Each season has a folder, then sub folders in there for different farms, then different deer. I did learn to back them up lost years of pictures about 7 years ago.

 

[Ski]

I do the same. Each season has a folder, then sub folders in there for different farms, then different deer. I did learn to back them up lost years of pictures about 7 years ago.

That pretty much exactly how I do it, then back it all up on an external drive. I use excel when I want to graph out data to visualize patterns.

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

You did good but missed a few things...........

As the buck came into my Biologic kill plot, I was hanging in my set ready for the kill. He came in downwind but thanks to Ozonics, dead down wind, and Scent Loc, I was able to put a rage in the cage, and he didn't go 20.

…." We backed out and gave him until the next morning, and im glad we did because he died just out of sight. "

 

[Bell3wv]

The other thread got me thinking about guys getting pics of certain bucks year after year, learning all about them, naming them, etc. I have a 416 acre lease in TN. It has everything a buck could want, especially thick, thick cover. There is very minimal hunting pressure and human intrusion. We rarely have bucks hang around longer than a couple weeks. Very rarely. A buck will show up on camera, get me excited, and disappear never to be seen again. Many times a mature buck will only get caught on camera once and he's gone forever. I've always found it interesting that other folks have bucks hang around for years. Maybe the deer on my lease are traveling deer, or maybe it's a difference in farm land vs. timber land.

 

[Solo Hunter]

I have a friend that hunts a couple hundred acres and kills a couple really good mature bucks a year off of it. He says he's in and out of his land at least almost once a week all year. His reasoning is the deer gets used to you and doesn't associate the intrusion as danger. The deer gets used to someone in and out of the property so when season comes they're not expecting anything any different. He's very successful with his experiences.
For me I stay out of mine because I feel like I'll hurt mine more then help it.

 

[BigRiver1]

The other thread got me thinking about guys getting pics of certain bucks year after year, learning all about them, naming them, etc. I have a 416 acre lease in TN. It has everything a buck could want, especially thick, thick cover. There is very minimal hunting pressure and human intrusion. We rarely have bucks hang around longer than a couple weeks. Very rarely. A buck will show up on camera, get me excited, and disappear never to be seen again. Many times a mature buck will only get caught on camera once and he's gone forever. I've always found it interesting that other folks have bucks hang around for years. Maybe the deer on my lease are traveling deer, or maybe it's a difference in farm land vs. timber land.

Apparently you have the cover, but do you have the food and water to go with it, and is the cover bedding cover??

Those bucks come to certain areas year after year in search of Food, Water, Cover, and Does. If you have great Bedding Cover, and the food and water year round, they stay.

Might try one of these online land management gurus to help figure out what's going on.

 

[Ski]

I have a friend that hunts a couple hundred acres and kills a couple really good mature bucks a year off of it. He says he's in and out of his land at least almost once a week all year. His reasoning is the deer gets used to you and doesn't associate the intrusion as danger. The deer gets used to someone in and out of the property so when season comes they're not expecting anything any different. He's very successful with his experiences.
For me I stay out of mine because I feel like I'll hurt mine more then help it.

I read an article once where the author claimed he kills big bucks by having such a consistent presence on the property that the deer are familiar with him. As I've gotten older I lend more and more credence to his claim. There's something to it.

 

[deerhunter10]

I read an article once where the author claimed he kills big bucks by having such a consistent presence on the property that the deer are familiar with him. As I've gotten older I lend more and more credence to his claim. There's something to it.

There's a reason farmers see big deer a lot imo. I see a pile of deer feeding cows or doing hay. Checking on them with the ranger. But our farms that are away from is we don't have the ability to be on them all the time we have to be careful and hunt them very careful they aren't used to any kind of pressure. And they are sensitive to the pressure.

 

[LiveOffLand]

Some people trying to learn how to age deer, I don't see a problem with it.

And in a few months there will be nothing to score

 

[tree_ghost]

I read an article once where the author claimed he kills big bucks by having such a consistent presence on the property that the deer are familiar with him. As I've gotten older I lend more and more credence to his claim. There's something to it.

You can condition deer to accept certain situations for certain!!

 

[tree_ghost]

The other thread got me thinking about guys getting pics of certain bucks year after year, learning all about them, naming them, etc. I have a 416 acre lease in TN. It has everything a buck could want, especially thick, thick cover. There is very minimal hunting pressure and human intrusion. We rarely have bucks hang around longer than a couple weeks. Very rarely. A buck will show up on camera, get me excited, and disappear never to be seen again. Many times a mature buck will only get caught on camera once and he's gone forever. I've always found it interesting that other folks have bucks hang around for years. Maybe the deer on my lease are traveling deer, or maybe it's a difference in farm land vs. timber land.

In my experience there are so many variables that go into why and when a buck travels somewhere that you could go crazy trying to make logical sense of it as a human. Sometimes I feel we overthink the simple and obvious answer. Deer are simple creatures in their thinking but they aren't robots. There are no absolute truths when it comes to bucks and honestly each one has his own personality. I have had bucks that 12 months out of the year I could locate within 100acre piece and others that I might be able to get a handful of pictures in 10,000acres. I like to approach all my hunts/properties with the KISS mentality. Bucks need cover, water, food, and sometimes sex. I try to break each property down based on this premise and whatever is lacking most in the area of those 4 things and go from there…

 

[Ski]

In my experience there are so many variables that go into why and when a buck travels somewhere that you could go crazy trying to make logical sense of it as a human. Sometimes I feel we overthink the simple and obvious answer. Deer are simple creatures in their thinking but they aren't robots. There are no absolute truths when it comes to bucks and honestly each one has his own personality. I have had bucks that 12 months out of the year I could locate within 100acre piece and others that I might be able to get a handful of pictures in 10,000acres. I like to approach all my hunts/properties with the KISS mentality. Bucks need cover, water, food, and sometimes sex. I try to break each property down based on this premise and whatever is lacking most in the area of those 4 things and go from there…

Agreed. We far too often over estimate bucks. Many times Forrest Gumping it is the best approach.

 

[BSK]

The other thread got me thinking about guys getting pics of certain bucks year after year, learning all about them, naming them, etc. I have a 416 acre lease in TN. It has everything a buck could want, especially thick, thick cover. There is very minimal hunting pressure and human intrusion. We rarely have bucks hang around longer than a couple weeks. Very rarely. A buck will show up on camera, get me excited, and disappear never to be seen again. Many times a mature buck will only get caught on camera once and he's gone forever. I've always found it interesting that other folks have bucks hang around for years. Maybe the deer on my lease are traveling deer, or maybe it's a difference in farm land vs. timber land.

I STRONGLY suspect your experiences are habitat driven, in that your hunting property is a transition between other locations. Even with much smaller properties than yours, I regularly see the same bucks showing up year after year.

 

[BSK]

I read an article once where the author claimed he kills big bucks by having such a consistent presence on the property that the deer are familiar with him. As I've gotten older I lend more and more credence to his claim. There's something to it.

It may have been me Ski. I've become absolutely convinced I have conditioned my local deer to my presence. In the past, I would rarley walk around outside of food plots during non-hunting months, and when I did, I was super scent cautious. Heck, I would even put on a cheap plastic rain suit while driving my ATV to trail-camera locations to prevent any twigs from rubbing against my clothing and picking up my scent.

Now I go out of my way to have my scent everywhere, all year round. And I take no special scent precautions. I want the deer to find my scent - everywhere - as a normal part of their daily experience. 99% of the time, my scent will not mean danger to them. That makes the 1% time it is dangerous to be the final one!

 

[Ski]

It may have been me Ski.

It couldn't have been you. Notice I specified the author killed big bucks....

Just teasing lol. I've read where you've stated that several times. The article I'm referring to was in a wildlife magazine when I was a teenager. I don't recall which magazine it was but I vividly recall the author claiming that the deer were so familiar with him that his presence didn't affect them like it did when he was hunting other places. He said it was key to him being able to get in close to the older bucks. Your experience seems to very closely mirror what he was saying. It must have been very intriguing to me because it's stuck with me all these years.

 

[backyardtndeer]

It couldn't have been you. Notice I specified the author killed big bucks....

Just teasing lol. I've read where you've stated that several times. The article I'm referring to was in a wildlife magazine when I was a teenager. I don't recall which magazine it was but I vividly recall the author claiming that the deer were so familiar with him that his presence didn't affect them like it did when he was hunting other places. He said it was key to him being able to get in close to the older bucks. Your experience seems to very closely mirror what he was saying. It must have been very intriguing to me because it's stuck with me all these years.

Goes along with a story I was told years ago about a farmer/hunter that wore the same cologne all the time all over his farm. Story was that he fed deer outside of season, they became used to his smell, then come season they were never concerned about the presence of his scent. He always killed good deer.

 

[Ski]

Goes along with a story I was told years ago about a farmer/hunter that wore the same cologne all the time all over his farm. Story was that he fed deer outside of season, they became used to his smell, then come season they were never concerned about the presence of his scent. He always killed good deer.

I was just out riding fence with an old farmer in his truck. It's a farm I hunt. Man we drove right through deer like they were cattle. They'd lift their heads and watch us go by but none spooked. When I'm there alone I can't get anywhere near the deer. They bolt as soon as they see my truck. It was eye opening for sure.