Focus on These Factors to Get a Jump on Whitetail Scouting

It was late February, and I was following a pack of beagles in hot pursuit of a cottontail on a patch of public ground in Ohio. Rabbits tend to like heavy cover. Intercepting them as they circle ahead of a dog pack often means hunters must wade through some gnarly brush. I managed to locate a well-worn deer trail that cut directly through the mass of honeysuckle and Russian olive. It made walking easier, and I was astounded by the overlapping layers of whitetail deer tracks. This was a virtual deer highway.

It also wasn’t a secret to the local whitetail hunters. As I made my way along the lonely trail, I came upon the remains of one stand site and then another. All told on that quarter-mile trail there were three treestands and evidence that someone had set up and removed a ground blind. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to pick off a passing deer. But would they?

We’re taught very early in our hunting careers that filling our whitetail tag requires paying close attention to deer sign, but there’s more to killing a buck than just dropping a pin where you find scrapes, rubs and trails. This is especially true on public land where hunters come and go frequently and the resident deer herd becomes pretty well acquainted with human intrusion. We pattern them, they pattern us.

Hunting pressure can sometimes startle a buck toward your location, and the rut prompts otherwise savvy bucks to do silly things in the name of love. However, you can consistently score on public land whitetails year after year when you learn to identify the subtle signs that indicate deer are present.

ON THE MOVE

The whitetail deer is without a doubt the most widely studied North American big-game animal. There are volumes of scientific data regarding whitetail ecology, and sifting through these mountains of scientific papers can be daunting. To make matters even more complicated, much of the research contrasts other works. While researchers can agree on some of the basics, like deer move primarily at night and at dawn and dusk, other aspects of whitetail ecology like preferred bedding sites, home-range size and even the impacts of the moon phase on deer movement are subjects of debate.

This is due to several factors including food availability, weather, topography, age structure, habitat fragmentation and hunting pressure. A whitetail deer living in the suburbs around Cincinnati almost certainly doesn’t behave in exactly the same manner as a deer in the deep woods of Maine.

Many deer hunters view whitetails as slaves to their habits, behaving in a predictable pattern of feeding, bedding and travel. The savvy hunter, then, can slip undetected into the deer’s habitat and leverage the animal’s predictable nature to fill a tag in short order. Quite the opposite is true. Most public land hunters park their vehicle in the same place, use the same well-worn trail to their hunting location, and park their camo-clad fanny in the same treestand or ground blind at the same time each day. The notion that deer are oblivious to hunters routinely tromping through their home range, smelling of gas-station sausage biscuits and black coffee, is a serious underestimation of the whitetail’s razor-sharp senses.

Hunters are creatures of habit, and deer figure out in short order where and when hunters show up in the woods. But what does science tell us happens when deer encounter humans? If deer ran at the first intrusion of man there wouldn’t be any deer in city parks, agricultural properties or public hunting lands.

Let’s begin by emphasizing the point that deer don’t vacate an area completely in the face of hunting pressure. In fact, three separate scientific studies found that whitetail bucks do not significantly alter their home range in response to hunting pressure, provided there is ample cover, and instead limit their daytime movements. The key phrase is “ample cover.” Bucks on public land don’t necessarily leave those properties in the face of human pressure. They just become very adept at hiding when hunters are present.

A 2007 study conducted at North Carolina State University determined that GPS-collared whitetail bucks move most frequently during the pre-rut and rut periods during hunting season, but that in the post-rut (which coincides with firearms seasons in many states) mature bucks tended to decrease their movements and focus on core cover areas during daylight hours. During the pre-rut and rut, about half of the bucks collared made an “excursion” outside their well-defined home ranges, likely searching for receptive does or following a doe in estrous. But following the rut, bucks held tight in cover during legal hunting hours.

The study also found that bucks reduced dawn and daytime movements during hunting season and were most active during evening and at night. In addition, researchers noted that the concept of a second rut—a period of breeding activity that occurs after the normal rutting period has ended—was only noticeable in areas with uneven buck-to-doe ratios, where female animals substantially outnumbered males.

COVER IS KING

In late autumn and winter, deer rely heavily on cover, and public land hunters should focus on areas with substantial cover. Trails, rubs and scrapes indicate that deer are present and that you are within the home range of a buck. Focusing your attention on such sign, however, may be a recipe for failure because there’s a good chance that bucks are making a good deal of it at night.

A 2001 article in The Journal of Ecological Research found that the most important factor in whitetail bed-site selection was canopy cover. In short, deer prefer tree cover when bedding. Interestingly, the second most important consideration according to that survey was slope of the bedding site. Deer seem to prefer bedding sites with some slope (15 to 35 degrees was optimal), perhaps to use thermal winds and elevation to their advantage against predators or perhaps as a protection against wind and elements.

The importance of tree cover likely relates to thermoregulation in deer. Temperatures in forests are more moderate, and cover helps regulate body temperature in whitetails by protecting them from sunlight on warm days and preventing precipitation and wind from robbing body heat during periods of cold. Thermal cover comes in many forms, but conifers like Eastern red cedar and pines, along with deciduous forests particularly in summer and early fall, provide deer with excellent places to stay cool or conserve body heat.

Deer spend much of their daylight hours in such areas, but they also temporarily bed at night as they feed, according to the 2001 study. These temporary bedding areas may be in the open, where you’ll find matted grass and vegetation, and these beds are often used as stopover points where deer chew their cud. These open-area bedding sites are signs of deer activity, but during daylight hours deer generally do not use them in favor of established thermal cover.

In addition to thermal cover, deer also seek out hiding cover. As the name implies, these are areas where deer can disappear. Does are particularly fond of hiding cover during the fawning season for the obvious reason that these areas provide protection for their young from predators. Bucks likewise use hiding cover in the post-rut.

As a science-savvy hunter you can use this information to pinpoint the most likely areas where deer will spend their daylight hours. This is important because it will provide you with a good idea of where you’ll find deer during hunting hours. Concentrate on areas that provide good thermal cover, hiding cover (or, preferably, both) and pay special attention to bedding sites on slopes.

These areas don’t necessarily have to be hundreds of yards away from parking areas, gravel roads or even human habitation. One of the best public hunting areas I know is a steep slope below a gravel parking lot where greenbrier and cedar trees provide ample thermal and hiding cover for deer. I’ve often wondered how many hunters park in the gravel lot and follow the mowed path that leads away from this area, completely unaware that some of the best deer habitat is within a couple hundred yards of their pickup trucks. Concentrate your efforts by hunting the edges of likely daytime cover sites and you increase the odds of encountering a whitetail.

BOTANY FOR BUCKS

We’ve established bucks prefer to spend their days in areas where there is thermal cover, but there are other factors that impact habitat preference. Plant life is also a key component to deer site selection, and being able to identify a handful of plant and tree species will help you find deer hot spots that other hunters may miss.

Deer eat a variety of food, but there are key species that are most favorable. In the spring, summer and early fall deer feed on agricultural crops, but they also forage for acorns in the fall and will browse other species throughout the year. Being able to identify the preferred plant species will help you select a better site for your blind or stand.

Let’s begin with a classic whitetail food source: acorns. Being able to identify oak trees (without the benefit of piles of acorns littering the ground around their bases) will help you locate deer, and areas with lots of mature oaks are likely to attract deer. Chad and Lear McCoy of Real McCoy Outdoors in Ohio are foresters by trade, but they are also very successful at managing for huge whitetail bucks on forested properties. Part of their management system is leaving mature white oaks behind on tracts, which is rare among loggers, especially considering the value of white oak timber. They know that white oak acorns are an important food source for deer, and whitetails prefer white oak acorns to red oak acorns. Bur oak acorns are another favorite mast crop of deer.

Depending on the areas in which you live, green ash, hackberry, cottonwood and other species provide important browse for deer, especially in the winter months. Dogwoods and wild crabapple trees may also be sources of forage. Less appealing to whitetails are trees like black locust, which grow in disturbed areas. Being able to identify tree species is important, but it’s also worthwhile to know plants and shrubs. In a study of deer in southwest Ohio, key food sources identified in the rumens of 332 harvested whitetails and almost 400 observations of live animals listed vital food sources as Japanese honeysuckle (an invasive from Asia), sumac, crabapple, grasses, greenbrier, clover, acorns, jewelweed and dogwood. Rounding out the list were corn and soybeans.

Agricultural crops may be of importance to deer on public land, but only if the animals live in proximity to agricultural fields. In vast areas like the Shawnee State Forest in Ohio and Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky (both of which have a record of producing massive whitetails), forests cover huge tracts that eliminate agricultural crops as potential food sources for deer.

If you can identify valuable plant species like greenbrier, dogwood, oaks, Japanese honeysuckle, and jewelweed you’ll have a leg up on public land hunters who are searching for scrapes and trails. On the flipside, certain plants look like they’d be beneficial to deer as cover or food sources but their value is overrated.

Amur honeysuckle and Russian olive, both of which are invasives from Asia, cover large areas of public land near my home. While standing in a patch of forest dominated by these species you’d expect deer to be present, and it’s not uncommon to find deer trails leading into and around stands of these invasive species. In truth, though, both species offer little benefit to deer. Russian olive isn’t a favorite browse of deer, and Amur honeysuckle is only eaten routinely in the spring because it grows leaves earlier than other woody plants. Both are of low value for whitetail bedding because they often outcompete other species and leave the understory bare and open. These areas might look good, but they generally won’t hold deer as well as other cover types.

Recognizing the sometimes-subtle clues that tell you which areas provide the best bedding and food sources in the forest will go much further toward helping you fill a tag than simply hanging your stand next to a trail. Instead of finding the places deer pass through, you’ll find where they live and spend their time, and those areas are often overlooked by other hunters. Doing your homework now—and during the season as conditions change—will help you separate yourself from other hunters and get in close contact with the type of buck you’ve been searching for on public land.