Learning Deer Country

NPHunter

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I have been closely watching and learning an area for 3-4 years and only hunted it once or twice when I run all of the elk out of the country. The are typically has a dozen or so bucks in it pretty consistently though Sept. It took me a couple of years of watching these bucks for me to figure out what they were doing and lots of hours of glassing. The entire drainage looks almost identical with similar vegetation, terrain and water. The bucks only prefer this one 1/4 mile section thought?

I used to think the deer only hit the area every few days because I would often never see them in there when I would go check on them. I didn't really pay much attention to the time of day i was there, for the first couple of years I would always look across the drainage at the far side and could normally spot them and get some good pictures. I would normally go out and check after work or during a free afternoon on the weekend to see that they were still there. Every now and then I would get there and find there were no bucks on the hillside at all? One day I got some free time mid-morning during archery season and figured I would drive out and look for the bucks to see if they were there. I arrived at 10 or so and started looking, I picked that entire hill side apart and nothing? I figured I must have missed their cycle through the area and headed for the vehicle. I jumped in the rig and something caught the corner of my eye, I looked about 60 yards above my rig at the rock bluff and there was a buck lying under it!! It wasn't one of the big bucks but it was a decent 3 point. In a hurry I got out, took a ranged him, he noticed me and stood up to look, I made a quick shot and boom!! My arrow exploded on the rock right above him, I was shooting up a steep hill and over shot him. He kind of trotted off and I slowly followed hoping to get another shot. I could see him around moving around the corner and slowly worked my way behind him, he stopped about 30 yards and didn't seem to care at all. I drew back and stepped around some brush to make and shot when all of a sudden the entire hillside stood up around me and proceeded to bail off of the mountain side. That is the day I realized that I have been looking right over those deer?s heads and parking right next to them for over a year.

I walked that hill side and there were dozens and dozens of buck beds dug deep into the earth. It was an area they have been bedding for years!! Once I discovered this I would then start driving to the far side of the drainage and look back across. I took lots of pictures of the deer across the drainage and put some decent stalks on those deer. The deer were still only there a couple to few days a week though? About every other or every third time I would make the hour long drive to check for them. I kind of quit hunting them because it was so far out and the opposite direction from my elk hunting that it would pretty much waste a day if we drove out and they were not there. One day last year I decided to run out and see if the deer were out. I arrived shortly before day break, setup and glassed and glassed and never saw a deer. This continued for a bit and then I drove to another spot and glassed with the same result, I pulled the plug at about 10AM and decided to call it and possibly make an evening hunt. I was about half way out of there when something caught my eye on a far ridge line while driving. I stopped and pulled up my binos to see over a dozen bucks single filing across under a rim as they slowly worked their way toward the spot!! I watched as the deer made their way all the way around the mountain over to their spot on the cliffs.

I was amazed I had been leaving too early all of this time, the deer weren't using the area every few days they were just not showing up until later in the day. I then started heading out mid-morning and found that I could setup and start glassing around 8 and those bucks would start arriving between 8:30 and 10:00ish every single day. They would come from the same direction 90% of the time and slowly make their way to the hillside and bed. After almost 3 years of watching this area all summer I have it pretty much figured out, the only thing I am unsure of is where those deer are coming from? I know it is private somewhere but it must be a ways for them to take so long to make the journey. I can now drive out there any day of the week and almost any time of day and find those deer. There are always 9-14 bucks together and have been the same bucks for three years. Two of the bucks from 4 years ago are gone but all of the bigger ones from the last two years are in there.

This area I am talking about is really very small and less than a square mile and there is still a lot I am sure I don't know. I would imagine that the biggest bucks in the area aren't even coming to this bedding area since they normally pull away from younger buck and venture out on their own when they start to get big. I have decided to take the first week of archery season this year and pursue on of the bigger bucks in the group. If I am successful it will be a very rewarding experience and hopefully a good spot for years to come. I think the key to figuring out these deer may be to learn how they use and area, in the past I have always focused on finding a different or better area. (Grass is Greener Mentality) What has helped me figure this out is that I was never really interested that much in deer and I would just run out to this spot between elk hunts to kill time since i had a deer tag in my pocket. The more time I spent the more deer I would see and realized the potential in that area. This is public land in Oregon and several of these deer are over 160? and a couple are getting close to if not breaking 180?, everyone says how poor the deer hunting in Oregon is and how few deer we have. I think people have just quit putting in the time and people aren't as familiar with the outdoors as they used to be. I don't feel like I have found some secret spot, people are out there all of the time, I just think I am looking in the little areas that are being over looked and have become familiar with the area. Just gaining a little knowledge of this area has helped me start to find bucks in other areas too, from the valley floor up to the 8500? peaks around here.

I now know the bucks will almost always use the same or close to the same path to get to their bedding area. The bucks bed in the same area almost every day if the weather is hot and consistent. These are high desert buck so If it rains or is overcast and cool all bets are off. Rain will fill their normal beds with water and turn them into mud puddles for a couple of days and they will bed right out in the open where ever they decide to stop that day. Typically though the deer bed in the same area but the different beds are used by different bucks each day and they move around a lot during the day. They will get up to feed, stretch and when the sun hit them for long enough they will move to the shade. The deer normally work their way across the hillside and eventually cross the bottom of the drainage to the other side to get away from the afternoon sun. By the time they do all of this moving they are nowhere near where they started and don't exit the area the same way.

I have a good plan for opening morning, I am going in before daylight, sliding in between a couple cliffs in a small slide and waiting for the deer to make their way across the hillside. If the deer come into the area and are not bumped by someone else before they get there I should end up with a shot as long as the big buck presents himself and the wind does not swirl. I am in a big side drainage and will be slightly lower than the deer before they get there and even on the hillside as they work across toward me.

Anyways I hope this helps someone who is in a similar situation deer hunting and trying to figure out an area, don't give up, if there are tracks there are deer, start looking for bedding areas and figure out how they are being used.
 
Very cool thanks for sharing. Make sure to post pics of u get one! I've kinda noticed in some of my spots similar stuff happens. Other than the deer take different routes for me. It's kind of a crapshoot and guess on where to be. I usually spot them far enough away that I can get in front of them. Anyway very cool.
I have a spot that I watched
12 bucks bed in an open sagebrush field while dozens of trucks drove right on past. It's pretty cool to watch them deer and watch other people drive right by them.
 

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