There are tons of detailed deer hunting tips for every part of the whitetail’s range. However, none of those tips will help you unless you have a place to go deer hunting. So my first tip on finding a hunting property or deer lease is to pound the pavement, or more likely the gravel roads. Nothing will help a hunter located a lease faster than getting out into the area they are looking to hunt. Check out the local diner, the feed store and even go door to door in rural areas. Be clean-cut, polite and straight forward about looking for a place to deer hunt. If you see a farmer on the side of the road, stop and ask them for some tips. They may not own the land that they are farming, but he may know someone that owns land or be able to point you in the right direction.
There is a bunch of private land out there, but competition for deer leases remains high. If you come up short on securing permission to hunt on private land, then my next deer hunting tip would be to look into hunting on public lands. State and federally-owned lands can get a lot of pressure, but most of it is short-lived. Every year, hunters take a really nice bucks off public sites everywhere. If you end up going this route, contact your state’s department of natural resources or fish and game as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Let them know that you are looking for assistance in finding public areas for deer hunting.
Location. Location. Location. This deer hunting tip is as important in deer hunting as location is in real estate. Once you have found a place to hunt, scout the area and become familiar with deer feeding areas and possible travel corridors. Whitetail deer are creatures of habit and tend to behave the same across their range. Look for drainages or creeks or low-lying areas where deer can travel without being easily observed. Do not over-think it. Look for tracks, droppings and even trails. Look for hard-to-get-to places that other hunters may avoid or think is just too far. Deer look for these same areas. Think like a deer and set up in a good location.
The next bit of advice I can offer would be to always be in control of your scent. Scent control is probably the biggest deer hunting tip I can offer for a hunter in the field. If you are set up in a high-traffic area and keep deer from intercepting your scent, you will see and probably kill deer. There are many types of hunting clothes out there that can help, but none of them are perfect. Research them for yourself and you will find that although the help to varying degrees, there is one thing that works best when deer hunting: using the wind to your advantage. Always use the wind to keep your human and human-associated scent from blowing toward deer. Although we as mere mortals can not control the wind, we can determine where we do and do not hunt. You can setup stands that produce the correct winds. If you set up a deer stand for a North wind, do not hunt it unless you have a North wind. With this in mind, it’s always nice to have at least two locations that can be hunting under different conditions.
There are many deer hunters out there that still fail to take advantage of many of the tools that can be used to increase their hunting success. The tools that I am referring to are calls and are one of the biggest deer hunting tips that even seasoned hunters can learn about. Calls can be used to create deer vocalizations. These vocalizations can be used to actively bring deer to you. After all, why wait for a buck to cross paths with you when you can play to his interest and deliver him right to you. Now as many deer hunters know, this will not work every time. But it can work a lot. Invest in a grunt call, bleat call, and a snort-wheeze call. Learn as about how to use these calls as when to use them and you will be a successful deer hunter.
Lastly, learn about the biology of whitetail deer. The power of many of the previous deer hunting tips covered will only be increased if you understand the deer in your area. Learn when deer rut in your area. Hunting the rut is one of the most basic deer hunting tips out there, but it works. Hunters also know that bucks create rubs and scrapes, but seasoned hunters know rubs rarely produce bucks while many bucks will visit scrapes. Know what deer do and when. Rattling, for example, can be another effective way to bring bucks crashing in around you, but it is most effective just before or in the early stages of the rut. It can be even more fun with a deer decoy. If you learn as much as you can about whitetail and use these deer hunting tips you will be successful in every aspect of deer hunting. Best of luck, and make sure you look here for my latest deer hunting tips!