Scouting with purpose for deer season

Photo and Text

By DON GASAWAY

Good hunters study their quarry all year.

Hunting season is often only a few weeks, plus months of talking and dreaming. But modern technology allows hunters to observe their quarry all year with the use of trail cameras.

For the hunter who consistently takes game year after year, deer season is most of the year.

This hunter is a naturalist who studies the habits and life cycle patterns of his quarry. It is the naturalist/hunter who takes his quarry and can guide others to similar success.

The hunter who consistently takes big bucks is the one who studies his quarry just as a naturalist would be inclined. He spends hours in the field, reads all he can find about the animals and makes effective use of trail cameras to pattern his quarry.

The trail camera provides indications of the population and health of deer in each area. Through it, one can decide if that area holds the quality of deer he wishes to pursue. It narrows his activities to areas that may be most productive.

White Tails

In the case of white-tailed deer, big bucks have different feeding patterns and travel different trails in summer and early fall than later in the year.

In most cases, deer change their travel patterns the second week in October. Hunting pressure from of an increase in human presence makes the deer react. Later rut activity makes for more changes as they drive away rival bucks and seek out the does still in estrus.

The bucks maintain these habits until late winter, when their feeding habits force them to change in concert with the change of diet from brose to grasses.

Sign found by the scouting hunter in spring is sign of most importance to the hunter in pursuit of a trophy buck, the dominant breeder buck, the guy with that big hat rack. Post season hunters can scout the deer’s home area and get a clear picture of where he will be in the fall when the hunting season returns.

Taking field notes is helpful. One can map the planned area of the hunt. You do not need to be an expert mapmaker. You must just be able to find the same terrain in the fall. Mark wooded areas, swamps, sloughs, ridges, scrapes, rubs, bedding areas, feeding areas, water, doe trails, buck trails and where you sight game. The use of a GPS can help by using way points in the same manner.

The notes and map present a picture of the hunting area and the game within it. By collecting and recording all the game sighted, one can plan other hunts than just deer hunts. Upland game can be the subject of hunts before deer hunting and a coyote after the season concludes. The map becomes a plan for all hunting.

Game cameras tell you when and where deer are using your property. They are available in a variety of price ranges and with numerous apps, including wi-fi and standard photo images on a Sim Card.

More Than Roads

For those wanting a more accurate map, local highway departments often have maps for sale at a nominal price. They portray roads in the area, but the hunter still must add some of the things mentioned above. Some things to add might include changes in terrain such as small valleys with bluffs on each side that funnel deer activity. Creek crossings and fording areas often are full of sign as animals are dependent upon water. Small ponds, stock tanks, and creeks become regular watering holes for wildlife.

A benefit of post-season scouting is that signs found are from animals that have made it through the season and the winter. They should be still around the next fall.

Due to the lack of vegetation late in the season, the amount of sign is not as clear as is the case in late summer. Rubs are a bit hard to find, as they are aged and difficult to distinguish from old rubs of previous years. Scrapes are easy to spot. Mark both for future reference later in the fall to see if they are fresh.

Fresh rubs in an area with older ones tend to leave the impression that the deer making them has been around for a while. Deer will return to old scrapes from one year to another. Once they begin to use them, they will return to refresh them every 12 to 48 hours to keep them fresh.

Checking Scrapes

Scrapes usually are located along field edges where there is a change from one type of vegetation to another. They are almost always beneath an overhanging branch and about 4 to 5 feet above the ground. In making the scrape the buck leaves his scent on the tree by depositing his saliva as he licks or chews the branch.

If no suitable tree is available, deer make scrapes next to saplings and leave a rub on the tree itself.

Rubs serve two purposes. They aid in getting the velvet from antlers during the early season. Later they mark the buck’s territory. The territory is the buck’s breeding ground. The best prospect is an area with both old and new scrapes and rubs in large numbers. The chance of a big deer being there is good.

Deer Tracking

Deer tracks tell one of the presence of game. A single track of an animal wandering aimlessly through the woods is not one that needs recording. It is the track of a feeding animal and one probably not likely to use the trail again. Tracks of lots of deer indicate a major trail going to or from feeding and bedding

Fly fishing a creative sport with its own mystique

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By BRANDON

Butler

Of all the outdoor pursuits I partake in, none conjures more interest from non-sporting friends than fly fishing. There is a mystique to the sport – a romanticism developed through literature, imagery and marketing over a long period of time, like anglers dressed to the nines in the most beautiful locales on the planet. It’s alluring.

This creative vision of fly fishing does have merit. There are places you find yourself with a fly rod in hand that are so breathtakingly beautiful, it’s hard to accept the moment as reality. Yet, fly fishing a subdivision pond for bluegill or largemouth bass is also an option. The sport can be, and actually is, much simpler than most believe.

The weather was magnificent one recent week. I mean, were experiencing one of those magical stretches we should take note of, so the next time it’s miserable outside and we’re complaining, we can reflect on the gift of a week in April of sunny, 70-degree days with birds singing and red buds in bloom. The perfection inspired me to grab a fly rod and head to a local pond.

Learning To Cast

The golf course where I decided to make my first fly-fishing trip of the year was abuzz with activity. Foursomes were backed up on the tee boxes, and this was a Wednesday evening. The allure of outdoor activity had enthusiasts of all sorts out and about, soaking in the day’s last beams of sunlight. Young couples on walks pushed babies in strollers, while toddlers wearing helmets zipped around on bikes supported by training wheels. But I had the pond to myself, and the freshly mown grass and open landscape behind me made for a perfect spot to knock the rust of my backcast.

A lot of Midwestern fly fishing is done on tree-lined or brushy rivers and creeks. Precision casting is at times necessary. Those are not when you should try to learn to fly cast. The pond I was fishing was perfect for that. It’s also perfect for experienced fly casters to find their rhythm for the first time in months.

I tied on a small woolly bugger, which is a very common fly, because it’s one in my arsenal that any fish in the pond will eat. There are smaller largemouth bass, bluegill and crappie where I was fishing, hungry after a dormant winter. Any activity in the presence of a fish right now in a pond like this could incite a strike. So don’t stress too much over what to use. This is the time of year they’ll eat about anything.

TIMING’S RIGHT

I approach the pond edge with the fly rod in my right hand. With my left hand, I strip line off the reel. When I have 20 feet or so of fly line at my feet, I use the rod to lift the line and throw it behind me.

I wait about two seconds for the line to completely stretch out to the point where it is flexing or bowing the rod tip away from me. Then, using energy loaded in the rod from the force of going backwards, I push the rod forward, firing the line similar to an arrow out in front of me.

I abruptly stop and hold the rod tip at 10 o’clock. Once the line is laid out flat in the air in front of me, I lower my forearm and, the line falls gently on the water, fully extended.

When the wooly bugger hits the surface, let it sink for a few seconds, then give it a twitch by pulling in a foot or so of your fly line. Continue to repeat this process until you have worked areas. Record such trails and check frequently for activity. Check the tracks for size. If tracks are large and mixed with small ones, then you are looking at a trail used by does and fawns. Check the area to the side of such trails for large tracks running in the same direction but not on the trail. Bucks usually leave these tracks. Bucks like to stay near the does but seek heavier cover. your fly through the water back to you.

Tracks will lead you to either feeding or bedding areas which need marking on the map. Deer will move toward bedding areas in the morning and toward feeding areas in the evening. This tells you where to focus your hunting during those periods of the day.

A buck makes rubs along the trail on the side of the tree he is facing. This is another clue to which direction he is moving on a trail. Seldom does he use the same trail both coming and going to the feeding/bedding areas.

By setting up stands to use the appropriate trails at the time of day indicated by the sign, a hunter increases his chances of success.Aproperly marked map gives the hunter a picture of the deer’s activity all year.

Don Gasaway is a freelance outdoor writer from Marion, IL. He is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/#1/DonGasawayWriter and www. facebook.com/DonsJournal.

Stop your retrieval in time to leave enough fly line out to have the weight necessary to begin your back cast. This is where you see fly anglers making false casts – when it looks like they are whipping the sky. This is to stretch more line into your back cast. All you really need for effective fly fishing is to be able to cast 30 to 40 feet accurately. So false cast conservatively. A pond is a perfect place to practice.

Nice Results

I caught a couple of dozen fish in an hour from the pond. It wasn’t on every cast, but pretty close. Most of them were small bluegill under 8 inches.Acouple of stunted little largemouth put on acrobatic shows of jumping and splashing for the golfers.

I guarantee that a number of conversations were had on the golf course that evening about fly fishing. I wonder how many people said, “I’ve always wanted to try fly fishing, but it looks so complicated,” while still trying to put a tiny ball in a little cup 400 yards away. For more Driftwood Outdoors, check out the podcast at www.driftwoodoutdoors. com or anywhere podcasts are streamed.

Fly fishing is a sport you can participate in across the country.