During these special seasons, the only legal weapon for harvesting deer is either a bow or a muzzle loading rifle and many sates differentiate between these two “primitive weapons” by designating a separate season for each. Thus, hunting deer with either of these “primitive” weapons can add both additional time to your deer hunting season and an additional challenge to the sport.

Although I believe that it is safe to say that there is nothing “primitive” about modern archery equipment and muzzle loaders, hunting deer with these modern “primitive” weapons does pose some additional challenges for the today’s deer hunters.

The main reason for this the limited range these weapons have versus that of a modern high-powered rifle. While most modern high-powered rifles, be they bolt action, pump action, or semi-automatics, have an extended range that is often far beyond the skill level of the person shooting them, the fact of the matter is that due to that extended range, they often negate the necessity for concealment and stealthy movement because a hunter using a high-powered rifle can easily place his stand in an area that allows him to harvest a deer at several hundred yards; thus, effectively negating the deer’s superior sense of smell and hearing.

However, hunting deer with either a bow or a muzzle loading rifle requires the hunter to get much closer to his intended prey because these weapons lack the extended range of modern, high-powered, rifles. Consequently, hunting deer with either of these “primitive” weapons requires the hunter to choose his stand much more carefully.

The hunter is required to get much closer to the deer in order to make the shot, proper camouflage and concealment become much more important.

Deer hunters using “primitive weapons” must be much more aware of the direction of the prevailing wind as well as their human scent and any inadvertent movements they may make. Therefore, rather than choosing a stand site that offers long range vistas, bow and muzzle loading rifle hunters are better off locating, and hunting adjacent to, bedding areas and prominent food sources. In addition, it is important for hunters using these “primitive” weapons to be aware that deer generally approach such areas from downwind whenever possible so that they can scent any predators (either four legged for two legged) laying in wait for them.

Thus, hunters using these weapons should place their stand in such a way that they are facing perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction and yet adjacent to the trail they expect the deer to use for its approach. In addition, hunters using these so called “primitive” weapons should choose stand sites that offer superior concealment such as thick brush at ground level or broadleaf deciduous trees or evergreens that surround the hunter with foliage so that as the deer approaches the stand, the act of raising the rifle to your shoulder or drawing your bow is not immediately obvious to the deer even if you are several feet above the ground.

Last, when hunting with either of these “primitive” weapons, it is a good idea to give the deer something to focus his attention on other than the hunter. Therefore, creating mock scrapes by using dominate buck urine or hanging a tarsal gland or a rag or wick soaked in doe-in-estrus urine from a tree limb slightly above ground level is also a good idea so that the deer will be focused on locating the source of the scent and thus, he will be less likely to spook at any movement or sound made by the hunter.

Modern muzzle loading rifles as well as modern long bows, recurve bows, and compound bows are considered to be “primitive” weapons by most state Wildlife Resources Commissions and they are often afforded their own separate hunting seasons.

Hunting deer with these so called “primitive” weapons can offer the avid deer hunter a greatly extended hunting season. However, due to their limited range when compared to modern high-powered rifles, they do require the hunter to adjust his strategy and tactics accordingly.

Written by guest blogger

Bill Bernhardt

In fact, I too most often look for these signs because, not only are they obvious sign posts that there are deer in the area I am hunting, they are indicators that there is a mature buck in the area. Consequently, finding and hunting over these obvious sign posts is a very wise strategy for bagging that large buck.

In fact, whenever possible, I try to do most of my scouting immediately after the close of deer season because the pre-rut and rutting signs are still fresh at that time. In addition, it is also a good idea to scout during the spring turkey season and during late summer as the bucks are starting to lose their velvet because the deer seem to be far less wary of humans in their territory during this time. But, even when scouting during the spring and later summer, I still look for old rubs since these signs often remain visible for a couple of years after they were initially made.

Consequently, when I see an old rub, I immediately know that the area that I am scouting has the potential habitat necessary to support a resident deer population.

In addition, rubs can be divided into two different categories: inactive rubs and active rubs. Inactive rubs are most often made when the velvet is peeling from a deer’s antlers and thus, they are not often revisited.

However, active rubs are found along travel corridors and they tend to be part of a “rub line” and thus, you will find several of them in a row and they are often reused year after year. Consequently active rubs tend to display deep scarring of the underlying wood and not just the bark. In addition, when a buck uses and active rub, he is not only rubbing with his antlers but also with the scent glands located on his forehead thus he is advertising his presence to any does in the area as well as marking his territory as a warning to other bucks. However, it is important to be aware that hunting rub lines is only an effective strategy during the pre-rut and post rut periods since a mature buck’s movements during the actual rut are very erratic.

     Scrapes are another obvious and excellent sign that there are mature bucks in the area you are hunting.

However, contrary to conventional wisdom, observation has shown that scrapes are not made and used by only one buck. In fact, they are often visited by numerous bucks and, on rare occasions, does who will also paw the ground and dribble urine in the scrape just like a mature buck! In addition, scrapes, like rubs, can be classified as either active or inactive. In fact, although wildlife biologist have no idea why bucks display this behavior, some bucks will make scrapes early in the season even though they have no intention of returning to them. Also like rubs, scrapes tend to occur most often along travel corridors to and from bedding and feeding areas and they tend to form a “scrape line” just like a rub line. In addition, they can vary in size from one foot to eight feet in diameter and from a lightly scraped surface to a deep depression. Plus, scrapes are often accompanied by an overhanging branch that the buck either rubs his forehead against or chews on in order to leave additional scent as an advertisement of his presence to any does in the area. Last, hunting scrapes or scrape lines is best done during the pre-rut and post rut periods because a buck may or may not return to a scrape during the rut.

Consequently, whenever you are scouting unfamiliar territory, looking for and noting the location of any rubs and scrapes in the area is absolutely vital to your hunting success because these sings are obvious indicators that there are not only deer in the area you are hunting, there are mature bucks in the area. Thus, hunting near these signs is an excellent strategy for harvesting a mature buck as long as you are hunting either prior to or after the actual rutting period.

Written by guest writer

Bill Bernhardt

Consequently, because these hunters may have only a few days to a week to hunt out of the entire year, they simply do not have the time to scout public or private lands in order to locate bedding and feeding areas and/or rubs and scrapes.

However, because of the way these enclosed properties are managed, some of the largest deer on the property tend to become totally nocturnal. Thus, hunting them often requires hunters to adapt their hunting strategy accordingly.

The reason for deer on these enclosed properties developing this nocturnal behavior seems to be twofold.

First, like humans, as a deer experiences life and grows older, their occasional mishaps and encounters with predators (both four legged and two legged) teaches them that if they want to continue living, then they must become more cautious and more careful than the average deer.

The range in these enclosures is limited and the deer tend to become intimately familiar with not only the available habitat, but also with the habits of the hunters who frequent these enclosures. Therefore, because these hunters are taught either by their mentors or by the prevailing literature that deer tend to feed early in the morning and late in the evening and bed down in the middle of the day and after dark, these hunters tend to concentrate on hunting during those periods because that is what the “experts” say they should be doing.

However, observation has shown that while these hunters are “patterning” the deer they are hunting, the oldest and most experienced trophy bucks are also patterning the hunters and thus, the bucks have learned that the safest time for them to come out feed is well after sunset and sometimes in the middle of the day when hunters leave the woods and return to camp or the lodge for lunch.

Second, oftentimes on these enclosed properties, food is available to the deer in great abundance in either the form of deer food plots and/or deer feeders twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all year long. Thus, due to the abundance of food, a mature buck can easily consume enough food to fill his rumen within a very short time. Plus, if these food sources are located near or adjacent to prime bedding areas, then a trophy buck does not have to travel far to feed. Due to the abundance of food and the close proximity of that food to prime bedding areas and thick cover, a trophy buck is only required to expose himself to hunters for a very short period before returning to the safety of his safe haven.

Observation has also shown that most of these true trophy bucks are at least four to five years old and that they very seldom can be induced to leave the thick cover where they feel safe in order to respond to the usual tactics of scent attractants, grunt calls, and rattling. Nor do they seem particularly interested in rutting with does if it means leaving their safe havens.

Therefore, I believe that the trick to bagging these huge, trophy, nocturnal bucks is to locate the trails into their safe havens and carefully invade the edges of them well before sunrise. Then, spend the entire day in your stand and only come out again (quietly) well after dark because observation has also shown that these trophy bucks, which are normally completely nocturnal, will occasionally come out to feed during the middle of the day and when they do decide to move, you must be in position and ready to make the shot because you will be likely to only get one chance to harvest them.

Written by guest blogger

Bill Bernhardt

Whitetail deer are so adaptable and are very comfortable living in close proximity to humans.  These deer have discovered that these areas of new development make the perfect deer habitat since humans tend to plant all sorts of tasty foods in their flower beds and gardens and they tend to maintain parks and greenways that also provide excellent cover and food sources for the deer. Also, due to the lack of predation and the lack of hunting pressure, the populations of these urban and suburban deer are seemingly exploding in some areas.

However, surveys conducted amongst the residents of these urban and suburban areas often show that the residents of these areas do not initially favor allowing bow hunting or shotgun hunting in order to curtail the rising deer populations. But, in many areas, some sort of hunting program is inevitable because the rising deer population actually poses a significant threat to the local human population.

For instance, police accident reports have clearly demonstrated that the number of motor vehicle accidents caused by deer being blinded by a car’s headlights while crossing the road is drastically increasing in areas with rising deer populations (I have personally experienced this and it is not pleasant!). Not only do these deer related accidents cause significant property damage, they directly endanger the life of the driver and any passengers in the vehicle at the time of the accident.

In addition, due to the lack of predators and the lack of hunting pressure, many urban and suburban deer populations are rising beyond the carrying capacity of the local habitat. Consequently, the resident deer populations in these areas are forced to feed not only on the natural plant species that are normally part of their diet, they are also causing significant property damage by feeding on ornamental plants in people’s yards as well as their vegetable gardens and this subsequent property damage is starting to create a considerable amount of ire toward this seemingly harmless animal.

Therefore, as the problem grows, many residents are forced to change their opinions about allowing hunters to harvest these over abundant deer populations despite the protests of small groups of residents and animal activists groups.

In fact, many counties in numerous states now have established urban and suburban bow hunting seasons in an effort to cull these exploding deer populations in order to reduce them to within the carrying capacity of the local habitats.

As the size of these resident herds is reduced by licensed bow hunters acting accordance with the established hunting regulations and hunting on privately owned properties with the permission of the land owner, I suspect that we could very well see a significant increase in the number of trophy bucks being harvested in urban and suburban areas.

If you are an avid archer who has little or no access to wilderness tracts and/or little or no inclination to spend the time necessary to locate and hunt deer in unpopulated wilderness areas,  you might want to consider examining your local deer hunting regulations to see if your state or county has an urban or suburban deer hunting season.

If so, then it might be a good idea for you to converse with your local wildlife biologist employed by your state wildlife commission to see if there any areas where residents are having a particularly difficult time with these urban and suburban deer populations and then, go knocking on a few doors to see if you can obtain permission from the land owner to hunt on their property.

After all, you just may find the largest trophy buck you have ever seen in your standing in your sights and blissfully unaware of your presence!

Written by quest

Bill Bernhardt

However, once this food source has passed, deer living in forested areas are forced to return to feeding on woody plants called Browse.  Browse consists of a variety of grains, forbs, legumes, leaves, vines, and tree buds and locating browse becomes far more difficult for the deer at this time of year.

Browse foods are very important to the continued survival of any resident deer population because they are available during different times of the year and thus they provide a constant source of nutrition. The disadvantage is that browse is widely scattered and therefore you cannot rely on browse to  draw the deer to any specific location at any specific time.

When attempting to locate deer either before or after the Mast Fall, it is a wise strategy to use the sign’s of the deer’s browsing activity to lead you to their bedding area.

  You should look for such species as Honey Suckle, Sweet Briar, Poison Ivy, Sumac, Dogwood, Maple, Yellow Birch, Aspen, Choke Cherry, White Pine, White Cedar, Hemlock, and various types species of mushrooms just to name a few.

In fact, because deer have been known to feed on over six hundred different species of plants, the real trick to locating deer browse in your particular area is to first look for piles of deer droppings and note their consistency. If they appear to be a pile of discrete pellets with a fibrous consistency, then the deer in that area have been feeding on browse and thus, you should look for signs of nibbled ends on the surrounding foliage and then note which species have been nibbled on the most.

For instance, here in the southeast, our deer love Honeysuckle flowers and Sweet Briar vines. In fact, I have seen Honeysuckle vines that were almost completely devoid of flowers and Sweet Briar vines that were nibbled almost to the ground. Consequently, noting this sign of deer feeding activity will invariably clue you in on what types of Browse the deer in that location are feeding on.

Also, because deer need to maintain a nutritionally balanced diet, they often feed on numerous different plant species within their home range and that selection of plants is constantly changing according to the time of year.

Each deer needs to consume an average of 5 to 8 pounds of browse per 100 pounds of body weight each day. When, deer are feeding on Browse, their dropping piles will be copious but widely scattered because they need to cover a wide range of forest in order to find enough Browse to fulfill their needs. However, finding and following these dropping piles is like following a series of street signs that will lead you through the deer’s home range and eventually right back their bedding area.

     Consequently, finding deer during the time when the Soft Mast is falling is often as simple as finding an Apple, Pear, or Persimmon tree with ripe fruit or a wild Muscadine or Scupernong vine with ripe grapes falling and setting your stand up nearby. However, locating them either before or after the Soft and Hard Mast Fall when they are forced to return to feeding on Browse is often a much more difficult task. Thus, the best strategy during this time of year is to use the signs of their browsing activity and their dropping piles to lead you to their bedding areas and then set up on an incoming/outgoing trial nearby.

Also, I discussed the idea of using the consistency of the droppings to help determine what types of foods they have been feeding on so that you can find the feeding areas and hunt the deer there.

In this article, I will examine in greater detail the types of Soft Mast that deer like to eat and how those foods relate to the consistency of their droppings because, once you know what they are feeding on at that particular time in that particular area, then you will have a much better idea of where to find them and when to find them there.

So, to start with, I should first explain that deer foods are divided into two categories that are called Mast and Browse.

Mast is defined as a fruit or nut the falls to the ground from above and Browse is defined as foods such as grass, leaves, and buds that are located at or near ground level.

In addition, there are some Mast foods called Soft Mast and some foods called Hard Mast. Nearly every avid deer hunter is aware that deer love to eat White Oak Acorns (which are in the Hard Mast category) but, many deer hunters overlook the various types of Soft Mast often available to the deer.

For instance, anyone who has ever tried to cultivate an orchard or an arbor knows that deer like to eat sweet fruits such as apples, pears, and grapes and thus, these fruits are commonly known as “deer candy”. Therefore, looking for these types of trees and vines around old homesteads, farms, and orchards and then determining when the fruit ripens and starts falling and then being there at that time will almost guarantee you the harvest of a deer and likely more than one.

Another favorite “deer candy” is wild grapes and their cousins Scuppernongs and Muscadines. Unfortunately for hunters, these fruits are only available for two or three weeks during the year but, when they are available, they are an absolute deer magnet and if you set your stand up near to a vine with ripe fruit, you will see deer. To locate this type of Soft Mast when scouting, look for thick vines with, rough, black, bark and then look up to see if they are bearing fruit.

Another favored “deer candy” is French Mulberries. This fruit grows in small, round, clusters and appears similar to a black berry but it is colored pinkish to crimson in color and grows on small branched trees of irregular form with rough, pinkish-brown, bark. In addition, the leaves are tooth edged with pointed tips and rough surfaces.

Also, there is Sumac which produces clusters of small, pear shaped, bright red fruit, on a small bush usually no more than head height.

Plus, there is Honey Locust which is one of the most unusual types of Soft Mast deer feed on. This food appears as an extra-long, curled, redish-brown, bean pod suspended from the tops of certain trees.

Last, there is the absolute king of all deer candies: the Persimmon fruit. Although this fruit gives new meaning to the phrase “pucker power” when it is not yet ripe, when it does ripen in late October or November, it is the number one choice of any deer in the area to the exclusion of all other food sources!

When deer are feeding on soft mast, their droppings will appear as one large clump consisting of many small, individual, pellets. Also, when the clump appears wet or moist, then the deer have been there very recently. However, if they appear dry, then they are at least several hours old.

Thus, you can extrapolate from the age of the droppings what time of day the deer are visiting and feeding in that area and this will give you some idea of when you need to be there to hunt and harvest them.

Also, I mentioned that when scouting unfamiliar land, you should focus your attention on finding the bedding areas first and the feeding areas second and then finding and scouting the trails that connect these two types of areas.

However, finding either a bedding area or a feeding area on land that you are unfamiliar with can be a somewhat daunting task. Therefore, I would suggest that you learn to use deer droppings to help you in your search! That’s right; I did just say that you should be looking for deer droppings instead of looking for deer.

Now, my reason making this somewhat unusual suggestion is that finding areas where there are numerous piles of deer droppings in close proximity to each other will indicate that you are either very near to a deer bedding area or very near to a deer feeding area. In fact, according to a study done by researcher Logan Bennett in 1940 on deer kept in a pen, deer defecate an average of 13 times a day and, there is an average of 75 pellets per group. Whew! Now that’s a load of deer sh*t!

However, deer droppings are actually an excellent indication of the number of deer in any given area and how much time they are spending in any one area. Consequently, when I am scouting new territory for deer, the first thing I do is examine the overall area to gain some idea of where the deer might be bedding and feeding, then I start scouting the terrain in between these areas while looking for deer droppings because they are an easy sign to spot.

Then, if I find an area where there is only one or two piles of droppings, I can pretty safely assume that I have found a travel corridor; thus, I immediately start to look for a trail and try to follow it. If, on the other hand, I run across an area that has large number of dropping piles close to each other, then I immediately wonder if they are associated with a particular food source.

Therefore, I then examine the surrounding foliage from the ground level up to the average head height of a deer to see if I notice any browse that has been nibbled on and then, I look up to see if there is any mast waiting to fall. If so, then I can safely assume that I have found a feeding area. If not however, then I am probably adjacent to a bedding area.

Therefore, using a grunt call to sound like a deer yourself (even if you don’t know the language) is a wise idea because deer are so curious, they simply can’t seem to resist coming to see what all of the commotion is about. As for not knowing the language, biologists have found that these grunts average .72 seconds in length and have no particular pattern or sequence (Winand, 2008). Thus, there is no set “language” per say and consequently, three grunts may be just a good a six or seven grunts.

So, regardless of how you grunt, any deer passing your position is far more likely to come in for a closer look if you grunt at them. In addition, this is a good way to locate deer in the field because bucks tend to be very vocal in the Fall. In fact, they will often walk slowly and grunt softly every few steps as they travel from the bedding area to the feeding area and vice versa. Consequently, grunting to them can often elicit a response that allows you to home in on their location and can even serve to bring them closer to you.

Guest Writer : Bill Bernhardt

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So, with that in mind, I imagined myself as a deer and I quickly realized that the only three things on a deer’s mind are finding a readily available food source, finding a safe place to sleep, and avoiding predators. Thus, finding deer on any tract of land really comes down to two simple tasks: first, find the bedding areas and second, find the feeding areas.

Now, why start with the bedding areas you might correctly ask and my answer is, because suitable bedding habitat is the more scarce of the two resources in any habitat location. Therefore, because it is prime real estate, the deer will return there over and over again at the beginning of each day.

In addition, a mature buck spends more of his daylight hours in his bedding area than he does in any other spot. Plus, a prime bedding area is usually far more clearly defined than a feeding area and thus, it helps you to narrow down their location during in the daylight hours.

So, what constitutes prime deer bedding habitat you might ask? There again, my answer is THICK COVER and I do mean THICK! All deer, and especially mature bucks, require security in their choice of bedding areas. Thus, they specifically look for areas in which they feel like they can become invisible to predators and yet, have ready access to quick escape routes. Consequently, they look for areas of tall grass and/or weeds along with areas of dense sapling growth or Mountain Laurel thickets.

Next, after you have located and identified one or more bedding areas, then your next step is to locate and identify the feeding areas. However, in order to accomplish this, you first need to understand what deer like to eat. However, this can be somewhat problematic since deer have been recorded eating over six hundred different species of plants. So, to start with you must understand that deer are Herbivores and thus, they eat plants; only plants. In addition, these plants are classified as either Browse or Mast.

Now, Browse consists of annual and perennial plant species such as wheat, rye, millet, milo, corn, clover, beans, peas, ect. and Mast consists of fruit and nuts that fall from the trees in the late Fall season.

Therefore, it is important to understand that the type of Browse and Mast that are available to the deer changes with the months and even with the time of the month. Consequently, the sources of preferred deer foods are often moving from location to location throughout the year and any given source of deer food may or may not be visited that day by members of the local deer population.

However, if you know the location of all of the food sources in the area in relation to their position to the bedding area, then you can extrapolate the likely routes of travel to and from the bedding and feeding areas by taking into account the terrain, and the location and type of cover, available in the area.

Therefore, the best strategy for getting a shot at that trophy buck is to find both his bedding and feeding areas in places where you also find rubs and scrapes and then, set up near the bedding area on one of the trails leading to a feeding area. After all, we have all had the experience at one time or another of crawling out of bed after a good night’s sleep, groggily rubbing out faces while our brain starts to function again, and then suddenly realizing that we are hungry. Thus, I am quite certain that deer experience a similar sensation and the best time to catch them unawares is just after they have woken up for the day.

 Many avid deer hunters, and especially those here in the southeastern U.S., are opposed to the idea of harvesting does.

The reason for this attitude ranges from simply wanting to see a lot of deer when hunting to mistakenly believing that they by harvesting does, hunters may be killing next year’s trophy buck before it is born. However, research has proven that this attitude is quite simply incorrect.

In fact, this point of view originated in the early to mid 1900’s when Wildlife Resources Commissions in many states protected does while areas destroyed by overzealous logging operations, aggressive agriculture efforts, and expanding human populations, recovered from habitat loss and many deer populations recovered from market hunting practices.

Today however, most whitetail deer populations have recovered to the point that they are starting degrade or damage their available habitats to the point that it is adversely affecting both the size and health of the deer in these populations. In addition to overgrazing, deer habitat can also be adversely affected by local weather, local agriculture, forestry, and land development practices but, the simple fact is that regardless of the cause, when deer habitat is damaged, it can take many years to recover.

Even though most deer populations in many areas of North America are expanding rapidly, changing hunter’s attitudes about harvesting does has been a long and difficult process. The fact is that both bucks and does are born at an approximate ratio of 50:50 and  if hunters only harvest bucks, then the doe to buck ratio rapidly increases and thus, the deer population in any given habitat also rapidly increases.

This can quickly lead to overpopulation because of the dramatic increase in the number of breeding females which, in turn, causes the resident deer population to become stressed because there is simply not enough food to support the rapidly growing population which  leads to habitat degradation.

Consequently harvesting a certain number of does each year allows the remaining does to produce and raise more fawns to maturity and, if the fawns are bucks, then the increase in available food sources from harvesting does will allow the bucks to grow to a larger size and to produce larger racks.

However, this does not mean that hunters should over-harvest the resident doe populations either.

In fact, in many areas, in addition to harvesting a certain number of does each year, the key to increasing the size, health, and quality of local bucks is to improve their habitat by coppicing the local woodlands to produce an abundance of fall mast as well as planting deer food plots with appropriate species of both warm and cold weather annual and perennial species such as Alyce Clover and White Clover, peas, soybeans, and lab lab along with such species as oats, wheat, rye, and corn.

This way, you can prevent overgrazing of the available habitat and yet, still provide the resident deer populations in your area with the year around nutrition that they need to allow the bucks to grow larger and stronger and to produce larger racks.

Written by,

Guest Author and Avid Hunter

Bill Bernhardt