For Deer-Hunting Success, CVA Muzzleloader Hunters Should Give Away Stand Sites
Editor’s Note: As the morning broke clean and clear, and slivers of daylight began to shaft through the remaining leaves, I picked-up my binoculars to confirm what my eyes saw. The woods looked like someone had announced a woodpecker convention. I spotted at least six to eight red or orange vests hunters were wearing while sitting high up in the trees along several deer trails that ran through the area I was planning to hunt on opening day of muzzleloader deer season. I knew my morning hunt was ruined, because more than likely those hunters had spooked the deer I’d hoped to take. So, I gave away what I thought was the best place to take a deer to the other hunters who had arrived there before me.
Oftentimes when we locate an area with fresh deer sign and several productive places to set-up a tree stand, we’ll plan to hunt there on opening day, without thinking that any one else has read the same deer sign and/or located this same great hunting spot. If you make this same mistake, like I did that day, you, too, may have the opportunity to see a woodpecker convention but no deer. As you begin to scout for deer to now prepare for Muzzleloader season, consider several factors when you find deer sign.
* Determine how easily other hunters will see the same sign you have on opening day. If the spot you’ve chosen is within 1/2-mile of a road, chances are very high that someone else has identified this same site as a potential hunting hot spot.
* Learn the location of the deer’s bedding area. If you follow the trail or the sign back to a thick-cover region that’s inaccessible to most hunters, more than likely you’ll see the bedding site. Circle the bedding area to see if you can pinpoint escape routes the deer will use, if and when hunters approach. Once you identify this area, follow a trail 300- to 400-yards away from the bedding site to a location where you can hang a tree stand that’s difficult for other hunters to reach.
* Go to places where many hunters won’t move to on opening morning to hunt. Most deer hunters won’t: carry backpacks with waders in them to their hunting sites on opening morning to reach hunting spots across water; ascend steep terrain and/or climb high mountains or hills in the dark to reach their stand sites before daylight; or, walk through thick cover during daylight hours to reach a location to set-up a tree stand. Once you‘ve pinpointed places like this, start looking for deer sign, because more than likely the sign you’ll see in sites like these won’t be deer sign most other hunters have spotted.
* Read both deer sign and hunter sign to be successful with your CVA Muzzleloader gun. Hunters often will leave behind cigarette butts, candy wrappers, paper sacks, soft-drink cans and other materials they’ve brought with them to their hunting sites. When you find hunters’ sign in an area you plan to hunt, give that site back to the hunter who’s found it before you. Deer hunters, especially on public grounds, have a tendency to hunt the same places they’ve always hunted. So, assume the hunter who’s left the hunter sign will be at that same stand site on opening morning. Let him have that location, and search for another area where most hunters won’t hunt.
* Search for an older-age-class buck before and during the rut – generally within 300 yards of a green field. Try to identify a very-thin deer trail that most hunters won’t see. Most hunters who hunt a green field will look for the most well-worn trail they can find that enters or leaves the green fields, because the sign will tell them that that’s where the most deer are entering and leaving the field. However, these hunters don’t know, unless they’ve set-up trail cameras whether or not that trail is only being used after dark. The thin trail that’s often found 50- to 300-yards away from the green field actually is the primary buck trail. Often the bucks will use it to circle the green field, while staying out of sight, and use their noses to determine if there’s an estrous doe in the green field.
By giving-up stand sites that are obvious to most hunters and searching for stand sites hunters can’t find and deer sign most hunters can’t read, you’ll increase your odds for taking an opening-day blackpowder-season buck.