Home › Forums › Campfire Forum › Deer hunting REALLY small land tracts?
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In the midst of the landowner confusion 🙄 in another area I tend to once again, be falling back on one that most locally wouldn’t hunt in on a bet.
Small, sandwiched between two highways (one a four lane), VERY little areas of functional “bedding areas” and all beans so no standing corn to hide in.
It does have some things that caught my eye. Fairly thick fence rows all the way around and a junk yard on on side, with more junk yard and a field of corn accross the smaller highway…….and no other hunters. 😀
It’s one of those places that has much more activity, of course, here in the next few weeks when the bucks start seriously nosing around and at the moment indications of regular patterns of travel are very light. Even when the activity starts……there is no pattern at all. Any time, day or night, any where.
This is the same place I took the small one out of earlier this year on a corner of the 1 acre patch of woods that is at the other end of the property from the owner’s home.
Right behind, and I mean RIGHT behind, and bordering the owner’s yard is a thick, wet, grown up patch, with lots of old farm machinery left in some mostly scrub trees and a few mature ones, weeds and cat tails all around a moss covered “pond”. Half of which is within the junk yard.
I’ve noticed some activity around the owner’s house yet continued to walk past this mess to hunt further back but did half expect something to come wandering out of it sooner or later but wind directions normally make sitting close to it rather senseless.
Tonight a SW wind, switching to S at dusk (supposedly) has me eyeballing this as a possibility. Yesterday, while completing a very short and slow infiltration of the back side of this I found a few rubs and a small scrape that appears just started back in the brush about 10 yards. Ah HA! Ya little varmint!
I suspect he’s a 1.5 year old “billy goat” buck yet the 2 inch wide trees don’t REALLY give the hunter a method of accurate size judgement. He could easily be a 2.5 or older buck as well. Heck maybe I’ll luck out and there is even MORE THAN ONE! 😆
Evidently the BUCK thinks there is some doe activity there so I’ve plans to sit down wind of the scrape trail, which is also down wind of two other trails that come out further away but some of the tracks head that way towards a lone oak tree about 20 yards out from the same corner.
I’ve never “bumped” any deer from this area on the way back to my truck but they could see me coming a LONG ways away and filter back into the swampy area in the semi dark without me seeing them quite easily. Accustomed to people in the area they could possibly be used to just going back in the thick cover and waiting.
The deer traffic on this back side seems to be picking up some and the question is not are they there but will they come out during shooting hours.
Going in to setup under the overhanging limbs, without spooking anything quite possibly laying within 50 yards of me is also a concern but with this wind direction the only other option I have is just not go hunting.
I’ll be exhausted by the time I get set up. I mean it’s a whole 4-500 feet from my truck!! 🙄
Any one else every have any luck on whitetail in such an urban setting?
God Bless,
Steve Sr. -
I just read a article in Outdoor life about rut myths! They said that the bigger bucks will make one or two scrapes and the younger ones will make many, but the big boys will constantly check and maintain there one or two scrapes! Dont know if you have ever heard of that!? I had not before that, might help!?
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Steve Sr. wrote:
Any one else every have any luck on whitetail in such an urban setting?
God Bless,
Steve Sr.Steve,
Probably half of the deer I’ve killed came from woodlots 5 acres or less in size.
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With this post I wish to not give advice mearly to share notes!:D I actually am hunting a small track of private land sandwiched between a large farm and other smaller tracks, the property is a residence and it sits on 8 acres of land with approximately 4 acres of woods and crp! The deer go through using trails basically every day. The only problem is find out which trail they will use, they have 6 main trails in that tiny track of woods! Steve are you seeing simialar stuff? I know guys that hunt areas very similar to yours, with some great success I might add, but I myself have never hunted something like this, I am used to 55000 acres of public land to roam to my free will. I hate the enclosed space, it is actually the only time during my hunting career that I felt the need to be up in a tree! Although I think our stands are in a bad location, although the trails below make a absolutely gorgeous funnel, they seem to be moving elsewhere!? I think they are doing what the deer in your area are doing, fliping a coin before they go on our property to decide what trail they are going to use!
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It’s pretty common to find multiple trails in a thicker area of small parcels when in urban areas. I’m just not used to hunting so CLOSE to a house. I think with little cover and still moving about like all deer do they tend to hang close to what they have and it concentrates things a bit.
The results will often have more trails than one can possibly choose from.
I set up in my corner tonight and did some trimming but this spot is a good example of such.
I have the edge of the bean field, and three trails all going different directions all within 16 yards of me or less.
I am also hunting from the ground and the area is thick enough that total immobility is necessary because they can all of a sudden just “show up” without seeing them coming.
Oh, I’ll get busted there but hoping I do a little busting of my own too in the next month. 😀
Thanks for sharing the area you are in for comparision. Heck, we might even figure this all out someday. 😆
Hopefully, this will work and you will see a short video showing the view from this stand.
It starts at the bean field that they walk along and have trails further to the left and also shows this trail coming out. Then it pans to the left and zooms to a shooting path cut in the tree top (just left of that out of view is a scrape at the end of the treetop), pans again to the left and zooms where another trail comes out (not the same one but one crossing the first), then pans again to the left where a trail comes out right next to the forked tree.
It’s gonna be HAIR RAISING when they really start moving! 8)
God Bless,
Steve Sr.BTW, yes, there is indeed a Steve Jr. here. All 6 foot 2 and 270 lbs of him. 20 years old. Dang….I can almost remember those days.
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I think we have very similar areas, except in my spot, there is a creek down the hill 30 yards, the funnel goes directly downhill 15 yards and comes back up. The trails connect two clearings each about 1/8 of an acre(suppose to be food plots). Then behind the stands there is a trail that was actually man made along time ago for the kids to use 4 wheelers on, but has since overgrown! The deer use those trail systems very readily.
here is a map, kinda faint, that is my scaners fault, anyway that should help kinda explain my setup! The elevation is started at the top of the hill and goes down to the creek, my lines look like it is opposite!
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Hi All
Steve, a couple of issues/ posts have come up recently that I have felt unable to comment on as the cultural divide does not allow me to be objective.
A couple of observations and comments I would like to make, firstly I can’t comprehend the greed and lack of respect that you have had to tolerate from people who no doubt consider themselves sportsmen.
Small plots on my side of the pond can be productive especially if you have neighbours that are noisy and actively pushing game off their land, sometimes it can be crop planting other times just noisy incompetent hunters. I’ve always favoured ground that has a water source natural spring, streams even water troughs for cattle, if nothing else they will attract pigeons in summer.
It can I think be more difficult to fully appreciate small plots than great expanses, on large tracts spook game and they just move on a little way and you may see them latter in the day, spook them on a small plot and you may never see them again so you fieldcraft and knowledge must be that little bit better refined.
Other things I look for undulating ground, small fields, old hedges, orchards and woodland edges. I’m lucky to have access to two small plots one about 35 acres and has a stream bordering three sides, almost like a horseshoe that has provided me with so many years of good hunting probably thousands of rabbits, hundreds of pigeons and even a few deer (fallow) and trout, if only I could buy it. The other bigger but the bit I’m interested in is small between 50 and 200 yds. wide but about a mile long with a steam down one side I get free access so long as I don’t touch the pheasants, not a problem, rabbits, duck (the owners don’t even know they are there) pigeons and deer (muntjac and occasional fallow)
Hope the new ground your hunting works out, Mark.
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