The mid-January sun shone brightly, but there wasn’t much warmth in its deceiving rays. There was a good covering of snow on the ground and my hunting buddy and I were out for a winter’s hike, making the most of a break in the weather before the temperatures plunged again. Winter brings unique opportunities for bowhunters like me and Scott. Although some states have a late bow season, most of us hang up our arrows when the thermometer sags on the wrong side of zero. Compared to those halcyon fall days, it’s just too darn cold to enjoy hunting!

The kind of opportunities I’m talking about are not of the hunting nature but about scouting. A fresh covering of snow is an indicator of who’s doing what in the neighborhood, where they are going, and where they are bedding. Low areas freeze hard and allow access to swamps and lowlands previously off limits during the warmer months. We kept in mind that this snow was a few days old, so a spot with abundant half-moon tracks might not be quite as popular as it seemed at first. Still, compared to areas closer to the road, there were places where the traffic was obviously high. Tracks and more tracks, crisscrossing trails, and lots of deer beds seemed to indicate that certain spots promised plenty of deer in the fall. It was certainly encouraging to find that the local whitetails had been using a hemlock ridge as a huge communal bedroom just a snowball’s throw from one of my ground blinds. My first reaction was, “Wow, this is really a hot spot,” but did all that sign mean that the place is nearly that popular during the Indian Summer days of October?

To get some answers I contacted Emma Doden, the county wildlife biologist for our part of the state and asked the question, “What is the significance of deer sign during the winter, and is it any indication that the area will be used during the bow season?” After reading my description of our findings she responded:

“It sounds like the area where you saw lots of deer sign was surrounded by a swampy area, which can provide cover and browse for deer in the winter. Depending on how far you are from other food sources and if those food sources have been depleted or not (agricultural fields), the deer may be congregating in this area due to the availability of food and cover. Where deer are in the winter can also depend on the severity of the winter. So far we have not had extreme amounts of snow, so deer are still able to move around relatively easily and may still have access to a variety of food sources.”

In spite of the fact that my bow stand is bordered on the east by a swamp, in the other direction it looks into open woods where there’s plenty of browse. Were the deer feeding on maple shoots during the night and then retreating to the shelter of the hemlocks to bed down most of the day? Probably, but it’s a good sign that they use the general area year-round since they have access to both browse and a protected bedding area. A second high-traffic area was a small high spot surrounded by boggy but now passable swamp land 100 yards to the east. Since there is nothing particularly edible around this area, then why are there so many tracks and beds in the one high spot?

According to our DNR biologist:

“Food (natural and agricultural sources) will be much more abundant during the growing season into the fall, so typically this tends to spread deer out across the landscape. In severe winters or where there is limited winter food (like in northern Wisconsin’s forests), deer may ‘yard up,’ meaning concentrate in specific areas of the landscape. However, deer yard up less today than they did say 50 years ago because we have had milder winters, and the availability of food during the winter months has changed.

“So, deer movements,” she goes on, “may not be quite as different between the winter and the summer/fall as they used to be, but deer still tend to be in different places throughout the seasons. This means that though you may see a lot of deer sign in this swampy area now, it is no guarantee they will be using this place during the fall hunting seasons. This is not to say they won’t pass through or that you won’t see any deer here in the fall, but an assessment of deer movements in the late summer (perhaps with trail cameras or looking for tracks in the mud) is going to give you a much better idea of where they will be during the fall hunting seasons than all the tracks you’ve found in the winter.”

In spite of this, I think that scouting during the winter can still be valuable but, as biologist Doden implies, it’s really just the first of a two-step process. When a high-traffic area is revealed in the snow it certainly is encouraging but it also means that the spot merits further scrutiny before drawing any conclusions. In April, when the snow cover is gone and before things start to green up, it’s time to revisit the spot and take a closer look. All of the previous fall’s scrapes, rubs, and trails will look pretty much like they did in November before the snow fell. If you’ve stumbled onto something significant it will be much more apparent when the snow is gone. Lack of any such evidence may mean that you’d be wasting your time camping out there in September in hopes of getting a shot.

Our winter trek ended on the high ground at the southern end of our property. Although I’ve seldom seen deer there, the area was peppered with tracks, so evidently there are more animals around than we suspected. Particularly beaten down was a spot at the base of a huge hemlock. Perhaps the popularity of the place could be traced to a number of wind-stripped branches on the ground. Do deer eat hemlock? Evidence shows that they really like them! I’ll give the area a closer look in the spring and perhaps put a ground blind in the area if I find enough deer evidence.

The author scouting during winter in his home state of Wisconsin.

There are several take-aways from our hike and consequent discussion with our wildlife biologist on winter tracks:

1: Tracks in a low, boggy area indicate that the deer are probably there at the moment to avoid the elements but are not necessarily signs of usage during other seasons.

This fact was brought home to me on a frigid morning years ago when my buddy refused to stay in the cabin as the bow season wound down. He decided to tough it out on a stand while I drove the length of a frozen swamp in an effort to push something his way. The wind was whipping out of the north and the temperature was below zero. However, as I entered the lowland, the air seemed to warm up considerably. As I looked up, the tops of tall trees on the edge of the swamp were swaying violently in the wind, but at ground level the air was eerily calm. It’s not hard to understand why the deer go there and leave lots of tracks on such a day, even though they may not actually be yarded up.

2: Numerous trails indicate that the deer are moving freely.

This is a good sign, as winterkill is not a problem until deep snow hinders their access to roam about and nip buds and other mast needed to survive the winter. Tracks in the open woods show that yarding has not occurred and, depending on their age, can also be a rough estimate of the number of deer hanging around in an area.

3: Lots of beds are not necessarily signs of large populations.

Perhaps the morning after a snow would be an exception, but deer make multiple beds, and some research has shown that they seldom use the same one for any length of time. Finding a bunch together, like on my hemlock ridge, means it’s probably a spot where does and yearlings have bedded but doing so on a regular basis would make them vulnerable to predators. The huge bed further back in the swamp indicates that it is used by a big buck, that may return to it repeatedly if not pressured, since it is in a very advantageous position.

Besides deer tracks we found the trail of a wandering porcupine clearly showing where his belly dragged in the snow. Also, those of a fisher, which is one of the few animals that prey upon porcupines. We didn’t run across any canine tracks, which confirmed that on our property, at least, there wasn’t a wolf pack which would certainly disrupt deer movements.

Winter scouting may not pinpoint if you’ve found a hot-spot or exactly where to hunt the following fall, but it does give one a better understanding of what’s going on in the woods. Snow is the social register on which all wildlife must sign in. The more you learn about the flora and fauna of an area the better your chances of success will be when it’s time to sharpen those broadheads again.