Morning hunt ideas

[cewoz560]

Hey newbie here looking for ideas on morning hunt areas. I know look for the bedding area and set up near the travel lanes. I Scout and can't seem to find these areas! I have no private areas hunting Monmouth Cty parks and some MSQN WMA. Have yet to see any deer in the am. Only got into hunting last year b/c of my 10 yr old son (see other post) who I can't even get out this year!

 

I did get 2 deer this year so far! So I did learn something from last year's misses!

 

Ideally I'd like to find a safe spot for my son and I.

 

Any suggestions?

 

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[Rusty]

It won't help with this year much but one of the best times to scout is winter when there is light snow on the ground.  Walk your hunting areas a couple of days after each fresh snow and you will begin to understand where deer come and go.  

[Matty]

My advice is to skip mornings, except during the rut. 

 

Outside of the rut, I think morning hunting can be too tough. Big bucks are usually back in their bedroom before legal shooting light. Even does, if not already in bed are usually close enough to their beds that you'll bump them on the way in to setup.

 

I've had better success waiting until a little after it starts to get light, quietly slipping in and setting up just outside the bedding area, but maybe even in the thick stuff with them, as near as you can get without bumping them (you have to know almost exactly where they are bedding). Deer will get up and browse multiple times throughout the day, but they rarely seem to stray more than like 50 yards or so from beds (generally).

 

My advice for locating beds probably flies in the face of what most people would probably tell you. If I can't figure out where deer are bedding, I walk around the area to jump deer from their beds. I want to know exactly where the deer are bedding. When I have to do this, I try to do it on a rainy day. I discovered this when I was young and didn't know much of anything. I would walk around until I jumped deer, then I would setup and hunt.  At the time I did it out of pure childhood ignorance to the "hunting tactics" ....I had many many hunts where deer returned well before dark to try and bed back down. I still use that "oddball" tactic sometimes. It's a great way to figure things out during the season.

 

As Rusty said too, you can do a lot of scouting when there is some light snow on the ground. Heavy snow has the possibility of changing their patterns too much.

[Zipper]

Agee with Matt Matty, skip mornings this time of year. Evenings more productive.

[GhostBear]

I hunt an area that seems to have it all, an area where the deer rest, a text book funnel/pinch point and crop fields, this spot I can sit in the a.m. And catch the deer coming off the corn fields headed to bedding/resting areas, them go in the p.m. And catch them going the other way, or sit all day and catch them going both ways. This is public land to!!

 

But to answer your question, look at aerial photos of you hunting area, look for thick areas of pine, or cedar or other thick cover, these area would make good bedding cover, then look for an are of hard woods or if possible some kind of crop field, then look for a terrain feature that could funnel the deer along, this could be a ridge, a swamp, or in my case a pair of swamps then a pair of ponds, in my case they can only really go through that gap. Those are the things to look for. Good luck.