New to the site

[SoCal71s]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the site and just wanted to say hi and ask some questions. I'm am east county native, and an old washed up desert racer switching gears from racing back to hunting. (Archery hunting to be specific ) I've spent hours on end doing my "virtual scouting " ( Google earth, onx, huntstand, and a few others) picked a few spots that looked great on paper, and have recently started putting boots on the ground. I've hiked miles through some of the most tick infested rattlesnake ridden areas I picked to scout and have come up empty at every spot. So my question is WTF am I missing. I've hiked pine creek (north of the 8) kitchen creek, laguna, and a little bit of Boulder creek and havnt seen jack squat for deer. in fact last week in kitchen creek I found more cows than anything.. any advice for this grumpy old retired fool would be much appreciated

 

[skeet]

Look for the burns big or small

 

[NBK]

Welcome to SCH @SoCal71s . You came to the right spot.

Don't get discouraged. You will find deer. Sometimes it is just a timing thing. Best to get away from roads and either glass up hill into ravines and canyons or do the opposite, get up high and glass down. More times than not, you will glass an area only to see nothing, then re-glass the same area minutes or hours later and turn up deer.

Have you had a chance to read through the post below?

How are you guys seeing so many deer

Do not give up! And become a regular on SCH.

 

[SoCal71s]

Welcome to SCH @SoCal71s . You came to the right spot.

Don't get discouraged. You will find deer. Sometimes it is just a timing thing. Best to get away from roads and either glass up hill into ravines and canyons or do the opposite, get up high and glass down. More times than not, you will glass an area only to see nothing, then re-glass the same area minutes or hours later and turn up deer.

Have you had a chance to read through the post below?

How are you guys seeing so many deer

Do not give up! And become a regular on SCH.

Im Not getting discouraged, I'm getting more motivated, motivated to go harder and farther than I probably should.. I will check out the post you linked. Thank you

 

[TrapLine]

What are you scouting for? if you stumbled across any sign, concentrate your efforts there. Find the water, spread out this year. Go early and the rattlesnakes will be out sunning but not moving much till they get heated and nice and pissed off.

 

[ilovesprig]

Welcome to SCH........Loads of country in the "16"....You have probably started your e-scouting in the Cleveland or BLM....Try San Felipe W.A....Lots of country and all open to bow hunting....

Tough time of year to scout too....Does are starting to fawn and bucks are in bachelor groups or very solitary, moving mostly at night...Hang with it......

Good luck

 

[SoCal71s]

What are you scouting for? if you stumbled across any sign, concentrate your efforts there. Find the water, spread out this year. Go early and the rattlesnakes will be out sunning but not moving much till they get heated and nice and pissed off.

Scouting for deer. So far all the spots that looked good on the maps have produced a big fat nothing for sign.. and yea the rattlesnake are out in full force this year I stumbled across 3 today alone

 

[SoCal71s]

Welcome to SCH........Loads of country in the "16"....You have probably started your e-scouting in the Cleveland or BLM....Try San Felipe W.A....Lots of country and all open to bow hunting....

Tough time of year to scout too....Does are starting to fawn and bucks are in bachelor groups or very solitary, moving mostly at night...Hang with it......

Good luck

You're exactly right, 8 started looking in the Cleveland national zoo.. I mean forest. Mostly because I'm more familiar with the area.. I do have san Felipe on my radar but i don't know the area. I'm not even sure where to start out that way

 

[sportyg]

San Felipe would be shotgun or bow only. You would need to hunt the back side for deer. Not sure if it is a buck / doe area as have never hunted it for deer but have seen them there. It is mostly a fawning area.

 

[180ls1]

You're exactly right, 8 started looking in the Cleveland national zoo.. I mean forest. Mostly because I'm more familiar with the area.. I do have san Felipe on my radar but i don't know the area. I'm not even sure where to start out that way

I would start now with a .22 in hand and pop some rabbits while keeping your eye out for everything else. You'll begin to see turkey tracks, deer poop, and spook a covey of quail. Then you'll learn patterns where you keep seeing that stuff and be able to recognize that in different areas. It will snowball from there.

Killing a deer in public after a few times out is like finishing the San Filipe 250 after only riding a bike a handful of times. It will probably take you years and dozens of times to get it done.

 

[Antman09]

Welcome

 

[KoozeDeer]

Welcome @SoCal71s this time of year is very difficult to find deer. The hotter it gets the more nocturnal the deer become. When glassing most of the deer i see are the last 15 minutes of light. I will say there is a decent amount of deer movement @2am obviously making scouting tough. Cameras can be very helpful

 

[Driftwood]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the site and just wanted to say hi and ask some questions. I'm am east county native, and an old washed up desert racer switching gears from racing back to hunting. (Archery hunting to be specific ) I've spent hours on end doing my "virtual scouting " ( Google earth, onx, huntstand, and a few others) picked a few spots that looked great on paper, and have recently started putting boots on the ground. I've hiked miles through some of the most tick infested rattlesnake ridden areas I picked to scout and have come up empty at every spot. So my question is WTF am I missing. I've hiked pine creek (north of the 8) kitchen creek, laguna, and a little bit of Boulder creek and havnt seen jack squat for deer. in fact last week in kitchen creek I found more cows than anything.. any advice for this grumpy old retired fool would be much appreciated

Whats up, this is my first season, got an A22 tag. Looking for someone to hunt with or at least learn this thing together. So far I have found lots of sign, seen a total of 4 does on 2 occasions, but I have not been any closer than 700 yards and they were moving further away.
They were also in an area that you wouldn't go to for just a few hours.

 

[Jawbreaker]

Do your leg work and be patient. I shot both of my deer in the first 2 weeks of the opener( a doe and a forky). It has A lot to do with being in the right place at the right time but it does take a little skill, legwork and luck to put yourself in the right place. A lot of people walk right past a good area to get to a spot they think is better.

 

[Driftwood]

Do your leg work and be patient. I shot both of my deer in the first 2 weeks of the opener( a doe and a forky). It has A lot to do with being in the right place at the right time but it does take a little skill, legwork and luck to put yourself in the right place. A lot of people walk right past a good area to get to a spot they think is better.

I have found myself making this mistake of doing too much hiking to a "better" spot and not enough sitting and glassing. I also have to remind myself what Fred Bear used to say "go where the deer are, not where you think they ought to be".