Nocturnals!!!

[Shmee22]

Hey my areas up in D11 or so heavily hunted that all of the deer are night owls. I guess that is why they are called the gray ghosts . So how does one get a deer when you can't hunt at night!!?? Lol

 

[TaftHunter]

Find one that's bedded down using some good optics.

 

[Shmee22]

Find one that's bedded down using some good optics.

I tried that the last 3 times I hunted and have yet to spot one. I know the deer are there because I have trail cam pics in that area I'm glassing with. I have decent optics to glass with. I know that persistence pays off though and I'm definitely going to stick with it. Maybe the deer will calm down after the general season and start moving around once we get a good weather change and the late archery season starts.

 

[Bowman]

Are you still hunting?
Patience. is the key. wait for the rut & colder weather. if you see deer on the cams. then their there.
but if thats not on what you want, you could try to bust them out their beds. but be advised you run the chance of them moving and they will not come back. if they feel they get pressured to much they will move on.
spot and stock as suggested by taft and he is having good success. so sounds like good advice.

 

[TaftHunter]

Do you use a spotting scope or just binos? It's a little heavy to drag around, but I love taking my spotting scope with me. Sometimes with just binos its hard for me to see real good in the shade. But yeah, here pretty soon the deer should start moving pretty good.

 

[Shmee22]

Are you still hunting?
Patience. is the key. wait for the rut & colder weather. if you see deer on the cams. then their there.
but if thats not on what you want, you could try to bust them out their beds. but be advised you run the chance of them moving and they will not come back. if they feel they get pressured to much they will move on.
spot and stock as suggested by taft and he is having good success. so sounds like good advice.

Yeah I'm still hunting. I have been out a total of 8 days since the season opener and have literally only seen one deer . But have seen some does and a couple bucks on my trail cam but they are all at night. I think all of the hunters in that area are trying to jump them out of there beds but I haven't heard really any shots so these deer are really smart. I hope it's just a mixture of poor weather, the drought and hunter pressure and not lions in the area. Haven't seen lion tracks

 

[Bowman]

Ok well also I wanted to advise that the best times to see deer is went it is either cloudy, and cool, and especially during the dark of the moon. deer move more at those times. went it's dark of the moon deer are force to move during the day because they can not see as well during the night any way my take on it.
look at the best times. deer will stay nocturnal if there is to much hunter pressure. so then best bet is as Taft say's to spot and stock and hope for the best.

 

[M_juttner]

Hey my areas up in D11 or so heavily hunted that all of the deer are night owls. I guess that is why they are called the gray ghosts . So how does one get a deer when you can't hunt at night!!?? Lol

I am in the same boat as you during archery I was running into deer every time all does and a few spikes, but snice general season started I haven't seen anything but a few back ends of deer running in the thick i hunted from sunrise to sundown yesterday to come up with nothing D11 gets hit so hard during general season

 

[Aeon]

flat out its a tough year! Even my friends that scout a ton are having trouble getting deer to play this year. if you know deer are in the area maybe its time to sit in a ground blind or tree for a day or ten? See if you can figure out where they bed and where they eat if its not the same place and set up closer to the beding area. We had some deer we wanted to shoot a while back but they would only come out after shooting light. so we kept moving closer and closer to the beds. Stuck a nice buck that year with just a few min of light left. He got up 10 min to early that day

Keep at it...

 

[Shmee22]

flat out its a tough year! Even my friends that scout a ton are having trouble getting deer to play this year. if you know deer are in the area maybe its time to sit in a ground blind or tree for a day or ten? See if you can figure out where they bed and where they eat if its not the same place and set up closer to the beding area. We had some deer we wanted to shoot a while back but they would only come out after shooting light. so we kept moving closer and closer to the beds. Stuck a nice buck that year with just a few min of light left. He got up 10 min to early that day

Keep at it...

I tried an area yesterday that I found last year and saw some well used deer trails with fresh tracks and a couple of beds in there. It's pretty condensed but I would still be able to get a shot with the bow longest shot would be about 25-30 yards so it's perfect. I set up my trail cam in there so I can see if I have any legal/decent bucks. If I do I might just spend the rest of the season in there and try to possibly set up while it's still dark and stay there until it gets dark again. Only problem with that is it's so dry and crunchy so it will be hard to not make noise. It has been pretty bad this year but I am pretty confident that I will get one. I just have to remember that I still have until December 31st with the A31 tag.

 

[Shmee22]

Maybe the possible snow and rain this weekend will get these deer moving and bucks chasing