How to Read the Land for Deer Hunting in Different Terrains
Here’s how to find deer in woodlands, farm fields, and mountainous terrain.
By Andrew McKean
Most how-to deer hunting pieces tell you how to set a treestand or how to trim a shooting lane. Some may even offer some wisdom on setting up between bedding areas and food sources. And if they really provide value, they’ll tell you how wind influences your stand locations.
This is not that kind of how-to article. Instead, it’s one that takes a larger view of the problem most deer hunters face, which is figuring out how to hunt various types of terrain. I’m talking specifically about the sorts of landscape types that dominate the public land that you and I hunt because we can’t afford a private-land deer lease where we control the variables.
Public land from coast to coast has one common denominator: It’s marginal. These lands entered the public domain because they weren’t valuable for agricultural, residential or other private commercial use. Consequently, the best public deer ground is often steep, rocky, weedy, and raw—all factors that can improve the hunting if you know how to read the terrain.
On public land, the variables are too numerous to mention, but they tend to fall into three themes: accessibility, landscape type, and hunting style.
We’ll pick apart three different-but-common landscapes, and then apply the other two variables—accessibility and hunting style—to each. I hope you recognize your local public parcel in these descriptions.
Woodlands
The types of public land in this category include swatches of state forest in the Northeast, some overgrown game lands in Pennsylvania, the hardwoods along the spine of the Appalachian and Blue Ridge mountains, and much of the logged-over forests from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula down through the white-oak Ozarks.
Dense timber can be hard to hunt, because there aren’t many defined edges. In these places, look for tracks, scrapes, and rubs, and set up downwind of those signs.
These public properties tend to be grown over and fairly sterile in terms of wildlife value. But they serve as productive transition zones for whitetails, providing bedding areas, mast production in good acorn years, and terrain that rewards hunters who get away from the easy access spots and work the interiors.
Accessibility: You’re likely to see lots of vehicles at the access points and trailheads, but don’t let that deter you. Prepare to hike, maybe only a few hundred yards or perhaps as far as two miles, to get into the best hunting terrain. If possible, you’re going to want to hike a ridge, maintaining your elevation as you work into the interior.
Keep your eyes peeled for deer sign—maybe a rub or a scrape, or a well-used trail. If you’re packing a treestand, the very best spot to erect it is on the nose of a distinct ridge that overlooks a saddle. Bonus points if you can find a good tree that commands the spot where two major ridges meet.
Some access points will be at the lower margins of the property, in which case you have some climbing to do. Find the dominant ridge of the parcel and hike up it, keeping your eyes peeled for sign.
In areas where water is abundant, look for mast-producing trees. In areas where water is limited, look for little seeps and springs—places that might concentrate deer.
Hunting Style: Your hunting style in these woodland habitats will likely be from a treestand. Many public properties don’t allow permanent stands, so think about bringing a climber and setting up over a defined trail. Alternatively, try making a mock scrape, and see if it’s being tended. If it is, that’s the spot for your stand, just downwind of the scrape. This is the perfect terrain for stump-sitters, folks who simply plop down and watch. It’s an old and very effective method for woodland hunting.
If you intend to hunt from the ground, plan on using deadfall and slash vegetation to build a ground blind. No need to bring in a commercial blind, especially if it limits your mobility.
Farm/Fields
Accessibility: Most huntable properties that fall into this landscape type are private grounds enrolled in a walk-in program. That’s because, as mentioned, farmland is generally too valuable to be devoted exclusively to the public domain. For the purposes of this piece, we’ll assume that farmland is private and that usage restrictions limit the style of hunting on these properties.
A killer spot to set up for ag-land deer is just inside a timbered edge overlooking a field.
These landscapes range from the monoscapes of the Great Plains wheat belt to the corn and soybean country of the Midwest to the smaller pastures of the Southeast. What they all have in common, however, is very productive edge habitat, the line between cropland and nearby woods, or pasture and brushy cover. You should be hunting that edge.
Hunting Style: Prevailing wind direction can make or break your hunt. Walk that edge, looking for places where deer routinely jump a fence, rub a cedar fencepost or where they scoot between hiding cover and feeding areas. Because deer tend to be equal-opportunity foragers, it can be hard to tell precisely where they feed, but you should be able to identify these movement corridors.
If you can’t predict wind, identify stand locations on either side of a corridor. But if there’s a prevailing wind, set up downwind of the crossing and plan to be in place in the evenings. These are typically not morning spots, but they are good places to intercept deer moving from cover to feed in the evenings.
Mountains
These spots are more limited, largely because their carrying capacity for deer is more limited. I’m thinking here about the mule deer country of the West, where deer movement is influenced by the seasons more than by daily rituals like feeding or moving to and from bedding cover.
In mountainous country, set up on edges, including those spots where timbered slopes meet creek drainages, and watch for migrating deer.
Accessibility: When thinking about seasonal migration corridors, target your scouting and hunting activity on food sources. Think about the lower-elevation attractants for deer. Maybe that’s an irrigated alfalfa field where they’ll find succulent forage once frost nips the higher-elevation plants. Or perhaps it’s a cut corn field adjacent to weedy bedding cover.
Hunting Style: Regardless, you want to find those riparian corridors that offer easy access from the high country to the foothills. Finding fresh sign can be tough here, since the transitional landscapes are often dry and rocky. So instead, hunt the weather. Wait for a snowstorm to hit the high country, and then set up on a promising canyon a day or two later. If you’re in the right place, you should start to see does and yearlings moving downhill. The mature bucks will wait a couple of days and then start to move.
Good hunting strategies for this landscape include using a spotting scope set up on a vista that allows you to look into a number of drainages, a pack that is stout enough to pack out a portion of a deer but light enough so it won’t slow you down as you intercept promising bucks, and a GPS with a landowner chip that will alert you when you reach that public/private land interface.
About the Author
Andrew McKean is a longtime outdoor writer and the former editor-in-chief of Outdoor Life. He lives in northeast Montana with his family and yellow Lab. You can follow his adventures on Instagram @aemckean or on Facebook @andrew.mckean.77
Special thanks to StepOutside.org for providing this insightful content.
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Go to where you last saw the deer and look for blood and tracks. Remember to look on the bushes as well as on the ground for blood. If you fail to find any, go to spot where you shot the deer and search for blood and/or hair. If you still don’t find a blood trail of any kind, go back to your stand and double check to make sure you were looking in the right places.
Next, start where you last saw the deer and walk to the location where you last heard the deer. Watch for blood and other sign along the way. Sometimes it takes a while for the blood trail to start.
When looking for a blood trail, heavy signs higher up on bushes or spurts off the trail may indicate arterial bleeding, which means you should find your deer shortly.[/caption]
Did you find pieces of bone? Trust me, it’s not ribs as so many people think; 95% of the time it is pieces of leg bone. You may get that deer, but it’s not going to be easy.
A lot of blood at the start that turns into a few drips and then stops in a ¼ mile or so, is usually a low hit in the brisket. You are in for a long day with that deer.
With a leg or brisket hit, the deer is very mobile and will keep moving if pushed. If you can get some help, it’s best to place hunters along the escape routes and hope the deer comes by as you track the blood.
If you simply cannot find a blood trail of any kind, divide the land where you last saw the deer into a grid and walk each grid point until you find the deer or a sign of its trail.[/caption]
In that case, expand the grid and repeat. Look under every bush and in every brush pile. A mortally wounded deer will often crawl under cover and will die there.
Photograph Courtesy of Leupold® & Stevens, Inc.[/caption]
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