Public Land Tactics.

I'm finally getting the itch to deer hunt this year. I spent all day yesterday on Skyline scouting and squirrel hunting.

I found very little deer sign. The ground has been so hard followed by heavy rain, there very few tracks on the ground, except a few in muddy areas.

There are so many acorns it's hard to find any feed sign. I found one small area that had several horned bushes and about 10 scrapes. They were very fresh.

I found a cut over that has a few trees, big enough to climb, scattered out across it. It's surrounded by hardwoods and has a big draw running up to the back side of it. I think it's going to be my best bet. I can hunt any side of it depending which way the wind blows and there is a lane cut all the way around it.

Would you hunt the edges, or would you climb in the cutover and try to catch them slipping through the thick stuff?

I'd get downwind of an edge in some type of terrain feature that might funnel them. If there are white oak family trees in a saddle or draw just downwind of the cutover edge, I might target that.

I'm heading to Skyline Wednesday morning to scout and squirrel hunt, with my young un. I found some good trails and feeding areas in Zone B. Saturday will be my first day to go during a gun hunt.

It's a long walk, but 2 miles west of the campground on 54, at the south edge of little coon mountain. Lots of sign around the thickets down there. If you have an ATV, it wouldn't be too bad. For me, it'll be a long drag.

A little piece of advice. When gun hunting skyline, forget everything you found scouting. Hunt the pressure, more so where the deer evacuate the premises when the pressure is on. Saddles, knobs, bluff access, hell holes. There will be so many people that hunting sign will be useless.

this for any area on a gun hunt. Set up near the thickest place you can find because thats where the deer are going.

Thats the reason I was targeting that cutover. That cut leads right up to the back side of the cut over and I figured they would travel the cut right into the thick stuff.

I've killed a pile of deer out there before I got land to hunt. If you want to kill a good one, you better walk your ass off.