As much as I enjoy deer hunting to pass the time to get to turkey season, I know very little about why I am hunting where. I am trying to get better at maximizing my time in the woods to set up and hunt high probability areas for larger bucks. I could shoot a doe on the fields just about every hunt, but I am wanting to give up seeing lots of deer and hunt the bigger bucks that rarely make it into the fields during shooting light. I have located some scrapes along fire brakes between pines and hardwoods along a creek, but it's my understanding that they don't use those on a daily basis. So what do you look for with regards to pine vs hardwoods, fire brakes with scrapes, etc. ? Do you hunt the scrape, between scrapes? I am all ears!

If you have plenty of does stay with them......the big boys will show up.

Check out Catman and The Hunting Public on YouTube. I've learned a lot by watching their videos. The big key is to find good, fresh sign and hunt there. Focusing on fresh tracks, fresh poop, and bedding areas and food. They tend to hunt transition areas like the edge of thickets. They also get really tight to bedding areas, like almost too tight, but just as close as they can without disturbing it. I'm no buck killer by any means but I feel like watching them has led me to be more successful in the woods.

Wish I knew the answer. In featureless pine plantation it seems impossible to set your self up in high probability areas. Like I don’t think deer prefer one pine stand to another maybe other than there relation to food and water. I hunt 900 acres and 700 of it I would consider suitable bedding. I feel like deer can just plop down and bed any where they want. I’m like the OP though I’m going to try some different areas with hopes of seeing buck movement with less of an emphasis on just seeing deer. Prob be playing a lot of solitaire on my phone.

Someone on here said it best right around the opening of bow season (can't remember the poster), and it applies to each and every one of our hunting situations: deer bed in a thicket and get up to eat somewhere. Getting between their bed and their food without them knowing is the name of the game.

I've tried to keep that little idiom in my heads at all times this season as I try to figure out a few new spots. Maybe it will help you, too.

Chances are though it's the rut or close to it where you are at, in that case you just need to find the does and stay with them. Often times that's an easy to hunt food plot.

The closer it gets to the rut the closer I move to or into the bedding area. The bedding area is the thickest place on your property.

Them things will bed down just about anywhere. I watched three bedded down for two hours in a 1 year old cutover yesterday, ain't nothing thick about it.

Agreed

I appreciate the replies. It seems logical to be where the does are, or hunt fresh sign and bedding area between food sources. My problem is there is a lot of fresh sign, so picking which one is the hard part.

After a big rain, does that make the bucks visit scrapes the next day to freshen them back up?

This shows the green field surrounded by pines, with a hardwood finger along the creek. Scrape sites are marked in yellow (fire brake along creek) and red flag is shooting house. Deer icon is where I shot a 7pt earlier in December. Where would you focus?

What’s the topo map look like? I generally use terrain features to help find the travel corridors

I’d sit right at the red flag, all year. Seriously.

X2

You are flat with no good edges. There are a few oak tree 100 yards NE of the fields would be a good start.

Sit in the woods above the plot on the firebreak if does are using it where you can watch plot and woods

I appreciate the replies!

listen to the southern outdoorsman podcast. Those guys are all about Alabama deer and turkey hunting. The guys they have as guest all have different strategies on how they kill big bucks on public land but you can apply it to private too.