Need some advice from the pine plantation hunters please. My new land is mostly 14 year old pine plantation that has not been thinned (will be thinned in the next couple of years). Pines are too tall for bedding in my opinion but not tall enough to hang a stand. Parts have decent under story but most is like a desert. There are several hardwood fingers throughout because it used to be a cattle farm. My only experience with hunting pines is either really young or mature. This "in between" stage has me stumped. I'm sure things will be much better when they are thinned. Land is in prime area and loaded with sign. Opinions?

In my experience, pines are never to big to hold deer. We had as many big bucks before they clear cut the middle of our club as we do now. Those big pines had been thinned twice also.

Hunt the hardwood on heavy trails or road crossings. You can also cut shooting lanes and put up ground blinds on good trails.

Get an aerial photo of the property and locate the areas where the does are likley to bed and concentrate around food sources. Then locate trails that link each of the locations to each other. As the rut approaches and during the rut.....bucks will travel these routes checking the local doe groups. Most of the time these trails are going to skirt your foodplots by 50-200 yards. The bucks will wind check the areas. Many times they are actually skirting and wind checking the doe bedding areas which are usually located within just a few hundred yards of main feeding sources.

Hunt the hardwood/pine edges if you can't set up in the pines.

We have a lot of pines at my club. They just finished thinning two sections. Most are planted in rows, are fairly thick and aren't big enough to hang a stand yet. We have an old rail bed that cuts through the property and the pines. The deer move in the pines though out the day. We sit in a bag chair on the edge of the rail bed (or road) with a bi-pod and aim down the road with the safety off. The action can be quick and they usually step right into your scope. It can get fatiguing looking down the road four hours. Last year I killed a nice 8 point crossing the road coming out of the pines. I set up my chair, adjusted my bi-pod and ten minutes later he stepped into my scope 140 yards away. A bit unconventional but we've killed a lot of nice deer this way. Good luck.

Safety off??

I was wondering the same thing. That's like the quickest part of the whole deal for me. I keep mine on until the shot.

Hunt the road beds, find straight spots where you can cover the most ground and plop down in a folding chair with. Shooting stick. Be ready, often you only have a split second to judge and shoot. Get a rear view mirror and mount it on a stick to watch behind you. walk the hardwood bottoms and try to find areas where the creek or ditch is being heavily crossed, bowhunt these

If I'm looking through the scope the safety is off, finger off the trigger. When I look up from the scope the safety goes back on. This is the only scenario where I do this. The road is very narrow and they step out quickly.

I use to be in a club in Lee county that had a 20 acre spot of 10-12 year old planted pines in one little square. NOBODY ever hunted it. There was a hill above the pines where I could see the top of the entire pine thicket. I sat in the truck one day looking for water oak trees poking up through the pines. I found 3 in one clump that were a foot or so taller than the pines.

It was early bow season and I took my dove stool and bow and walked to the 3 water oaks. I sat 15 feet from the oaks on the ground. I killed a doe that afternoon. One of my favorite hunts ever. I guess I was young and dumb because I didn't keep hunting the spot..... No telling what I would have killed if I had kept hunting there. The deer in those pines were as calm as any deer I have seen while hunting in this state.

Talk to 2dogs....

Beagles! Lol!
If they're that open underneath, I like to slip in them. Long strait roads if you have any. Anywhere you can see multiple trails.

Deer are in pines of all ages. They are easy to hunt. You got to hunt where the sign is located.

deer love edges... pine/hardwood,grass et al edges, topograpgy changes/ridges on top of edges make it even better. My guess is the deer are bedding and thriving in your pines... do some scouting now , find some edges, hang some cams and hang a couple of stands on sept 15... if you can put some turkey feet plots in your pines. Ihve had success with throw and grow type shady seed mixes. Just took a rake and cleared straw, but no heavy lifting..

IMO the best feature of a pine plantation is that is easy to move about quietly so they're more forgiving. They also hold deer year round. Once the canopy opens a little and the briars start growing up, you'll have really nice bedding. Find an entrance/exit trail and hunt the edge. Good luck!

We have a 8 year old plantation of pines on our whole 420 acre tract. The woods started getting so thick last year that I set up on the roads to. Not much roads either, basically just pig trails. I built me 2 tables to put on 2 of the roads with just an old kitchen chair behind each. I killed 4 bucks their last year and 6 this past hunting season of those 2 tables. They going to cross there sooner or later, whether they bed close or not. Especially during the rut. I also let numerous other small bucks walk and saw a couple more shooters that I just couldn't get on. This is probably turned out to be 2 of my best places to hunt on the whole piece of property. Also, I hunt in Florida.

Set one side on fire and get on the other side.

aint sure I would have said that on the internet

Check out the last sentence in his post. Ur jumping the flip flop, I mean gun a little.