When to look for signs of deer

[Flynt]

I'm trying to teach myself about whitetail deer hunting, so please bear with me and my basic question: What time of year should I expect to see signs of deer population, such as tracks, scat, rubs, etc.? My wife and I are looking at buying a 40 acre property in East Texas, Wood County. About half hay pasture and half wooded, with a small pond. The landowner has some pictures of nice bucks by a feeder on his property, but they're a couple of years old. I walked through the wooded area last week, but didn't see any signs of deer. Thanks.

 

[Sav .250]

If you buy the property, I `d say walking the property would be a great start. Other things of course but learning takes time.
Lots of hunters in Texas, I`m sure they`ll jump in with idea`s. Absorb.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

If there are deer present you will see signs of them. Sit and watch for an hour at sunrise or sunset, or put out you own trail cam. If there are deer in the area they will be on the property and you can make it more attractive to them with food plots.

 

[FL-NC]

Deer need to eat, drink, walk around, and poop year round. Look for tracks and poop around water sources and "track traps". Track trap is a term we used in a school I attended taught by a former Rhodesian operator. A track trap is any soft ground that will easily capture the track of a man or beast- soft ground like sand, mud, etc. You don't have to be Daniel Boone to find these- just walk along sandy roads, trails, and edges of open fields. Find out from locals what the deer in that area eat, and seek out those food sources. Trail cams are your best friend- they can work 24/7. Place them near the areas where the deer are already hanging out (those track traps). Leave some feed corn and diced apples in the areas covered by the trail cams to keep them coming and get more footage. You may be surprised at what all lives out there.

 

[Captcurt]

Sign can vary with changes in food sources or time of year. When the pre-rut kicks in you will see rubs and scrapes showing up and a lot more buck movement as they start trolling for does. Around here when the acorns, especially white oak, are starting to fall you can forget about hunting a feeder for a while. They will forsake corn for acorns big time here. A combination of feeder and food plots can help pull them in before and after the acorns are available.

As the others have noted, looking for tracks and setting trail cameras on the trails, feeders, or around scrapes work very well. I had one landowner crying about not seeing any bucks. I set up a camera and a feeder around Christmas time. In 3 days I had 465 pictures with 9 different bucks. Five were good shooters. So if you aren't seeing deer it doesn't mean that they are not around. It just means you may need to sweeten the pot a little.

 

[entropy]

Dr. Ken Nordberg has an excellent series of books written for hunters. they are well worth the time reading them. I grew up on his books, and they have brought me deer in place people said there were none.


http://www.drnordbergondeerhunting.com/

 

[Sunray]

Deer lay around doing nothing a lot too. Deer are creatures of the 'edges'. That'd be the edges of wood lots.
Look for acorn bearing oak trees and other food plants. Really best you pop into your local public library and read every hunting book they have. You'll be surprised how many they have too. Mind you, a blind set up over looking that pond and/or the trails leading to it would be your best bet. Pay attention to where the prevailing wind comes from too. Needs to be in your face.
40 acres(4,840 square yards per acre. Approximately 208.71 feet × 208.71 feet per acre.) isn't a really huge piece of dirt. A football field is about 1.32 acres. It probably has resident deer that roam around it and outside it.

 

[eastbank]

when i found their foot prints in my deer blind, i knew it was a good place. eastbank.

 

[Taurus 617 CCW]

Way up north here the white tail seem to favor the places where they don't get shot at during the season like golf courses. I often see tracks going from the property I hunt to the golf course nearby. They mostly move around at night or early morning. Our deer have a brushed up behavior and like to take cover in groves of saplings or laurels. They can usually be found about 100 yards off the road where they lazy hunters don't want to walk. A food plot may be a good idea. Up here they aren't allowed but we do take note of where all the wild apple trees are growing. We will usually find something near the trees eventually.

 

[Newtosavage]

I grew up hunting 42 ac. just North of Palestine, TX. We had the time of our lives on that place, and that was before there were very many deer. Best advice I can give you is scout with your eyes. 40 ac. isn't that much, esp. if you have pasture on it. So just go sit a few times and see what you can see. Take some good binocs with you, and then start taking notes. Another good tip is to look at the fencelines (if you have them) and look for crossings with hair caught in the barbs. That is a telltale sign of an active crossing. But for 20 ac. of woods, just go sit and watch. Within a few sits, you'll start seeing patterns.

 

[Flintknapper]

You can find deer 'sign' pretty much year 'round' (assuming there are any on the property). In Texas, it would be the rare piece of property that doesn't have deer on it (at least part of the year). In the wooded area of the property you spoke of...you can look for 'rubs' on the trees/saplings from last season (and beyond). That would be an indicator that bucks at least used the area.

Bear in mind that 'sign' and the actual sighting of deer will change significantly throughout the year. In the heat of the summer, I would watch (from a distance) along the edges of pastures/openings/hay meadows in the late evening and early morning. I realize you probably don't have general access to this property (yet), so spending enough time to locate tell-tale sign(s) is probably something you can't do anyway.

The single BEST time of year to locate 'sign' would be around late December/early January in Texas. All of the Rubs and Scrapes are still present (if you look closely) and any mast crop is long gone....so deer can be enticed to come to feeders.

My best advice (as others have mentioned) would be to set up game cameras. You might be amazed at what is present. At the very least...it will become addictive.

Good luck. Hope you are able to purchase the land or something like it.

 

[nettlle]

The game camera is probably the best bet. I don't think it snows in Texas. New fallen snow tells no lies.

 

[SoonerMedic]

The game camera is probably the best bet. I don't think it snows in Texas. New fallen snow tells no lies.

You would be surprised. It snows in a Texas fairly regularly I would say. Northern Texas anyway. Typically more sleet than snow, but it does snow south of the red river probably once a year if maybe just for a day or two.

 

[eastbank]

i shot this buck after scouting out the area for several weeks and setting up a ground blind close to this rub. i don,t know if he made the rub or not, in some ways i hope he didn,t and the buck that did is still out there. eastbank.

 

[buck460XVR]

While anytime of year is good for scouting, one needs to realize where deer are during mid summer may not be where they are during the rut, especially the mature bucks. While most Ag land can be scouted from the truck using a pair of Binos, if the area to be hunted is big deep woods, you need to walk it and cover it well. Trails and patterns will be much less obvious in big.deep woods. Mature bucks use different trails in the woods than does and young bucks and many times these trails are not readily seen. While Winter patterns will tell you what deer numbers are left after season, in many areas(especially Northern areas) winter patterns are completely different that the other seasons. Most deer in Big Woods/Northern Areas are just trying to survive till spring. There is little hunter pressure so cover/sanctuary is not nearly as important as finding food and conserving energy.

One also needs to remember that other than rubs, deer sign disappears with rain, dry weather or when the leaves are falling. Around here, come late October/Early November when the Maples loose their leaves, anything but rubs and a scrape made a half hour earlier is buried beneath newly fallen leaves. Even the heaviest of trails are difficult to find unless you know they are there. While walking a small parcel of property(like 40 acres) may tell you iof there are deer around, it does relate to how successful one may be on that parcel. Escape routes, bedding areas, amount of cover and how much pressure there is in the area surrounding the small parcel has a huge impact on hunter success, regardless of deer numbers in the general area. Tracks, scat can be made at night during movement and not relate to deer movement/bedding during daylight(huntable hours) in the area at all. Trail cam pics can be the same.

Being a new hunter, you need to learn general deer movement, habits and patterns which you can relate to the area you hunt. Sign is good, but knowing why the sign is there is paramount to success.