Getting started on White Tail

[Swichback]

35 years old, passionate about getting into hunting white tails. I’ve been doing a lot of research over the last couple of years and I’m looking to put boots on the ground this coming hunting season. Mainly looking at public land that I’m going to start scouting now.

Any practical tips for success? Don’t have anyone to teach me the ropes so online learning is what I’ve relied on.

 

[Beagle001]

Spend time in the woods. If you’re area allows (legally and logistically) get a climbing treestand or get comfortable being mobile and don’t be afraid to move locations, on a macro and micro level.

Be conscious of the wind, but also pay attention to how the deer are moving in that specific wind pattern. Also, when the weather app tells you what the prevailing wind is, see for yourself what the wind is actually doing at your stand or on your property. It makes a difference sometimes.

 

[huntcookwrite]

I was in a very similar boat to you a few years ago. Where are you hunting? You can find lots of information online about scouting, but if you’re — for example — going to be hunting public land in New England, the advice from guys hunting over ag in the Midwest is not going to be super helpful. Likewise if you’re bowhunting vs firearms.

Beyond that, boots on the ground is important. Don’t feel the need to hike 5 miles in though to find a spot; it’s far better to go slowly and try to pick up sign and really understand a small piece than cover even 1,000 acres right off the bat.

Remember it’s a long game. You may get something your first season, you may not (and each season thereafter). Practice with your weapon and get extremely comfortable making good shots in a variety of situations. Shoot from the tree, in your climber or saddle, and not just to your good side straight away.

It helps if you can find a mentor to do some scouting with you, just to pick up on what sign to look for. Sometimes its hard to tell without someone definitely telling you what you’re looking at, but once you see it, you’ll see it everywhere.

And of course, watch a few videos of how to field dress BEFORE you kill a deer, so you don’t find yourself trying to watch Steve Rinella do it in the pitch black woods with your hands covered in blood. (Not that I know anything about that…)

Good luck!

 

[Macintosh]

Good advice above. Let us know where in the country you are and what sort of places you have access to hunt (farm country, big woods, swamps, 30 acres versus 30000 acres, etc) and folks may be able to give you some targeted advice. Just know that ESPECIALLY if you are looking online (that includes here) its very likely that you’ll get very different, sometimes even conflicting advice, none of which is wrong. Its easy to get paralyzed by the overwhelming amount of info. Dont let that stop you from getting out—you will never be “ready” before you do it, so the correct time to get out is immediately. And by immediately, I mean saturday, January 18th, 2025. You kill deer and learn what sign looks like and where they like to go by scouting more often than not, so get out there now while sign from the fall is still relatively fresh.

 

[Miflatlander91]

Where you are what the type of area your hunting will help guys give advice…really just the type of area but the biggest lightbulb moment for me was when I started hunting mobile I don’t love climbers I want to be able to get into any tree.


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[Sadie]

Bow or gun and what pert of the country will you be hunting?

 

[Q_Sertorius]

35 years old, passionate about getting into hunting white tails. I’ve been doing a lot of research over the last couple of years and I’m looking to put boots on the ground this coming hunting season. Mainly looking at public land that I’m going to start scouting now.

Any practical tips for success? Don’t have anyone to teach me the ropes so online learning is what I’ve relied on.

Where are you hunting? That’s far and away the most important thing for us to know about what advice you need.

As for me, I only hunt with firearms. In Virginia, my season is basically all of November. I do all my scouting in October while squirrel hunting. It gets me back out into the woods, gets the deer accustomed to me being around, gets me used to walking carefully, and lets me practice field marksmanship on real targets. But one of the primary things I am checking is for food supplies and rubs. If the acorns are abundant, then during the season my deer will stay high on the mountain in the woods. If not, I will see more of them low down in the pastures and fringes where the old apple orchards are located.


____________________
“Keep on keepin’ on…”

 

[Skerhunter]

1. Work hard to find private access on properties that hold deer. Access is easier to gain if you state you will only doe hunt and be flexible on weapon/season. Don’t discount posted properties because they still may allow doe harvest and shorten your learning curve.

2. Hunt every season you can and try to shoot multiple doe during every season offered (if regs and population allow it). You will learn more shooting 10 doe a year with a bow than you will shooting 1 small buck per year with a gun.

3. Spend less time “in the woods” and a ton of time scouting from a safe spot where you can’t get busted. Use observations to plan your hunt when weather/wind allow (will increase success).

4. Don’t worry about trophies focus on reps, confidence, knowledge and having fun!

 

[Swichback]

I was in a very similar boat to you a few years ago. Where are you hunting? You can find lots of information online about scouting, but if you’re — for example — going to be hunting public land in New England, the advice from guys hunting over ag in the Midwest is not going to be super helpful. Likewise if you’re bowhunting vs firearms.

Beyond that, boots on the ground is important. Don’t feel the need to hike 5 miles in though to find a spot; it’s far better to go slowly and try to pick up sign and really understand a small piece than cover even 1,000 acres right off the bat.

Remember it’s a long game. You may get something your first season, you may not (and each season thereafter). Practice with your weapon and get extremely comfortable making good shots in a variety of situations. Shoot from the tree, in your climber or saddle, and not just to your good side straight away.

It helps if you can find a mentor to do some scouting with you, just to pick up on what sign to look for. Sometimes its hard to tell without someone definitely telling you what you’re looking at, but once you see it, you’ll see it everywhere.

And of course, watch a few videos of how to field dress BEFORE you kill a deer, so you don’t find yourself trying to watch Steve Rinella do it in the pitch black woods with your hands covered in blood. (Not that I know anything about that…)

Good luck!

This is great advice. it's definitely a long game, hard to balance everything living and working in the city with a growing family. Trying to schedule weekends to scout and prep locations that I see are viable, the more areas I have prepped the more options I will to play the wind, but I imagine this will take years to accumulate a variety of locations.

I'm located in Toronto, Canada and will be planning to hunt public areas 1-2 hours from where I live, also trying to get access with some family friends who own farm land (ideal). I'm thinking public land has less of a barrier to entry, but will also be much busier come hunting season, so I may do some door knocking for permission. Public land is going to be more forested areas surrounded by farms(100-300 acres+), private will be more farm/ag style property with scattered patches of forest. (50-200acres)

My plan is to start with the properties that are closer to the city and focus on farm land parcels with access to woods/cover. I also have access to our cottage (2.5 hours from me) the terrain out there is big woods, swamps and a lot of topography variance, black bear, wolves etc. I'm thinking it makes sense to start getting a lay of the land this area but focus on hunting it once I have some experience in the woods.

Good point about field dressing, would hate to be out there trying to watch youtube videos in the dark with bloody hands lol

 

[Swichback]

Where are you hunting? That’s far and away the most important thing for us to know about what advice you need.

As for me, I only hunt with firearms. In Virginia, my season is basically all of November. I do all my scouting in October while squirrel hunting. It gets me back out into the woods, gets the deer accustomed to me being around, gets me used to walking carefully, and lets me practice field marksmanship on real targets. But one of the primary things I am checking is for food supplies and rubs. If the acorns are abundant, then during the season my deer will stay high on the mountain in the woods. If not, I will see more of them low down in the pastures and fringes where the old apple orchards are located.


____________________
“Keep on keepin’ on…”

Never thought about it this way, the predominant message that I see online is not to go in to your hunting areas too close to the season as this may spook deer. But that might be more focused on bowhunting vs gun hunting? Appreciate the insight. I'm hunting out of Southern Ontario (Canada), mainly public woods (100+ acres), trying to gain access to some private farmland as well.

Gun hunting for me will be with a shotgun using a savage 220 1x6 scope, shots out to 100 yards until I improve my marksmanship, we get 1-2 weeks from early November (depending on the WMU).

 

[Swichback]

1. Work hard to find private access on properties that hold deer. Access is easier to gain if you state you will only doe hunt and be flexible on weapon/season. Don’t discount posted properties because they still may allow doe harvest and shorten your learning curve.

2. Hunt every season you can and try to shoot multiple doe during every season offered (if regs and population allow it). You will learn more shooting 10 doe a year with a bow than you will shooting 1 small buck per year with a gun.

3. Spend less time “in the woods” and a ton of time scouting from a safe spot where you can’t get busted. Use observations to plan your hunt when weather/wind allow (will increase success).

4. Don’t worry about trophies focus on reps, confidence, knowledge and having fun!

How do you know if a private parcel holds deer without going out there or asking the land owner? I guess e-scouting for probable terrain features comes with experience?

Definitely focused more on repetitions than bucks/trophies for the next few years. Where i hunt, the regs allow for 1-2 tags per season which doesn't give me a lot of volume to learn from. But I'm also thinking more time in the woods during hunt season even if I don't kill anything will help me learn.

My focus now is to learn how to use my weapon well, climb trees and get comfortable in my saddle and e-scout/field scout.

 

[Swichback]

Bow or gun and what pert of the country will you be hunting?

Focusing on gun hunting primarily, but I bought a compound bow over the holidays and plan to practice throughout the year.

Southern Ontario, Canada.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Never thought about it this way, the predominant message that I see online is not to go in to your hunting areas too close to the season as this may spook deer. But that might be more focused on bowhunting vs gun hunting? Appreciate the insight. I'm hunting out of Southern Ontario (Canada), mainly public woods (100+ acres), trying to gain access to some private farmland as well.

Gun hunting for me will be with a shotgun using a savage 220 1x6 scope, shots out to 100 yards until I improve my marksmanship, we get 1-2 weeks from early November (depending on the WMU).

I don’t know where this “don’t scare the deer away thing” comes from. Maybe it is true in some places? But on my farm, the deer are always there. The does bed down in the same spots year after year (we don’t ever shoot does). The does will run in a circle if you scare them up, but they always come back to the same spot.

If mast is scarce, they will move to better food spots during the night, but always come back to the same spots. So, if I know where the prime food sources are, I can switch things up to try to surprise them in the pastures at first light or something. But there’s usually food everywhere.

The bucks have a much larger “home area.” But they always go to where the does are located. I see them continually adding new rubs to their rub lines throughout the season.

I go still hunting every day. I usually walk the same route twice a day every day (I usually go clockwise in the morning and counterclockwise in the evening). I see deer every day. I shoot my bag limit of bucks every year. I pass up spikes and other little bucks, but I am not trophy hunting. I just want to get the biggest pile of meat out of my bag limit on bucks.

I pay no attention to the wind, because the wind is constantly swirling and changing. I don’t do anything to try to mask my scent. I wear the same kind of clothes whenever I am on the farm (I wear my old Cammies whenever I am on the farm. Just a comfort thing.). I don’t use any cameras.

Just spend time in the woods. That’s all you need to do to kill deer.


____________________
“Keep on keepin’ on…”

 

[huntcookwrite]

I don’t know where this “don’t scare the deer away thing” comes from. Maybe it is true in some places? But on my farm, the deer are always there. The does bed down in the same spots year after year (we don’t ever shoot does). The does will run in a circle if you scare them up, but they always come back to the same spot.

If mast is scarce, they will move to better food spots during the night, but always come back to the same spots. So, if I know where the prime food sources are, I can switch things up to try to surprise them in the pastures at first light or something. But there’s usually food everywhere.

The bucks have a much larger “home area.” But they always go to where the does are located. I see them continually adding new rubs to their rub lines throughout the season.

I go still hunting every day. I usually walk the same route twice a day every day (I usually go clockwise in the morning and counterclockwise in the evening). I see deer every day. I shoot my bag limit of bucks every year. I pass up spikes and other little bucks, but I am not trophy hunting. I just want to get the biggest pile of meat out of my bag limit on bucks.

I pay no attention to the wind, because the wind is constantly swirling and changing. I don’t do anything to try to mask my scent. I wear the same kind of clothes whenever I am on the farm (I wear my old Cammies whenever I am on the farm. Just a comfort thing.). I don’t use any cameras.

Just spend time in the woods. That’s all you need to do to kill deer.


____________________
“Keep on keepin’ on…”

You’re hunting private in this case? I think there is a difference between heavily pressured public and low pressured private.

I hunt a mix. One private piece the owner is out everyday doing work — taking down trees, chain sawing, moving his tractor around. I’ve seen deer feeding 10 yards from him while he’s blowing leaves (and hunted them the next day). But I’ve also hunted public pieces where prior to the season opener I can walk through and bump deer left and right — and then after the first week of the season don’t see a deer again during daylight until the spring. Not to say the deer aren’t there, but their patterns definitely shift.

All that being said, time in the woods is certainly going to kill you more deer than time spent sitting at your computer e-scouting or waiting for “the right” conditions.

 

[FranklinBluth]

Scout to learn their habits/travel patterns, set stands that allow you to hunt a variety of wind directions so you have options on days you can hunt.

Practice with your weapons regularly. Worst feeling in the world is making a bad shot after all of that preparation.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

I primarily hunt on private land, but that private land gives me access to hard to reach public land. Also, for what it is worth, there is basically no hunting pressure on public land compared to when I was a kid (30 years ago). When I was 10-15, opening day of rifle season sounded like the Fourth of July on steroids. I'd routinely hear 30-40 shots between 7:00-9:00 AM. Now, if I hear 3-4 shots all day, it's a busy day. That has changed the way we hunt. We used to do a lot of planning to put ourselves at chokepoints between the public land and our land, counting on the sudden surge of pressure to scare deer to us. A lot of the people we saw or heard were public land hunters who were trying to beat us up to the same chokepoints from the other side. Now, I can literally wander the public land without hearing or seeing any other human. That's changed the way I hunt.

So, if you are on heavily pressured land, my advice is to find chokepoints on your map study, then go validate the spots during the off season. And, contrary to my advice about don't worry about scaring deer away, I would avoid the chokepoints as much as possible except on the days you want to hunt them. There is one chokepoint that I literally only sit at on the days when I can count on someone else hunting with me to scare things through it. And it is as close to "100% of the time you sit there you will kill a deer" as you can get. Just make sure you get to those choke points before first light and before another hunter.

I have attached a picture from my On-X Hunt app. I use it On-X Hunt to record anything I think is worth recording. I mostly do it so I can tell my brothers, who don't get to hunt as often as I do, where I have seen recent deer or deer sign. When there is a couple of us hunting, we hunt very differently than I do solo. I don't think the app is strictly speaking necessary, but it helps me remember things.

Almost all of my pre-rut hunting is me circling the borders of our land. I stick very close to our boundaries, trying to avoid temporarily scaring anything over to our less-picky neighbors. This results in me walking a loop around my farm, or walking up the border and into the National Forest every day I can possibly get out there. The concentration of rub signs, buck spotting reports, etc. is a function of how much time I spend in a given location, not an indication of what is there. I don't bother to mark every single one of the doe bed down sites, because I know them all and they almost never change.

Now, the rut is a completely different thing. I only got to hunt the rut one day this year. On that day, I killed one of the five nice bucks I saw. During the rut, you want to hunt where the does are located. If you know where the does are, you know where the bucks will be. Then it is just a matter of being there early and often.

 

[huntcookwrite]

I primarily hunt on private land, but that private land gives me access to hard to reach public land. Also, for what it is worth, there is basically no hunting pressure on public land compared to when I was a kid (30 years ago). When I was 10-15, opening day of rifle season sounded like the Fourth of July on steroids. I'd routinely hear 30-40 shots between 7:00-9:00 AM. Now, if I hear 3-4 shots all day, it's a busy day. That has changed the way we hunt. We used to do a lot of planning to put ourselves at chokepoints between the public land and our land, counting on the sudden surge of pressure to scare deer to us. A lot of the people we saw or heard were public land hunters who were trying to beat us up to the same chokepoints from the other side. Now, I can literally wander the public land without hearing or seeing any other human. That's changed the way I hunt.

So, if you are on heavily pressured land, my advice is to find chokepoints on your map study, then go validate the spots during the off season. And, contrary to my advice about don't worry about scaring deer away, I would avoid the chokepoints as much as possible except on the days you want to hunt them. There is one chokepoint that I literally only sit at on the days when I can count on someone else hunting with me to scare things through it. And it is as close to "100% of the time you sit there you will kill a deer" as you can get. Just make sure you get to those choke points before first light and before another hunter.

I have attached a picture from my On-X Hunt app. I use it On-X Hunt to record anything I think is worth recording. I mostly do it so I can tell my brothers, who don't get to hunt as often as I do, where I have seen recent deer or deer sign. When there is a couple of us hunting, we hunt very differently than I do solo. I don't think the app is strictly speaking necessary, but it helps me remember things.

Almost all of my pre-rut hunting is me circling the borders of our land. I stick very close to our boundaries, trying to avoid temporarily scaring anything over to our less-picky neighbors. This results in me walking a loop around my farm, or walking up the border and into the National Forest every day I can possibly get out there. The concentration of rub signs, buck spotting reports, etc. is a function of how much time I spend in a given location, not an indication of what is there. I don't bother to mark every single one of the doe bed down sites, because I know them all and they almost never change.

Now, the rut is a completely different thing. I only got to hunt the rut one day this year. On that day, I killed one of the five nice bucks I saw. During the rut, you want to hunt where the does are located. If you know where the does are, you know where the bucks will be. Then it is just a matter of being there early and often.

Great advice — thanks for sharing.

 

[Honyock]

Time in the woods hunting will trump everything else. Get out and don't be afraid to make mistakes, we've all made them and that's how you learn. Learn to enjoy the process and don't take the fun out of it. It should be fun and not a job.

 

[mi650]

Time in the woods hunting will trump everything else. Get out and don't be afraid to make mistakes, we've all made them and that's how you learn. Learn to enjoy the process and don't take the fun out of it. It should be fun and not a job.

This is good advice. In more than 40 years in the woods, I've killed 90+ whitetails, and still screw up sometimes.

 

[Boarmaster]

Best way to learn is to just go. Many hunters including myself started way before the internet without any mentors. I found myself a place to hunt and had it at. My advice is to think thru what you are doing from start to finish. Things like , what happens after I kill this deer. What do I do now ? Is not what you want to be thinking in the woods by yourself with a deer down five minutes before dark. Just work through each step from the time you leave the house until you arrive back home and thru until your deer is in the freezer.