So I tried baiting this season, but at the beginning of January. I have had my feeder out for almost 3 weeks and so far nothing. Here is my set up. I have placed it on a man made trail that leads from a cedar thicket that I believe they bed down, through a low wet area and back on top of a knoll. From there they can head into the fields on the adjacent property. I have seen a herd of deer come out of the thicket and I actually shot one that was using the trail about 6 weeks ago. I have used shelled corn, molasses corn, apples, and even some of the sugar beet blocks. Any advice?
Where am I doing something wrong?
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Va Deer Hunter
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So I tried baiting this season, but at the beginning of January. I have had my feeder out for almost 3 weeks and so far nothing. Here is my set up. I have placed it on a man made trail that leads from a cedar thicket that I believe they bed down, through a low wet area and back on top of a knoll. From there they can head into the fields on the adjacent property. I have seen a herd of deer come out of the thicket and I actually shot one that was using the trail about 6 weeks ago. I have used shelled corn, molasses corn, apples, and even some of the sugar beet blocks. Any advice?
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There not hitting it at all?
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I have had a camera out and so far only hat squirrels and birds. Yesterday I did not pull my card, I figured that I will go wednesday and grab it. Yesterday I sat all day and saw squirrels and birds. I am wondering if maybe it was a fluke that I saw and shot the deer using that trail, but there was 6 of them together. I just want to figure this out so I don't make the same mistake next season.
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go see where they are moving and bedding if theres snow on the ground. Tracks dont lie!
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The trail is never used just maintained once a year. I am set up about 70 yards away. This is private land and I believe the bed in the thicket
if youve had your cam out, and they aren't even hitting it at night, move. dont waste any more time there. the deer moved so you should too. sounds like you had a solid plan, but sometimes they dont want to cooperate. the only mistake here is not moving and hunting the same pattern that isn't working.
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Yes...Find a new place to hunt. There is no reason you should not have piles of deer hitting corn this time of year unless there are very few in the area.
At worst, they should be hammering it at night and not showing during the day.
As a general rule, unless you are in a very good area, you will need to dozens of does in order to get a shot one at rack buck.
JC
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THanks for the advice I was thinking that I should move, but just trying to give them a chance to hit it. I am moving my set up this week. I walked in the mid morning looking for tracks and seen nothing, but as I left yesterday late afternoon I did see fresh tracks crossing the driveway from one side of the property to the other side of our property. They were walking the ridge across from my ground blind.
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It appeared there were 2 deer walking together.
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BTW...Deer haven't "yarded up" here in NJ at all this year. And in fact in most years they really never do. The concept that deer "yard" in NJ is a misnomer at best in all but the harshest periods of extended bad winters.
What deer do however do in NJ, even in moderate winters is to forgo their traditional solitude, where small maternal groups of does and fawns, and separately bucks and/or bachelor groups traditionally avoid interacting with each. Instead, when winter hits, and more specifically when snow falls, these groups find benefit in traveling and feeding together within their regular pre-existing home range, (This being different from yarding where deer either migrate to a new home range, or limit movement within their traditional home areas to only a very small part that is generally a low lying area dominated by heat retaining conifers and don't leave unless threatened by predators.)
The moral of the story being, regardless of the fact that the deer will concentrate under normal NJ winter conditions they will generally still travel throughout most of their year round home range looking for food. (This is especially true if you have habituated them to baiting where they know they can easily find concentrated food). Which means that if your area holds good numbers of deer, regardless of whether they have concentrated due to cold snow weather they will still show up. In fact, they are actually not only more likely to show up..but also to stay in the area of that food source,(bait).
From the perspective of personal observation, I had yet to see any large concentrations of deer, (more than4-6) traveling to my bait piles this year prior to yesterday due to the rather mild temperatures. However, with yesterdays new snow fall it seemed to kick the deers instinct to concentrate into high gear. Yesterday for the first time all year I had 13 does and fawn all walk into the corn pile in single file together.
JC
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JC, with all due respect to your gun knowledge....[ninja]....this statement is 100% WRONG.
Deer are yarded up now, and for the past two weeks by me....[confusedagain]
Yesterday had about 20+ going by me with at least 2-3 bucks that I could make out. Two weeks ago a herd came through with 6 different bucks in it, all travelling together. That's yarded up...
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Regardless of the defintion being right in front of you you still have no clue what the term "yarding" even means do you?
As is clearly explained above, high numbers of deer together located on a prime food source within their regular home has nothing to do with the biological term "yarding".
JC
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GVS, perhaps you can write to the Biologist at Deer and DEER Hunting and explain to them that don't know what deer yarding is...
JC
[eyeroll]
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