Western tactics for whitetails

Occasionally on here I see comments about whitetail hunting in the eastern half of the country and inevitably we get lumped in the buggy driving, food plot building, enclosed blind sitting, ozonics using, deer naming stereotype. That's fine and I get my kicks out of it too. It's also fine if you use these tactics if that's your thing.

But there is a small but diehard group of whitetail hunters that hunt large areas of public land and put in a ton of effort to kill deer that would probably make the average sportsman channel viewer change the channel. Some of these guys are using similar tactics to western hunters to access remote areas and retrieve their deer.

I've started spike camp hunting for whitetails and turkeys here in Mo this year and its really opened up some opportunities. I've also been packing my kills out as opposed to dragging and this also lets me hunt places I might not otherwise.

So who else on here does this? I'd love to hear some stories, tips, tactics, or whatever you have.

Good topic, I like to hear what other big-woods hunters are up to.

I hunt some remote public areas in PA, WV, and Ohio. I also have a family camp that is more typical of the Eastern whitetail hunting you described minus the ozonic and deer naming nonsense, and a lot easier to kill deer for sure, but I still prefer the big woods. I went to college at Penn State and started hunting the big woods when I was up there, and have continued refining my tactics since then. I am moving up back up to State College this spring so I am excited to get out there even more.

The biggest keys are scouting and patience. I hunt the ridge and valley topography of PA with oak, laurel, and heath forest the most. Not exactly prime deer habitat or textbook terrain funnels, but it does grow some really nice bucks and rewarding to hunt and virtually no archery pressure because frankly there are much more productive areas. It's virtually impossible to pattern an individual deer and the concentrated areas of deer move around from year to year and throughout the season following the food. I've been hunting this type of woods for going on 10 years and I'm still learning every season. I'm doing 95% of my hunting out of a climbing treestand because its just not practical to move through the kind of brush the deer live in quietly and get within bow range without spooking them. Rifle is different but I don't do too much rifle hunting unless I haven't gotten a buck by then.

I use a lot of wintertime scouting/grouse/predator hunting to locate areas where the deer populations are better. I will put a few cameras up in the summer over mineral licks but other than that I pretty well leave it alone until the velvet comes off and I start looking for concentrations of big rubs. Unless I have a good buck I feel I have somewhat patterned, which only happened two years, I continue scouting through the early part of the season. Typically I'll have a few good pockets located when I really start hunting the last week of October through the end of the rut. Then I am setting up in travel routes and waiting for a shooter to eventually wander by.

Penn State recently has done some really neat deer studies (http://ecosystems.psu.edu/research/projects/deer/news) with GPS collars that show big woods deer travel habits throughout the year, and it proves that the rut increases daytime movement and range tremendously, and this is when I am focused on spending as much time as possible in the tree. I'll go 2-3 days sometimes without seeing a deer but that is why you have to be mentally tough to be hunting the big woods. And like I said, when you do see a buck there is a good chance he is a good one.

As far as comparing it to the backpack style Western hunting, I'm usually truck camping because I am far from home but throughout the season if I am really just jonesing to do a spike camp hunt I will do so but it's not really necessary. I do an annual turkey backpacking hunt that is a lot of fun but the turkey populations are awful fight now in my area. In the tri state area I mentioned the farthest you can get from a road I think is 2 or 3 miles and more typical of the areas I hunt is 1-1.5 max so it's nothing like out West but the best substitute I have available.

This is the best buck I've got in the mountains and you'll certainly see bigger racks but it's a really good buck for that habitat. Also the heaviest mountain buck I've shot at only 150 pounds dressed, so they don't grow big bodies like they do in the flatlands either. But it's the favorite deer I've shot because I put a ton of work in that season. I struggled for a couple years learning to hunt the big woods lucked into a decent 2x3 the year before, but I really started to figure things out that season and put it all together at the last minute. I was a senior at Penn State and I snort-wheezed him in with 10 minutes left in the archery season and made a perfect 40 yard shot. And my photography game was pretty weak at that point unfortunately.

I use my elk pack (EXO) to pack out quartered up whitetails from on back in the mountains here in SW VA. I carry it throughout deer season....while dreaming about elk hunting in CO.

God Bless.

I hunt public land from ground level and get it done here in PA. I have always planned to hunt out west and viewed it as practice for then. I've done it from spike camps and just as day hunts, still hunting and stalking to get it done.











It was to steep and to far to drag her where I was hunting so I boned her out threw her in the pack.

I am a nube. Hunting NY and Eastern PA. First year deer hunting in a long time was this year. Spent 90% of my time hunting from the ground this year. Hybrid of still hunting and spot and stalk. Got 2 bucks and a doe. All with a bow and from the ground. I love it. Hard to sit in a stand once you get a taste of stalking them down.

Hunting from the ground is more exciting to me, whether that is spot and stalk or still hunting.
The biggest obstacle in my opinion is line of sight. Out west I can spot an animal from a mile or more and put on a stalk. In the east, in a good area I might spot an animal 300 yards out. There are a lot of areas I have hunted where you have to still hunt because your limited to 30 yards visibility.

several miles into the ozarks in an Akensaw wilderness [ no motors ]
but we cheat and pack it in on horses

^backpacking hunting for Whitetails along the John Muir Trail, Big South Fork, Tennessee.



Backpack hunting hunting for late season Black Bear + Whitetails + Hogs, South Cherokee Ntl Forrest, Tennessee.

Looks like fun guys!

I do hunt out of a tree a fair bit but its out of a New Tribe Aero Hunter Evo which is a tree saddle. My tree gear is under 15 lbs, is very portable, and I can hang in almost any tree. I did kill a doe in December of the ground because I just got the urge to go still hunt for the day and caught her coming down a ridge.

Somebody mentioned backpack turkey hunting and I feel like if there's one animal here in the east that's ideal for spike camp hunting, its turkeys. Have had some awesome times chasing them out of a spike camp.

Great to hear from all of you!

Rayporter, looks like you hunt similar country to me, just a little further south! And I've worked with horses enough to know that it's not cheating to use them. Lot of work and responsibility taking care of stock in the back country.

woods
where are you at? any long rides up there?

big country for this area

poser
the big south fork has poped up on my radar in the past. any info you can pass on.

i was in memphis last week and may go again soon. any interest in a get together?

rayporter said:

poser
the big south fork has poped up on my radar in the past. any info you can pass on.

i was in memphis last week and may go again soon. any interest in a get together?

Click to expand...

Sure, I can fill you in about it. One reason I really like hunting BSF is because it is one of the few NPS properties in the country that allows hunting. They also run a hog control season through the end of Feb that you can hunt with a rifle. If you're into horses, there are a number of horse trails up there that are popular with equestrians but get very little if any hunting off horseback. Keep in mind, BSF has very low deer densities by TN standards, mostly because its a lot of continuous mature hardwoods -beautiful and aesthetic, but not the best whitetail habitat. The bear population is significant and growing, but there is no bear season in BSF and probably never will as I understand that it will continue to serve as a bear refuge. Elk are slowly moving in, too, but, TN is a long ways away from expanding elk hunting beyond a handful of tags.

we are trying to get a turkey hunt up for a wilderness in georgia this spring.

arkansas has good elk success[ over 80%] if i remember right but that is only 40 some tags, i think.

we are going through a hog metamorphosis here. tons of hogs but you cant hunt them in the wilderness area. they claim people are trucking them in. i am naive to this, i guess.

someday we got to trade stories and maps. i would go just to ride and carry a rifle just in case a hog showed.

does the pyramid have a restaurant?

The pyramid does indeed have a restaurant, and a bar, a hotel and a bowling alley......

Yeah, TN took similar action with the hogs. People were transporting them around and releasing them for sport hunting, so, now, hog hunting opportunities are restricted. You either need a hog permit for private land or participate in a hog control hunt on public land. There is an eradication plan underway but seems to be losing. The state game agency has said "TN will not become Georgia" and has secured federal funding to double down their efforts.

Rayporter, I'm from about an hour north of the MO-AR line and about an hour east of Springfield Mo.

There is a fair bit of trail riding that goes on around here but I haven't really got in to that ever. I see a lot of horse sign along the trails I hike in on for sure. We have a lot of public land in the area and a lot of it is really pretty country!

I've been wanting to do some backpacking down along the Buffalo in AR for awhile. I have a buddy here who doesn't hunt but does a lot of overnight hiking trips down there and he loves the area. Just haven't got to it yet.

best secret around.

i am trying to get enough trail info to ride the entire length of the buffalo. it would take about a week.

best secret around.

i am trying to get enough trail info to ride the entire length of the buffalo. it would take about a week.

i hear Missouri has just copied Arkansas and Tennessee with no hog hunting on public land????????

rayporter said:

best secret around.

i am trying to get enough trail info to ride the entire length of the buffalo. it would take about a week.

i hear Missouri has just copied Arkansas and Tennessee with no hog hunting on public land????????

Click to expand...

I'll have to head down there sometime this summer maybe!

As far as it being illegal to hunt pigs on public land, you may be right. Last I heard the MDC was discouraging people from hunting them but it wasn't illegal. A couple years ago all our regulations booklets said shoot any hogs you see on sight but now they're saying hunting makes their efforts to control them harder.

I do wonder about that, tho. I've been up to an area northeast of here where they have a population and I've seen the sign. This is about 9000 acres of wilderness area, very rugged and densely forested, with lots of national forest on all sides. How are they gonna eliminate these hogs in a place like that? If much of a population gets started you'll never keep up.

I personally would like to see hogs gone because of the habitat damage they do. But I will admit to enjoying a few hog hunts here and there through the years!

I've thought that it would be fun to canoe the Buffalo River in AR during the Spring squirrel season and hunt/fish your way down the river for a week.

I did not know that AR was changing tactics on hogs. To my knowledge, the guys in the AR Delta are still mowing them down by any means means necessary: Spotlights, night vision gear etc. We have a state park in North Memphis that has become infested with them. I drew a turkey tag there last year and could not believe the amount of hogs. I had one at 15 yards and I was so tempted to pull my pistol out..... That park is nasty, thick river bottomland. There is no way they are going to be able to run a successful trapping program out there. The only productive solution I see is to run a series of dog hunts and you would need a lot of houndsmen to show up.