Hunting deer in natural habitat

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Sawtooth are not native

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I honestly didn’t know that. I’ve known people to plant them in their yards but you are correct, don’t think I’ve ever seen one out in the middle of the woods. I need to familiarize myself with nuttall oak trees, I’ve heard a few people having good success hunting around them

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I need to familiarize myself with nuttall oak trees, I’ve heard a few people having good success hunting around them

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Good oak tree. Grows fast, produces a lot of acorns. Pretty tree as well. I have a bag of nuttall acorns that I intend to grow and plant one day.

I would recommend putting hands to a good guide on trees. One of my favorites as far as ease of use is the National Wildlife Federation "Field Guide to Trees of North America".

Also, the VTree is a good App on smartphones. It was created by the Virginia Tech Dendrology lab. Has trees across North America, and you can download for your specific area. Also has an "Ask Dr. Dendro" feature, where you can take a picture and e-mail it and a description to someone with the V Tech Dendro lab, and they will try to identify the tree for you. Obviously, the more information you can provide, the better.

Just hunt natural well used travel areas. Unless you have acres and acres of oaks or any other food source, hunting a couple of trees especially for bucks is completely pointless. Bucks mostly eat at night, you need to find where they bed and hunt the trails outside of their bedding areas.

During the rut, hunt the big trails that connect the doe and buck bedding areas. Basically any major trails.

Hunting food sources is extremely overrated imo. Sure it works, but there are better methods especially on public land where you can't control it.

Appreciate the thread.

Spinoff on beds, I hear it often and it makes sense, but how do you determine bedding areas?

Speaking more about pine and hardwood mix. Seems they'd have chances to bed all over in various terrains. Or do you try to get some other clue?

Find the acorns right by the bedding area and you can kill a buck.

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but how do you determine bedding areas?

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Hell, I hunt a place where there is a pretty sizable field that os just grown up in tall grasses and forbs (or nongrasses for the layman). There are trails going in and out of it all around the perimeter, and it's the only suitable bedding habitat around. The forest understory is very sparsely vegetated due to the canopy shading everything out.

I've seen them bed down in the thick nasty stuff and then sometimes they will bed down on a ridge in the open. Usually face downwind where they can see and then they can smell anything that is behind them

Where two habitat types come together is where I start looking. If you can find a good hardwood bottom and then an adjacent hardwood ridge. That is money. They often lay up on those ridge and there are a variety of different types of oaks on the ridges versus the bottoms. I've hunted spots like this the last couple years and always have good luck would recommend staying late into the morning though as they will be bedding in there. I don't hunt them in the afternoons because you have a good chance of jumping the beddes deer. Killed two opening Saturday and Sunday in area like this. Both showed up at 930. They came out the bottoms and were easing through eating red oaks on the ridge. Last week hunted area just like this with my mother and she shot a buck at 1000 and saw another at 1030 slipping through.

Deer tend I act like deer when you hunt them naturally versus over a corn feeder. Plus it's much better scenery in the woods versus staring at the same 5' shooting lane or pile of rice bran

Nice.

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Deer are edge animals, like bass. Where two types of habitat meet is good, where three types of habitat meet is a deer killing gold mine.

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This x 1,000

I'll add one more ... an oak flat, preferably on higher ground than surrounding terrain, between two bedding areas.
I have learned through the years that older bucks minimize their movement, if possible, during the rut to find hot does. They will circle bedding areas and fields where does spend a lot of time in an effort to find a hot doe. One variance of this is if you have an oak flat as described previously between two bedding areas. They will bed here and check doe groups as they pass by on their way in and out of bedding areas. More efficient way to spend their time and minimizes their movement during the day. Watched a nice 8 pt do this two weeks ago in Ga. He followed three different doe groups that came by trying to scent them for any of them being hot then went and bedded back down till the next group came by. FTR he was bedded exactly 51 yds from me on the highest knoll in the oak flat, facing downwind, just like you read about.
Watched him do this for over an hour before he finally headed out trailing the last doe group.