Entries Tagged 'Deer' ↓
February 17th, 2010 — Big, Deer, Hunting
Deer, when they are in their natural habitat, do not actually eat the commercial “deer feed” that most feed stores will sell you as bait or as a lure. So when deer are out in the wild and they are left to their own devices, what do they eat? Unlike some of the animals you find in the wild while hunting, deer are herbivorous creatures which means that they only eat plants. While there are plenty of different plants out there in the woods, not all of them are going to provide the right amount of nutrition for the deer. Just like humans and other animals, many deer do have food preferences and will eat their certain favorite foods whenever they can find them, though they will move on to other foods when their favorites or the most nutritious options cannot be found.
Deer like to eat wild grasses, especially when the shoots are both tender and young, but wild grasses tend to be a last resort food in that they can help the deer survive when other food is not available, but they are not good for much more than that. Here is a look at some of the favorite foods that deer may like.
Woody Shrubs and Plants: Deer can feed on the leaves and other anatomy of tree and shrubs, eating the leaves, the twigs and the buds from plants like these all throughout the year. Some examples of this category of plants include greenbrier, honeysuckle, blackberry, black gum, sumac, sassafras, willow, rose, dewberry and grape.
Forbs: Forbs are herbaceous plants, which mean that they are perennial and non woody plants that produce new growth every single spring after dying off in the winter. Forbs generally include weeds and a number of other flower-producing plants. Forbs are a proffered food source for many deer, and examples of these plants include wild clover, sedges, bellflower, mushroom, dandelion, ragweed, beans, wild lettuce and sunflower.
Nuts: Nuts are extremely nutritious when it comes to deer, but the crops produced by these plants are often small, so fords and grasses tend to provide a much more reliable food source. Some examples of nuts that deer may enjoy are red and white acorns, hickory nuts and beech nuts.
Fruits: Fruits are preferred by deer because they are so very high in energy, but good fruit crops only tend to be made available during the summer and early fall months. Some examples of fruits that deer enjoy eating are sumac seed heads, persimmons, grapes, coralberry, dewberry, blackberry, dogwood and huckleberry.
Crops: Cultivated crops are crops that were planted by humans. Where food sources are limited, these can be an important part of a deer’s diet and may include plants like wheat, oats, alfalfa, clover, soybeans, vegetables and rye grass.
By knowing what deer actually like to eat, finding them in the wild will be a lot easier from now on.
Photo Credits: 1
Originally posted 2009-01-13 05:53:41. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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February 17th, 2010 — Clothes, Deer, Hunting, Winter
If you’re serious about hunting, you’re going to end up out in the woods before dawn more often that most people care to think about! And you’ll be out there scouting for deer in weather that would send most of us running into our dens with fuzzy slippers and hot cocoa, wishing for a roaring fire. You need to keep certain things in mind when hunting in cold weather, and you’ll want to be sure you have the right hunting equipment and hunting clothes to make it a more enjoyable experience, and to keep yourself safe from the elements.
Wear wool.
Wool hunting clothing provides excellent insulation against the cold. You won’t want to wear it against your skin, of course, but make one of your layers wool. And you should have at least 2 or 3 layers of clothing on, including long underwear. You won’t want to trek out into the woods wearing the clothing of 4 men, and getting your innermost layer wet with sweat—that defeats the purpose of trying to stay warm. But do take the heaviest layers of your hunting clothes with you. Then once you’re in the deer stand, you can put them on and stay warm. (Make sure your outermost layer is orange and reflective or whatever type of hunting clothing is required in your area.)
Cover your head.
Most of our body heat leaves us though the soles of our feet and the tops of our heads. Just wear a regular cap while you’re exerting yourself getting there and getting set up, then wear a thermal cap. If it’s really cold, you might want a thermal face mask to protect your nose and keep your skin from getting chapped. Be sure your ears are covered, and make sure you’ve got a decent seal around the neck opening of your hunting clothes (as well as at the wrists and ankles) to keep the cold air out as much as possible.
If it’s a wise choice in your particular area, get waterproof hunting gear like waterproof gloves and outerwear. And don’t scrimp on hunting boots. You might want to carry these, too, until you get in place rather than risk getting the insides wet where they will keep your feet cold, and you miserable. Rubber soled and rubber-outer-wear boots do an excellent job of keeping your feet dry. Be sure they’re insulated or the cold will seep right through your hunting boots and drive you to leave before you’ve spotted that trophy deer. Invest in the small heat producing packs that can go in mittens and boots as needed. These can make all the difference between an enjoyable day of winter-time hunting, and coming home stiff and frozen and wondering why you went hunting in the first place.
Finally, be sure your family or friends know where you’ll be, and carry a cell phone or other means of communication. While this is a good rule to follow all the time, it’s especially important when hunting in the winter.
Photo Credits: 1
Originally posted 2008-12-08 19:29:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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February 13th, 2010 — Birds, Deer
Learning how to make use of hunting decoys can be a very important part of your hunting experience. Regardless if you are new to hunting, or if you are a seasoned veteran of the fields and forests, learning how to use decoys as part of your hunting can advance things to a whole new level, and give you that extra advantage that improves your results. Using decoys is moderately easy. Along with your usual tools for hunting, you will need: decoys, scent-eliminating spray and soap, a Buck archery target, and a windsock.
For deer hunting:
- You will need to keep your decoy as scent free as you possibly can. Wash it in the scent and odor eliminating soap, followed by a liberal spraying down with scent removing spray before the hunt. Deer are incredibly sensitive to smells, and so your hunting efforts will be for naught if you cannot get a dear anywhere near you due to scent alerting them to your presence.
- Scout out the place you wish to deploy your decoy to that is 15 to 25 yards away from the blind or stand if bow hunting. If you are using a rifle, you can place the decoy even further away. An ideal place is going to be somewhere close to an edge of a field where the forest begins and the trees and the shrubs begin to thicken.
- Make sure your decoy is placed where other deer are known to congregate, and so will expect to see another deer there. A deer in a strange place will seem odd, and may only serve to scare potential targets away.
- Make sure to pose your decoy in a feeding position. This is the most likely, most reliable, and most effective stance you could pose your decoy in.
- During the rutting season, use a doe decoy if you want the best results. Take a small colored rag in a neutral shade and spray it with what is known as “doe in estrus”, which is a scent that resembles the scent of a doe in heat. Attach it to the decoys tail.
- You can also use a Buck archery target as a decoy. Try to make sounds like a challenging buck might in order to attract other challenging bucks and does looking for a potential mate alike.
For waterfowl hunting:
- It needs to be remembered that waterfowl both take off and land facing into the wind. Now keep this information in mind while setting up your decoys, and be sure to set them in front of you while you have your back to the wind.
- Be sure to leave lots of room for potential targets among your decoys. Too many decoys in the water will actually harm more than it helps.
- Use feeding or sleeping duck decoys, herons, or even swans in order to create confidence in the target.
- Be sure to use a unique spread of decoys when setting up. Give the target something different that will attract them.
Photo credits: *Micky
Originally posted 2009-10-15 03:29:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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The Best Hunting Scent Strategy All people have a scent about them, and hunters are no exception to the rule. If the wind is in the favor of the deer, then they are going to smell us, quite literally, from as far as half a mile away. This is why the most successful hunters of...... -
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January 20th, 2010 — Deer, Hunting, crossbows
All people have a scent about them, and hunters are no exception to the rule. If the wind is in the favor of the deer, then they are going to smell us, quite literally, from as far as half a mile away. This is why the most successful hunters of buck take such great pains in order to try to eliminate as much of their human odor as is possible, masking whatever they miss to ensure that the deer cannot detect them or smell them coming.
The archery deer season can be a bit warm and humid, and this is a bad time of year considering the weather is so miserable for hunting in general. The hot and humid nature of the climate is a true enemy to deer hunters that are looking to control their scents while on the hunt.
The best scent control is going to begin at home. We already all know the importance that comes with showering with the use of soap and shampoo with no scent. Something else that you need to consider is your clothing. Regardless of whether or not your clothing is charcoal lined, you are going to want to wash all of your hunting clothing using a detergent that has no perfumes or scents in it, and then you are going to want to separate this clothing from any other household odors by making sure that your hunting gear and garb are stored in a plastic bag or plastic tub that has no scent to it.
The best choice for buying scent free laundry detergent is sport wash, which you can buy from Atsko.com or in the hunting section of Wal-Mart.
One of the most important parts of preparing for your hunt actually occurs in the washing machine. Your wife can wash your regular clothing in anything that she likes, but when it comes to your hunting clothes, only Sport wash should be used. Sport wash generally causes less than the commercial detergents, and it will work just as well to remove built up residues and other crud from your clothes. You may even want to convince your wife to use sport wash for all the laundry, if you feel so inclined.
Another thing that you can do to control your scent is to take a dietary supplement known as Nullo, which is designed to serve as a deodorant, however internally instead. It has been around for a number of decades already, and sells primarily to people that have problems with excessive body odor. You can use Nullo to neutralize the gases and bacterial cultures that your body produces, but it takes a few days or as long as two weeks in order to completely neutralize your body odors.
Originally posted 2009-09-21 03:23:16. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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January 6th, 2010 — Deer, Game, Hunting
When it comes to hunting deer, it is vitally important for you to pay attention to the smallest details. Here are a few unique tips that many hunters miss when it comes to bagging their dream trophy out in the woods.
1 – Use a Painted Stand - Paint both the bottom and the top of the stand. Your platform should also be camouflaged on the underside as well.
2 – Use Binoculars - Make sure that you are investing in a good, solid pair of binoculars, and make sure that you are using them often. This is going to be especially important when you are dealing with low light situations such as at dusk and at dawn.
3 – Waterproof Your Gear – This is especially important when it comes to your rifle, which is the most important asset that you have when you are hunting. Your rifle needs to be protected, meaning that you should absolutely waterproof it. Keep some oil on hand so that you can wipe your rifle down when rain is expected. Motor oil is good enough to do the trick in most circumstances.
4 – Practice Often – if you want to be successful when you are out hunting then you should hit the range a few times before you go hunting in order to take practice shots before you go hunting. Make sure that you are using the right gun and the right ammunition in order to get the full effect of your practice.
5 – Tread the Trails - Look at the trails where you’ll be hunting, tying some black sewing thread at various trail intervals approximately 3 feet off the ground. Check back often to see if the strands are broken. This will tell you if any animals have been by, and if so, which direction they are moving in so that you can keep track of deer before your hunt.
6 – Watch Squirrels - Squirrels, just like deer, tend to prefer the trees that have a plentiful number of accords. If you find such a patch of trees, where there are a number of squirrels present, then the likelihood is in your favor that there are also deer nearby.
7 – Keep Muscles Loose - It is important that you keep your muscles loose since sitting in your stand for too long, especially when it is cold, can really stiffen your muscles up. Make sure that you are getting up often and that you are moving your legs and your arms for limber muscles and good circulation.
8 – Tint your Lenses – You should be wearing shooting glasses that have tinted lenses in yellow. Not only are they going to protect your eyes quite well, but they are also going to allow you to see with greater ease during lower light situations.
Photo Credits: Michael (mx5tx)
Originally posted 2009-09-07 03:11:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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December 30th, 2009 — Deer, Game, Hunting
A lot of hunters that are unsuccessful are in such a position because they set up anywhere they can in the woods and simply hope that a deer is going to go by. Other people may set up near a rub, simply hoping that a monster buck is going to stroll right up to their stand while they are hunting. This may be fine and good for some hunters, like some gun hunters for example, because they can touch a deer as far as 300 yards. But if you are a bowhunter, then you are going to need to be within 20 yards or 30 yards, and you are going to need to shoot at just the right moment, and so these techniques simply are not going to be successful and therefore you need to find another tactic in order to find your deer.
The best thing that you can do is to take steps that will increase your odds in a proven way. What this means is walking into the woods with a fairly accurate educated guess about where today’s deer are going to be. The first question that is asked is where are the deer going to be bedded? The time for you to find this out is during the spring and the summer when travel patterns aren’t going to be changed. You should get into the roughest, thickest and ugliest cover that you can find such as swamps and sticker bushes, where it seems impossible to get, and that is where you are going to find the beds you are looking for. When you get there, you should have no trouble finding these bedding areas, as they will be all mashed down and looking rather cozy.
Now that you are familiar with the bedding areas for the herd that you intend to hunt, remember that there are going to be multiple bending areas on your hunting grounds, then you can mark them using a topo map or a satellite picture to keep track of where you’re going. Continue marking your map up with old rubs, current trails, disused trails and possible food sources for your targets. All of these things are going to be clues when it comes to determining what is currently going on with the herd that you are targeting. If the hunting season has already begun for the year, then you may want to take it easy when it comes to the hunt for bedding areas and just assume that the thickest cover that you can find is going to be a good resource for deer.
Once you have marked all the sign areas, you can take a hard look at your map and determine which direction the deep appear to be moving into during the evening hours. Are they looping back to the same bedding areas, or choosing a different area from the morning for the evening. Once you have figured out the patterns of the deer, you are very close to understanding the best possible place for you to set up.
Photo Credits: Pandiyan
Originally posted 2009-08-31 03:02:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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December 5th, 2009 — Big, Deer, Hunting
One of the smartest tips that you can take with you when going deer hunting is that you should absolutely know where a deer is hit once you’ve shot it before you begin to track it. If you’re wrong about where the deer was hit, you may be in for a not so nice surprise when you stalk after a deer that isn’t injured in the way that you thought it was. What you can do for this is to note the body language of the deer when it is hit in order to help you determine where the deer was hit.
The ultimate hit when it comes to any animal is the hit that puts the animal down right away, as this way you do not have to make any estimations of where the deer was hurt or whether you should track it now or once it’s had some time to calm down. If the deer that you shoot does not drop and die within sight, then you are going to need to make a guess about where the deer was shot so that you can determine what to do next. A deer that is poorly hit can easily run for miles if you push it too hard while tracking it, and you may lose it if you are not careful.
A deer that is shot in the gut will typically arch its back, trotting with stiff legs. In this case, the deer will not last long, but you may need to shoot him a second time because gut shots are not often immediately fatal.
A deer that is hit in the legs will often kick out as if it were a mule. While a deer like this will not be able to run as far or as fast, a deer bent on recovering can give you quite a chase if you are not careful. It might be best to drop back and give him some time to slow or stop before you pursue him.
A deer that is shot in the lung will not always kick out its leg, but it will probably flag up or try to run away before it dies. They do not usually travel very far at all because a lung shot deer is one that will die quickly, so this is a deer that you should not be afraid to pursue immediately.
When a hit deer runs without any bucking or jumping, it will likely run in whatever direction was being faced when you shot it, even if that means running in a counterintuitive direction such as up hill. While this is not always the case, it is a rule of thumb that you can rely on in many situations.
The ideal way to land a deer is to shoot it in the heart, but the heart is small and it is a relatively low target to hit. If you do hit a deer in the heart, it will drop relatively quickly, so tracking is not typically necessary.
Photo Credits: Emery_Way
Originally posted 2009-08-06 05:03:11. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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