Gday koda
Was sharing my
weekend in the Daily Hunt thread and thought this might be a strategy learning opportunity.
A quick recap, more than once I was busted by deer from afar trying to glass them. Ranges were around 1-200yds open clearcut near the edges of timber. I would approach the cuts view slowly while glassing slowing moving into more view to glass more areas. Any number of minutes would go by glassing when the deer would make their break for it and bolt to the timberline. Not enough time to ID or ethical or practical to take such a running shot, they move fast. I need to glass them before they see me, in the rain I wanted to set up under a small sil-tarp but that would just stand out so we tried hiding more and just got soaked. Im thinking of trying to find a farther out vantage point to glass from with the tarp then find a way to stalk withing rifle range once I spot them. Not certain how far is still too close.
What do blacktail hunters here use for strategies when glassing clearcuts?
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I’ve finally worked out what your calling clearcut now gotcha
Don’t know if this is relevant to those black tail
but what we done on those clear cuts
started way back before the season scouting & drive those logging roads find the clear cuts ( I’m warming to that lol ) then mark them on topographic maps go back home & study those maps working out where I could get vantage points to look @ them & 1k @ least was my preference
Next stage was to search all those clear cuts for sign then leave well alone for a month on the ones with sign concentration going to the vantage spot for which I would clear lanes if needed or just sit & watch ( I used to longrange shoot but refuse to now @ those distances for own reasons & get more thrill closing the gap anyway )
This above produced a extremely high % of take on season opening morning or late arvo depending on animal’s routine & other hunters pressures
Now the harder one was when we went into a area blind & not scouting just hunting & the best way we found was to study those topographical maps again first & look for the most likely routes from bedded areas to the clearcuts ( man you guys have it so easy with google earth these days but not taking away from your challenges today either) then look @ the feeder gullies to & from them
Then would stay roughly 50 yard inside of the uncut timber( still liked to see across the clearcut as much as I could) & circumnavigate the perimeter until sign was found & back out immediately ( once again mark on map ) then you would go around the other direction till sign was found again ( working in pairs we would separate from the beginning)mark this on a map & back out again ( if game trail it’s easy & watch deer foot directions as gives a idea of animal habits dung is also a good one to watch along with browsing nature)
Then just find our best possible vantage point & sit till around 10 as by that time nearly everything was bedded ( pressure aside ) then the fun began with the method we call “walk them up “ go back to that sign spot & once again great in pairs as attack this from ea side & also get deer sneaking off from the other hunter ( wind dependent of course) & just go about your hunting as if no one was there but taking notice of a mates direction & not fire that way if couldn’t even see them
My personal preference on walking them up is once sign found every 3to 5steps do the basic road crossing technique I had drummed into me as a kid ( look left right then left again before proceeding)
& first without the binos then with the binos & just keep on going until you find them if your lucky
Samba it was a great system & fallow in our high country were around some of the hardest to walk up as man our wallaby also had a habit of busting you & those buggers are everywhere
Don’t know how relevant to your game but I was always told if your getting busted more often than you spotting the deer your sneaking is still to quick & slow down more
Took me ages to learn that & I’ve spooked plenty of game
Glad to see your seeing deer that’s a good sign the best will be you showing a picture of a successful hunt & that I hope is not far away
No proof read
Cheers