Farm deer are different?

John Y Cannuck

John Y Cannuck

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Farm deer are different? I mean behaviour wise. I am new to farm field hunting, and I am seeing tracks wandering hither and yon all over the place. Not sticking close to fence rows or bush edges like northern deer would. How the H do you set up when they have no movement patterns?
 
There will be patterns along hedgerows, draws, and cedar woodlots. Look for places where they can yard up for shelter and cover. They'll graze in farm fields in the early mornings, back from the road usually, and maybe on the way between woodstands. The fall/winter yarding is usually in small groups of 20 or so, because that's all the cover can hold, and they move around more I think then the do up north. Down here in the southern end, cedar creek bottoms are common yarding/cover areas. Don't usually see them much in the hardwood bush down here like you might up north.
 
They do wander over the fields but they usually follow set trails to the fields.I usually stand in a position that overlooks the locations where the deer usually enter the field.
 
That's what I figured too. But so far they have shown no set pattern except to meet way the F out in the open long out of Xbow range for a feeding session on the left over bits of crop. I may have to construct a snow blind out there in the middle.
 
John Y Cannuck said:
That's what I figured too. But so far they have shown no set pattern except to meet way the F out in the open long out of Xbow range for a feeding session on the left over bits of crop. I may have to construct a snow blind out there in the middle.
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That's the problem down south - the snow pack isn't usually heavy enough to give them any grief, and they yard up in smaller family units rather than larger herds, so you get them coming out of the woodwork from all over to "meet, greet and graze". While not watching them for hunting at the time, I used to have good luck with a blind in the cedars "in a likely spot", early in the mornings. A Topo map might give you a good overview of the "corridors" along which they'll move to help you pick a spot. You need to look for an area with sufficient cover to support a decent herd to see patterns, otherwise, like you are seeing, you get wanderers that cover a lot of ground and don't necessarily come back to the same cover each night/day, or return to the same field each morning or evening.
 
I also think that alot of the open country moving is being done before or after dark. The dirty SOB's know we are out there.
 
Farm muleys are pretty much all we shoot. I say shoot cause we really dont hunt them, you just shoot them....You drop one and three more come over to see whats going on......then you shoot them too.

the meat is great cause they are grain fed and you dont get that awful wild taste, even if you leave the bone in........

mulies in south Alta tend to stink pretty bad during the rut and i find a different taste to the meat (dont really care much for it)......they get hunted pretty hard down there but in the north of Alta you get three doe tags and if you are out for meat, its pretty much a guarantee you will get your limit......buck or doe, they all taste the same up there......and farmers are quite willing to let you hunt because the deer tend to mess up bales and grain piles with droppings and urine and pawing etc......
 
I hunt all farm land and know what your talking about. All I can say is that after years of watching and takeing notes I've found that farm deer do have patterns but they seem to run on a 3 day cycle. It's still real hard to say exactly where they will come out but I've been able to narrow things down as to which field and which deer will show up. I used to think these guys that wrote about patterneing deer where out to lunch. I'm still not 100% sold on some of the stuff these guys write but maybe if the deer read these books and articles we'd be both on the same wave length.

Tim
 
It is very hard to ambush them in the middle of the field J/C... you need to look for a funnel or a pinch point and catch them in the cover moving to or from the feilds. Your own approach to the stand is as important as the stand location.
You are right about the deer being different... they are a lot more used to humans and being hunted.;)
 
huntinstuff said:
Farm muleys are pretty much all we shoot. I say shoot cause we really dont hunt them, you just shoot them....You drop one and three more come over to see whats going on......then you shoot them too.

the meat is great cause they are grain fed and you dont get that awful wild taste, even if you leave the bone in........

mulies in south Alta tend to stink pretty bad during the rut and i find a different taste to the meat (dont really care much for it)......they get hunted pretty hard down there but in the north of Alta you get three doe tags and if you are out for meat, its pretty much a guarantee you will get your limit......buck or doe, they all taste the same up there......and farmers are quite willing to let you hunt because the deer tend to mess up bales and grain piles with droppings and urine and pawing etc......
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We call it "going for groceries". Fast and convenient but little challenge.
 
This is a very difficult chunk of land to hunt. It's pretty much cleared, with maybe an acre of bush on my side of the fence, and another hundred of bush on the other side I can't hunt.
Even the aproach is difficult, as I can't get at the bush by any other means than walking either in the open, of along the far side of the property to keep near the fence line, and have a bit of cover, and cross at the middle of the hundred acres where there is an old fence line, and some scrub. I expected that old fence line to be filled with tracks, but, they just seem to wander out in the field from every concievable direction, even wandering over from the cleared hundred on the opposite side, with no cover at all.
I thought at first that these tracks must be made at night, when they are not so worried about cover, but, I then saw three of them just amble slowly across the field right out in the open about 11:00am.
Drive an old guy to drink it would!
 
How about if i wait for a blinding snowstorm. Crawl in like a snake through the snow, cover myself in de-scenting crap first of course, and towing a couple of crates of fresh apples. I grunt and bleat all the way to cover my noise, then set up and stay in the stand for a solid week. (I say solid, cause that's the way they'd find me)

Merry Christmas to all the hunters here. Espescially those of us who still have tags :(
 
Where I put my stand, you could almost set your watch to the time of day that the critters come from the bedding area to feed. My stand is right on the edge of a field, the field itself is full of tracks meandering all over the place, but the deer always seem to enter and exit using the same path. Some of these paths are worn at least 6 inches into the dirt.

Elk tend to do the same thing here, same path in and out. My bull I got this sept had a belly full of barley. He was obviously robbing cattle feeders, there are no barley crops close to my spot. Meat as tender as AAA beef and absolutly delicious. My moose on the other hand is tender but does not compare to the elk. I'm kinda disappointed with that, I grew up eating moose and was, until this year convinced that moose was the best wild meat. It's good, but man the elk this year is far better.
 
Farm muleys are pretty much all we shoot. I say shoot cause we really dont hunt them, you just shoot them....You drop one and three more come over to see whats going on......then you shoot them too.


Glad somebody other than I said it..On the ontario boards I'm a real bastard cause I call that shooting not hunting
 
blindside said:
Farm muleys are pretty much all we shoot. I say shoot cause we really dont hunt them, you just shoot them....You drop one and three more come over to see whats going on......then you shoot them too.


Glad somebody other than I said it..On the ontario boards I'm a real bastard cause I call that shooting not hunting
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Are you saying that hunting agriculture whitetails in Ontario is easy?... that it is just shooting and not hunting...:confused:
 
GILLY said:
Where I put my stand, you could almost set your watch to the time of day that the critters come from the bedding area to feed. My stand is right on the edge of a field, the field itself is full of tracks meandering all over the place, but the deer always seem to enter and exit using the same path. Some of these paths are worn at least 6 inches into the dirt.
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I wish that were the case, but they enter from all angles, even angles where there is no cover at all. They even came in twenty feet from a house at the front of the field, having first walked down the driveway of the house across the road. :confused:
 
Lazy Ike said:
We call it "going for groceries". Fast and convenient but little challenge.
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Its true its true. I looked for some does all morning one day in November and all the sudden there was 10 standing in a field.

When the smoke cleared seven were standing there wondering why we were panching thgeir buddies. :D
 
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