Ontario topography

[M16LR.50]

What features does one look for when researching potential areas for white tails? Hunting for the first time this year in WMU60, Ontario has me questioning the area of crown land I chose to venture. It does not seem to be a pressured area. On my trip last week, I ran into a single hunter, who said he's been hunting the area since 1960 and only taken two deer in all those years. The land is hilly and has a lot of Marsh/wet lands with ponds and lakes every few kms... A far description from what I used to picture as ideal for deer... I have now formulated that I am not hunting deer, but some rather large Antlered Canadian Mountain-Jungle Goats ...


So, when reviewing the map and topography, what should I be looking for as potential areas to setup and or stalk around?

Also, for people that do hunt these watery hills in 60 or other parts of Ontario, what strategies can you recommend for hunting this kind of land?

 

[sk8r]

Think food sources. Whitetails thrive often around old overgrown farmland - old orchards, primary growth areas, bush that borders existing agriculture (think stubble fields, cut corn etc ) . There are parts of #60 like that, iirc, but maps won't do it all for ya. After black fly season next year, get out & start prowling around. No substitute for boots on the ground.

 

[9.3mauser]

Food sources won't be much help if it's the same sort of terrain I'm familiar with; rock, swamp & pine trees. There's no farmland to speak of. It's best to concentrate on bottlenecks and choke points. Ridges between two bodies of water, beaver dams, particularly the areas below the dams where it's narrow and brushy, travel routes on the ridges. If there are big dry ponds ( I call them beaver meadows ) look for places where the deer have been crossing. They'll often skirt along the edges, or on the ridges just above. The outside corners of large ponds or meadows are also often good.

I feel your pain; it's tough country to hunt.

 

[M16LR.50]

Food sources won't be much help if it's the same sort of terrain I'm familiar with; rock, swamp & pine trees. There's no farmland to speak of. It's best to concentrate on bottlenecks and choke points. Ridges between two bodies of water, beaver dams, particularly the areas below the dams where it's narrow and brushy, travel routes on the ridges. If there are big dry ponds ( I call them beaver meadows ) look for places where the deer have been crossing. They'll often skirt along the edges, or on the ridges just above. The outside corners of large ponds or meadows are also often good.

I feel your pain; it's tough country to hunt.

Yep... your location (from sig) seems about right. Rocky, hilly terrain with lots of ponds and lakes. Regarding the suggestions, do you find them preferring late evening/early morning or is it a luck of the draw thing with when they move into the accessible areas near the ridges and edges?

Do you have luck moving into the areas that have taller trees?

 

[9.3mauser]

This year, perhaps because of the weather, most movement seems to be early morning, 8-10 a.m., years past I've shot quite a few right around 1 p.m. If I haven't seen anything by 2:30 or so, I don't expect to until last light. I've been getting a few bucks on trail cam moving at night. This is fairly typical too, but you will catch them out in daylight hours cruising for does.

The type of cover where I hunt is mostly big white pine with a lot of secondary understory. Visibility is usually less than 50 yards. There is a clearcut nearby, but it's so thick in there now it's pretty much futile without a dog.

 

[cdn1canhunt]

Whitetails are creatures of the edge. Look for sign around the edges of swamps or fields... Hunt terrain that funnels deer, a low spot on a ridge( aka a saddle) or an old beaver dam they use to cross wetlands. Bucks will typically bed high on ridges with their backs to the wind they watch the downwind and can scent anything from behind. Try to place your am stands high on ridges on the down wind side of a saddle... Wind on the top of a ridge is more constant and thermals rise your scent away from deer, when you drop into a valley the winds will tend to swirl.
Good luck! And have fun.

 

[galamb]

I hunt a similar sounding "useless" piece of crown land in WMU 67 - and that's exactly why it's crown - it useless for anything else. Mixed hardwood, hills, narrow valley's, lot's of rocks, swamps, bogs, patches of water too small to even really call a pond. The closest AG field is many kilometers away, so the deer don't even have a reason to be going one direction over the other at any given time of the day.

You couldn't find 25 square feet to plant anything and walking is tough - tripping over junipers that have popped up in between the maples, oaks and birch.

When we first started hunting the piece (about 800 acres) we spend the first two years "scouting" - and I don't just mean for a week before (or during) the hunting season.

We got out and looked for any game trails that were 1) obvious and 2) appeared to have frequent usage. Then we "littered the place with game camera's" - had between 5 and 8 camera's out ALL YEAR.

We managed to identify three or four locations where the deer more or less "had to pass by" to get around a pond or past a rock face etc.

From there we picked our stand locations and then "gave the deer a reason to come there", since there was no natural reason for them to.

That means keeping a "mineral station" maintained all year - a couple of salt blocks/buried minerals - it's not a case of put out a block and the deer "will come when you want", but given that may be their only source, they "frequent" the area.

Then a couple months before even the early bow season we start hitting them with feed - not the Royal York restaurant but at least a couple gallon pail of (horse) feed or just corn once a week - yes, the birds and the coons get a good feed too, but again, given there is no field of beans or corn nearby, that's one more reason for Bambi to pass by our stand areas.

Then when you get into the rut (gun season usually), have to hit them with scents.

Many hunt somewhere along the path between their bedding area and the field that some farmer has been decent enough to plant which attracts them.

When you are hunting in the middle of nowhere you just have to create those conditions yourself.

Lot's of work - absolutely, but if it wasn't then you would be elbowing hunters out of the way instead of running into maybe the only other fella that hunts that piece of land...