Pennsylvania Game News - September 2013 - 20

season, when you really need to spend
your free mornings and evenings hunting, not looking for deer.
So, the objective is to scout for areas
with deer sign and vegetative cover,
in or near areas with ample supplies of
fall foods in late September. Look for
oak stands — with whites oaks, if possible — that are littering the forest floor
with plenty of mast. Confirm where
deer are feeding: look for where they’ve
hoof-scraped leaf litter to uncover
food, and for droppings and pieces of
acorn caps on the forest floor. It’s also
always worthwhile to scout woodlands
adjacent to farm fields. They’re often
hotspots.
Catching deer as they pass through
bottlenecks or funnels that separate
feeding from bedding areas also is a
great way to score in the early muzzleloader season. These corridors often
are defined by features such as vegetative cover to hide their movements,
and passages around or along fenced
pastures, lakes, large rivers, highways
and occupied buildings. Creek crossings and solid ground trails in swamps
also serve as great places to investigate.
As you scout locations, make sure
you’re not trespassing on private property and keep your scent and sign to a
minimum in the area. Avoid touching
and brushing against vegetation (good
way to limit your tick encounters, too).
Use a cover scent on the bottoms of
your boots. Raccoon or fox urine works
just fine. Avoid leaving tracks in muddy
areas. Look for salt/mineral blocks to
ensure you’re not unknowingly hunting
over an illegal attractant. This happens
more often than you’d think. If you
bump into a trail camera or a ladder
stand, it’s probably a good idea to look
elsewhere.
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If you’re scouting on private property with permission or on state land,
and you encounter bait, or an illegal
tree stand, report your findings to the
Game Commission. Hunting gets better everywhere whenever someone gets
involved.
When you’ve concluded that an area
has plenty of deer activity, the next
step is to figure out from where you’ll
hunt. I prefer to hunt out of trees with
a portable tree stand. I keep several,
in case I’m hunting remote locations
and I need to stash one. I’m willing to
climb a mountainside every night to
hunt for two hours so long as I don’t
haul that stand every night! They hide
well in a garbage bag with leaf litter
spread over it.
When selecting your location, pick
a tree that will help hide your form,
preferably a tree right next to a pine
or hemlock, or hardwood holding onto
its leaves yet. Multi-trunked trees also
are a good bet. Don’t choose something
that really doesn’t offer some cover to
hide you. Also, be sure to use a live
hardwood with rough bark to climb.
Try to pick a position that takes
into account a prevailing northwesterly
or southern wind. Both are common
in the inline season. Winds from the
north are common when temperatures
are seasonable. South winds force
warmer — and unwelcomed — air into
our hunting plans. Since the one-week
season is short, I hunt under almost all
conditions. So when setting up to hunt
a location, I take into consideration a
prevailing northwesterly or southern
wind to guide me in selecting my
ambush area. I want the wind to be
blowing to me from where I expect to
see deer.
Of course, sometimes the trees in
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Pennsylvania Game News - September 2013

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