Deer Hunt Challenge

For three years me and a couple of the boys from the office, along with some family and friends, have been hunting a 900-acre piece of old Weyerhaeuser timber land covered with thick pines, briars, clearcuts and a few hardwood drains. The club has lots of deer on it, so we’ve enjoyed the luxury of being able to keep our freezers pretty-well stocked. However, we haven’t killed a mature buck off the place yet.

“You know there has got to be some big bucks in all this thick stuff,” Jeff Russell, a good friend of mine, said to me one day while rabbit hunting.

His statement got me to thinking: Why haven’t we been able to kill one or at least see one? Then I asked myself… how would a more experienced deer hunter approach this property, and where would he hunt?

Enter the Deer Hunt Challenge.

In this article you’re fixing to find out how two expert deer hunters, John Seginak of Comer and John Stanley of Lawrenceville, approached scouting our deer club on a sultry summer day in August. The mission was to spend a day deer scouting and pick three spots they thought would be good for an early November, pre-rut hunt. Were they interested? You bet — especially when we told them they were invited back for a two-day, early November hunt where they’ll hunt the areas they found during scouting.

Were these guys looking for antlers or venison when scouting? Both guys have rack on the brain. Seginak said he wouldn’t mind going home with backstraps from a doe, if a chance presented itself late into the two-day hunt. Stanley will be holding out for a wall-hanger.

Once our experts agreed to do this article, both requested a hunting-club map within hours. They wanted to see habitat and permanent-stand locations.

For the scouting day, I teamed up with Seginak. GON editor Brad Bailey, who is a member of this club, went along with Stanley.

Bailey and I will join these fellows for the hunt in early November, and we will hunt from one of the three stands our expert selected. The two of us were there to answer any questions these experts had about the property, however, we didn’t volunteer special information like, “I’ve got to show you where some big rubs are” or “I saw a monster last year over here.”

We wanted a true, honest look at how a pair of above-average deer hunters approached a hunting club with minimal information — much like so many of our readers do every year.

The four of us met at the hunting property on August 14, wearing snake boots, Permanone spray and packing lots of water. As we huddled around the tailgate before daylight, Seginak and Stanley seemed excited about looking at new property. As we talked, both hunters agreed that it’s hard to tell a whole lot about a piece of property in just one day of scouting. However, they were excited to help because so many folks change hunting clubs every year, and a lot of them only have a day or two to scout stand locations that they must stick with for the whole season.

Here is Brad Bailey’s report on his scouting adventure with John Stanley:

John Stanley, like John Seginak, has been a contributing writer to GON over the years, sharing his insights into bowhunting for deer and hunting turkeys. Stanley has taken a number of great bow bucks based on careful scouting and a well-thought-out hunting strategy. Last year you may recall seeing a photo in GON of Stanley with a Rockdale County Pope & Young buck that scored 130 1/8.

Stanley, 45, is primarily a bowhunter. In fact, he says he hasn’t hunted with a gun since 1994. But for the Deer Hunt Challenge he will be carrying a special deer rifle with high sentimental value. Stanley’s father passed away several years ago, and he left his pre-1964 Model 70 .30/06 deer rifle to Stanley. No one other than Stanley’s father ever hunted with the rifle.

“My dad started taking me hunting with him when I was old enough to walk, and he is the reason I love the outdoors today,” said Stanley.

These days Stanley spends much of his hunting time passing his hunting tradition on to his two sons, Andrew, 10, and Austin, 8.

Stanley’s approach to picking his three deer stands revolved around hunting a buck, and in early November the bucks should be on the move in Putnam County.

“When we are hunting it will either be late pre-rut or the rut, and the bucks should be out looking for does,” said Stanley. “I am less interested in finding food sources than I am in getting to a spot where I can see a good distance.”

Stanley studied the maps of the property with an eye for creek drains, which play a key role in his strategy. He was also interested in areas away from existing stand locations.

Stanley No. 1: Stanley likes to find a stand location where a combination of factors all come together to make it awesome, and this stand has those features. The stand tree is a telephone-pole-straight red oak standing at the lower end of a wet-weather drain. On either side of the drainage ditch is a thick, four-year-old cutover that has been planted back to pine trees. The pines are three- or four-feet tall. The drain, lined with a few hardwoods, links with a large area of mature hardwoods on top of the hill. The line of trees and the drain serve as both a travel corridor and a funnel from one side of the property to the other. A hardwood creek bottom below the stand is full of white-oak trees. There is also a deep-sided, six- to eight-feet-deep erosion ditch leading from the creek bottom nearly to the stand tree.

“I like to see a creek with a real steep bank that leads into a head,” said Stanley. “That is a great funnel. Rather than go down in it, the deer will walk around it — and closer to the stand.

“Sometimes you just get the right feeling about a spot, and I have a good feeling about this location.”

Stanley No. 2: When we scouted the property, Stanley was looking for combinations that maximize his opportunity to see a buck. This stand site, located where an old, grown-up logging road slopes down and intersects the treeline, is on the edge of creek bottom hardwoods and chop leading up a fairly steep hill. From a tall sweetgum, one of us will have a long, commanding view out across a head-high cutover and a long stretch of edge.

“You try to think about what a deer would do,” said Stanley. “If it wants to get through the cutover is it going to just plow through the chop, or will  it follow a drain or an old logging road?”

The cutover is excellent bedding cover.

“I like to be close to a good bedding area,” said Stanley. “This might not be a bad place to do a little rattling and grunting,” said Stanley. “You have to figure that there are some bucks bedding nearby in all that chop that may respond to rattling.”

The creek bottom will also be visible about 50 yards below the stand.

“Dr. Larry Marchinton (former UGA deer research biologist) said deer will orient to a creek,” said Stanley. “Bucks will travel up and down a creek checking the trails along the creek and  the trails that cross the creek for does in heat.”

Stanley No. 3: For this location, Stanley was counting on having a long view along an overgrown logging road. The road cuts through a thinned 20-year-old pine stand with lots of cover.

“I like to hunt over an old road bed,” said Stanley. “I would assume that there will be some scrapes along this road in November.”

Stanley took the option of taking another scouting trip to the property on October 26. He will be able to make any last-minute changes based on conditions a week before our hunt.

“We will be hunting the dark of the moon,” said Stanley. “You just have to hope for a good wind. You have to play the wind. Usually I have two trails to get to my stands depending on the wind.”

For both stands one and two, there is a woods road about 200 yards on either side, so we will have options about how to approach the stands.

Interestingly, both of our hunters liked an exact location (Seginak’s stand No. 2). As Stanley and I scouted this  area we located an old scrape with a deer track on it under an isolated big white oak and on a treeline edge and parallel to a creek drain.

Brad Gill’s trip to scouting school with Seginak begins here: Seginak is a 52-year-old man who has the heart and soul of a 12 year old hunting for the very first time. I’ve never met anyone more enthusiastic and energized about hunting deer. He’s taken his share of mature bucks in Oglethorpe and Madison counties.

After Seginak had weeks to look at the map, I couldn’t wait to see where we’d start scouting. When he pulled out his map, he had a few areas highlighted, and I noticed right away that everyone of them were well away from any permanent stand. He actually said that some of our permanent stands looked to be in excellent places. Still, he believes two is a crowd when it comes to killing a mature deer.

“The first thing I looked at was the hunting pressure — that’s number one on the list,” said Seginak. “I wanted to see where all the other hunting pressure was. The older deer by that time of the season probably know they’ve been hunted. I’ve had better luck on mature animals getting isolated where the deer haven’t smelled anybody during the course of the season.”

The next thing John was looking for was available bedding cover. As you can see on the map, over half the club is young pine thickets and clearcuts, so he was happy with that.

Next, John looks for available food sources for early November, which will be white-oak acorns. We spent five hours glassing at least 100 white-oak treetops, and to our amazement we found very few trees that had any acorns.

“I still marvel at the fact we looked at so many white-oaks trees that were barren,” said John.

Fourth, once John finds an area with the first three ingredients, he’ll make sure he can approach and set up in the area without being smelled.

“There’s no sense in going to a place no matter how great it looks if the deer are going to smell you or you can’t get in there,” said John.

Finally, if all four factors are in play, and you find a place that bottlenecks or funnels the deer, you’ve nailed it. This factor is really icing on the cake — it doesn’t always happen.

Here are Seginak’s three stands.

Seginak No. 1: This is Seginak’s No. 1 spot for killing a mature buck. We put a lock-on stand on top of a knoll in a 12-year-old pine thicket 30 yards from where three deer trails converge. All three trails come out of a hardwood bottom 75 yards from the stand. As the deer leave the bottom, they have to come up a fairly steep, thick pine hill before all trails meet in front of the stand. Another deer trail sits to the north of the stand.

“Here, there is sort of a funnel situation where the hill is steeper everywhere else and the deer are coming up the slope in front of the stand,” said John. “That was the gentlest place they could get up that hill. Other places around it are too steep.”

Down in the hardwood bottom we found a chest-high rub on a good-sized beech tree. Just north of the rub is a beaverdam that the deer are using to cross the creek and go up the hill.

“This natural funnel with very thick cover makes deer feel more secure,” said John. “The big rub probably was made during the pre-rut or rut last year, so the deer was definitely using the corridor to leave the creek bottom. This is an area where bucks will move going from one doe concentration to another doe concentration.”

The stand sits good for a north or northwest wind. Even if we get a west wind, John believes our scent will blow well over any buck coming up the hill toward the stand.

“As high as that spot is, it would be like being 100 feet over them as they come up the hill,” said John.

This stand can be quietly accessed from the west.

Seginak No. 2:  We had to put a stand here — it’s within sight of the most  white-oak acorns we found.

“Every deer on that side of the club should be right here,” said John.

Looking at the map you may think a northwest wind, a common wind in November, would hurt us on this stand. However, once again, John positioned a stand on top of a knoll that he said will blow our scent over any deer feeding on or approaching the white-oak acorns. John attached his climber to a pine 80 yards away from the white oaks. There were several closer trees to climb on the knoll that would have provided a closer shot and a better look, but he elected to stay well away from the food source.

“If you’re in there amongst them when you get down and leave, if they come after dark, they’re going to smell you’ve been in there,” said John. “And if it’s  a 4 1/2 year old, he’s like GAME ON. Now, I’m far enough from the trails and stuff that I should be fine.”

Access to this stand will be from the north, where it’s only 70 yards from the club’s main road.

“Sometimes the best places get overlooked because they’re right on a road,” said John.

Seginak No. 3: Seginak is pretty fired up about this stand, because it sits right on a bottleneck. Looking at the map you’ll see a big gully just to the west of the stand that has the deer funneling through the area.

We put a lock-on stand here that is 400 yards from the white oaks at Seginak No. 2 and 200 yards from a few white oaks with spotty acorns. We’ll be hoping to catch deer coming and going from these feeding areas. Despite all the good things around this stand, we’ve got a few concerns about approaching the stand.

“This is one we set up in case the wind is out of the east — then one of us would have a good place to go,” said John. “This stand will be a little bit of a detriment if the wind is blowing out of the west. However, once you get in the stand you’ll be fine.”

John liked this spot so much that he picked this area hoping for either an east wind or no wind.

“If we get in there without a breeze blowing over the bedding area, we’ll be fine once we climb the tree,” said John. “We’ll actually be high enough that any wind is going to blow right over them.”

The bedding area to the east has such a drop in altitude that it’s going to allow us to hunt undetected. Even though the stand is 23 feet up, John said we’ll actually be 60 feet above incoming deer.

We’ll have to wait and see what kind of conditions we’ve got before deciding if we can hunt this stand. John is very careful about how he gets into a stand, so if there’s any noticeable breeze coming from the west, I’ll bet we end up hunting stands one and two.

When selecting all three spots John looked at pressure, bedding, food and wind. Then, in all three spots he made sure to place the stand where there was a drop in elevation where he expected to see deer approaching. So, if we get a bad wind flow, John feels we’ll be able to go undetected once we make it to any of the stands.

One Last Scouting Opportunity: We gave Seginak and Stanley one last crack at checking on their stand locations a week before they returned to hunt. Also, they were allowed to switch any stand location they wanted to. Stanley was planning to return on October 26 for one last look, but Seginak said he’s ready for the hunt.

“I feel we have some excellent spots,” said Seginak. “Plus, I’d rather not leave any more human scent in there until it’s time to hunt.”

In next month’s issue we’ll see if Stanley made any last-minute changes, we’ll take a look at these guys’ hunting technique and we’ll share hunt results.