Studying hunting pressure

[Hillbilly Hunter]

What i am going to say involves mature buck hunting and does not consider young bucks at all, and to a point not does. Very seldom do i find a mature buck that is consistently using a specific trail every day, or almost every day for any period of time. By sight observations and camera observations, they will frequent a certain trail or area maybe every 3 days or 7-10 days, whatever it may be. These deer, in my opinion have no way of knowing the hunting pressure in the past few days if they weren't there! If i do find a buck that is consistent and moving in daylight, i can usually kill him before I pressure him out. Point is, hunting pressure is not as much of a factor if the target animal only comes through once a week.

 

[mike243]

Too many random events to come close with any accuracy imo, I bet a lot of folks never see 1/2 of the deer they run off as they enter the hunting area, also the older the buck the less chance you will see him at the same spot after he sees you. Younger deer will keep following the same route far longer than mature bucks will. Having to move 50-100y in order to find a new route being used has been my findings, I can tell when deer enter a area if they have been bumped there before, a lot slower approach and a lot of looking around, terrain will dictate how far they will reroute to stay out of sight. Thats why folks tell a story about hunting a new spot and there he was lol. a hot doe will change all that, but she hunts him also, hunt the doe's and the bucks wont be far off at some point. seeing doe in the daytime has always increased my odds of seeing a buck in ETn. I suspect it might be the same anywhere.

 

[Rackseeker]

Honestly not sure what this math accomplishes, there are so many variables that contribute to actual pressure. Did you bump deer on the way in or out, did you get busted in the stand, did you kill something, so many factors that play into actual pressure. If you hunt a particular stand 20 times and never bump deer and never get busted, you may apply less pressure on the deer than if you get busted on a couple hunts. Makes for flawed data just punching in those numbers.. The way in which you access stands has alot to do with pressure on the deer. 3 hunters could hunt the same tract of land and put different levels of pressure on said property.

I agree to many factors come into play. I think it depends on how the property is laid out to how much pressure is put on deer. Also the hunters have alot to do with the pressure applied to the deer. I know a couple fellas that could run every deer off of a 500 acre farm in two days.

 

[mike243]

I know I'm not as sure footed as I use to be and creep crawl stalk to where I want to setup has gotten worse with age, patience aint what it use to be. Now it's stumble fall jog

 

[deerhunter10]

I bet a lot of folks never see 1/2 of the deer they run off as they enter the hunting area

I personally think that way more people blow there chances at mature deer with this. Poor access and wrong winds while accessing. End the hunt before it even gets starts. Even more important is getting out of an area which is even harder.

 

[DoubleRidge]

For example, let's say a group of hunters (or a single hunter) hunt a 250-acre property 50 times in a year. The calculation is ((total hunts / acres) * 100), which comes out to ((50/250)*100) = 20 hunts per 100 acres.

For those who collect hunt data, I would be curious what your numbers would be for your hunting property, and whether you feel that number is excessive pressure or not.

7.11 hunts per 100 acres and I feel that is low pressure. Note: over half of those hunts were all day sits. Not walking in and out mid-day. 50% from ladder stand. 50% from shooting houses. Lastly, all of these hunts were focused around the rut in November.

 

[DoubleRidge]

7.11 hunts per 100 acres and I feel that is low pressure. Note: over half of those hunts were all day sits. Not walking in and out mid-day. 50% from ladder stand. 50% from shooting houses. Lastly, all of these hunts were focused around the rut in November.

In contrast to above...on another smaller property the calculation comes out to 45.20 hunts per 100 acres. Note: all hunts were morning or afternoon hunts. No all day sits. All were from ladder stands. I would consider 45.20 hunts per 100 acres more excessive pressure.

 

[TheLBLman]

Note: over half of those hunts were all day sits. Not walking in and out mid-day.

In many situations, staying at the same location ALL DAY, is a good way to reduce hunting pressure, since much of the pressure is not the actual hunting, but the goings & comings to a hunting "spot".
This is part of why I often stay put on a stand all day.

Another advantage of an all-day location is you're getting more time of actual hunting from the day.

And contrary to popular myth, mature bucks will in fact often make a move during mid-day.
If you're "moving" (re-locating) when they're moving, you may just be putting more pressure on them, when you could have just sat tight and killed them.

 

[backyardtndeer]

The majority of our hunting is done on a relatively small number of acres of our farm behind and to the side of the house. I didn't track the number of sits i put in this season, but it was a lot. I killed my buck, a 5.5 year old on November 1, probably had 5 or 6 solo sits prior. Wife killed her buck from that stand a couple weeks later, hers was possibly a 4.5 year old. I hunted that same stand several times the remainder of the season and saw several bucks, at least two were likely 4.5 year olds or older.

I will also say that at least a dozen times sitting in two different stands on my property I watched the man on the property behind us come in with his side by side. I continued seeing deer.

Even more important is getting out of an area which is even harder.

Yep. We have had much more success after were started doing pickups. If we have deer in eyeshot of a stand after it's time to get down my wife and I will text each other to ride the 4 wheeler back and push the deer off so they don't see the other climb down from the stand. There had also been a few times I have walked my wife to a stand and I continued walking on past it just a short way into the field while she climbed up, then I walked past and on back to the house. And that has worked for her to kill a couple decent deer.

Also going to add, get busted in the stand by an old wary doe and see what happens. I have on multiple occasions watched a doe watch a stand while I was sitting in a different stand. Wind wasn't an issue either.

 

[themanpcl]

What i am going to say involves mature buck hunting and does not consider young bucks at all, and to a point not does. Very seldom do i find a mature buck that is consistently using a specific trail every day, or almost every day for any period of time. By sight observations and camera observations, they will frequent a certain trail or area maybe every 3 days or 7-10 days, whatever it may be. These deer, in my opinion have no way of knowing the hunting pressure in the past few days if they weren't there! If i do find a buck that is consistent and moving in daylight, i can usually kill him before I pressure him out. Point is, hunting pressure is not as much of a factor if the target animal only comes through once a week.

You read my mind. after the season was over i went back to find all the sightings of the mature buck i killed day after Thanksgiving. From velvet to the day i killed him, he was on all parts of the 90 acres but not on same cam 2 days in a row. i attribute the behavior before rut to wind direction but during rut, the does werent in the same places so neither was he. I had hunted the same stand about 5 times between archery and gun before I killed him and never saw him once until that day. I noticed that with the younger bucks, in the days after me being in the area, no real change in behavior but I didnt hunt or walk through bedding areas.

 

[RedDawg]

For this, a "hunt" is any time a hunter climbs into a stand or blind.

I want to do your calculation for where I hunt but I have one question. If you get up in a stand in the morning, get down for a 2 hour lunch away from the stand and then get back in the same stand in the afternoon, is that 2 hunts?

 

[TheLBLman]

I want to do your calculation for where I hunt but I have one question. If you get up in a stand in the morning, get down for a 2 hour lunch away from the stand and then get back in the same stand in the afternoon, is that 2 hunts?

Yes! That's 2 "hunts".
No, this is not a perfect method, but good luck finding a simple one as good as this.

In the scenario described, it might more accurately be 1 1/2 hunts, since it's the same area being disturbed, early morning, mid-day, and late evening. I would note you're making two additional exit-entry disturbances mid-day, as opposed to just one, if you left, and didn't come back.

By contrast, if you were to stay on that same stand all day, you would have 1 entry (early am) and 1 exit (late pm), meaning zero disturbance during daylight. This would get counted as 1 hunt for that day.

 

[BSK]

I want to do your calculation for where I hunt but I have one question. If you get up in a stand in the morning, get down for a 2 hour lunch away from the stand and then get back in the same stand in the afternoon, is that 2 hunts?

Yes.

 

[BSK]

7.11 hunts per 100 acres and I feel that is low pressure. Note: over half of those hunts were all day sits. Not walking in and out mid-day. 50% from ladder stand. 50% from shooting houses. Lastly, all of these hunts were focused around the rut in November.

In contrast to above...on another smaller property the calculation comes out to 45.20 hunts per 100 acres. Note: all hunts were morning or afternoon hunts. No all day sits. All were from ladder stands. I would consider 45.20 hunts per 100 acres more excessive pressure.

From what I am seeing using this metric between properties, the results are similar for similar hunting styles. In essence, for clubs where most hunting is done from pre-set stands, these "pressure" metrics seem to be quite comparable.

However, change the style of hunting, and the metrics are not comparable.

 

[BSK]

And BTW DoubleRidge, I'm seeing clubs with "Hunt Areas" (usually 75 to 150 acres) that are seeing everything from 0 hunts per 100 acres in a given year to 75+ hunts per 100 acres within the same property during the same year. If I were a member of one of those clubs, I know which Hunt Areas I would be hunting next year!

 

[JCDEERMAN]

And BTW DoubleRidge, I'm seeing clubs with "Hunt Areas" (usually 75 to 150 acres) that are seeing everything from 0 hunts per 100 acres in a given year to 75+ hunts per 100 acres within the same property during the same year. If I were a member of one of those clubs, I know which Hunt Areas I would be hunting next year!

We've got a few of those areas. 4 to be exact, each about 50-60 acres a piece. I walked them over the weekend and moved 3 stands into 2 of these areas. You can tell the deer had been in there heavily. Not by rubs and scrapes, just simply by the number of beds, trails and poop.

 

[BSK]

We've got a few of those areas. 4 to be exact, each about 50-60 acres a piece. I walked them over the weekend and moved 3 stands into 2 of these areas. You can tell the deer had been in there heavily. Not by rubs and scrapes, just simply by the number of beds, trails and poop.

On the clubs in question, the very low hunting pressure areas are due to lack of habitat diversity, lack of a habitat "concentrator" (such as a food plot or attractive opening), and lack of easy access.

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

On the clubs in question, the very low hunting pressure areas are due to lack of habitat diversity, lack of a habitat "concentrator" (such as a food plot or attractive opening), and lack of easy access.

That is amazing. It seems they aren't hunting the best spots to start with! Very interesting. Do you think they just don't know how to hunt?

 

[JCDEERMAN]

On the clubs in question, the very low hunting pressure areas are due to lack of habitat diversity, lack of a habitat "concentrator" (such as a food plot or attractive opening), and lack of easy access.

Exactly, and admittedly I haven't hunted these areas due to it being wide open and mainly due to no easy access without blowing everything out of there. Our new road system will allow for that now.

 

[BSK]

That is amazing. It seems they aren't hunting the best spots to start with! Very interesting. Do you think they just don't know how to hunt?

I think some of the problem is simply hunting where hunting is easiest, both physically and mentally (no need to figure deer out when you're hunting over a food plot).