HOW TO HUNT BIG WOODS WHITETAILS IN THE EARLY SEASON | Mountain Buck Scouting Series

beaumartonic here with the East Meets West Hunt podcast and I've already done a bunch of

mountain

exploring

series

talking about how to explore online and be able to find different areas. I want to break it down into the different

season

s and how you are doing. I'm going to

hunt

them and the first one I want to start with is the beginning of the

season

, so when you

hunt

at the beginning of the season it can be extremely difficult in the big

woods

and the

mountain

railway, whether you're in Pennsylvania, New York , West. virginia virginia southern ohio north carolina wherever it is in the entire Appalachian mountain range, that said, if you know where the main food source is and have a decent idea of ​​where a particular dollar might be betting, then it could be a really great time of year to be able to take advantage of when they are more predictable the first thing I look at when it comes to trying to identify deer for the start of the season and well any season really comes down to electronic

scouting

so again back to that a First videos I had to understand the features, some of the things I look for to give you the basics.

I'm going to delve specifically into the beginning of the season for this video, as discussed in previous episodes. Dear, I love working on the edges of both fields. Vegetation features that can be identified in the Onyx Hunt app and web map. These borders will be valid during all seasons, but how you use them may be completely different depending on what time of year it is at the beginning. Seasonal vegetation can be thick throughout the season and the defined edges are not as defined as they are later in the year when the leaves fall from the trees, making it quite difficult to thin the bed when It's about the vegetation itself, because it's really thicker everywhere.

They can change their bedding quite a bit, but that being said, there's no need to overcomplicate things. Deer in the mountains, big forests can often sleep in places that seem somewhat unpredictable and, unreasonably, very random, although I'm sure. That there's a reason I just haven't figured it out. I don't like to focus on that chance. I want to focus on the things that give me the best odds. Whatever I say here is definitely not something you can understand. It would be like this: This is what I follow. It will always work. Maybe not. It may only work 20 times.

It may be less, but I want to find the things that have the best odds. That being said, there are a couple of areas I stand by. In mind for

early

season betting, older logging cuts over 10 years old are really good because they have a visual advantage: you can see under some of the trees, but they are still thick enough to be seen. feel safe with some of the old gas. wells or openings and logging platforms within those older cuts where they like to be on the edge of those where they can see the road, but they also have that thick cover to be able to retreat to, in addition to those logging cuts, the points of crests, I mean, this applies to almost any time of year, but males like to have the visual advantage that they can lie down on.

You know, a semi-flat spot can be as big as your body, but where they have a steep drop. below that you can see, maybe more than 100 to 150 yards below them, here's a great example of a folding bed at this point, so what we have here is a bed right here and it's like off the edge of this . point and if you look down, look at that view, he has a good view down, you can see a path going down the edge where he can quickly get out if someone comes behind him walking down this gas well road, it's a very good place and on the way to this bed I found a group of three big scratches and then also a big lone one, a big broken licking branch, it's all there, so when you leave this bed and head up there are some oaks that they're back this way, you can see his scrape, he hits his scrape line and that's where he would plan to attack at this spot.

The group of three scrapes is probably about 120 yards away or so and I think that's far enough that you won't spook them if you come hunting at night or if it were a morning hunt. I would hunt this closest spot that is only 50 yards away and is easily identified on a map and usually when you mark them on the map you usually won't find a specific bed. I rarely mark a spot and there's a bed right there, but a lot of times on that survey line you can find them and I'm not trying. to find specific beds as much as I try to find the line of bedding surveying, the line they like to bet on where they can see, so when I dive into the map to locate some of these areas, here's a place I chose a map that caught my attention, so first of all I'm going to look at the logging cuts, so this one here is a particular cut that looks newer depending on the age of this photo, so this is not it, but if you pretend this is an older cut, when you zoom in, you can see some openings, so here's an opening in the center, here's another opening, and here's another one on the edges.

One of those can be great for bedding for males because they can look out and see with the wind coming down their back and a thick cover on their back, on top of that, the edges of these cuts and in this place in particular. It's really cool because it's also right on the edge of the land, so you could bet. I'll give an example here. They could bet. Say this place right here and they can. being there and being able to have a visual advantage in front of them and also having that safety cover on your back is more difficult now.

I don't like to focus on specific bets in these types of areas because there are a lot of things, that's all. around here, so I would confirm it with the trail cameras, which I'll talk about a little later, but where there are easiest places to be able to identify the bedding is where the terrain is on the tips of the ridges, so They love bedding. The points of these ridges because they can have the prevailing wind, the predominant wind that comes from behind and above, and they use the daytime thermals to be able to cover each of their areas, so they are almost waterproof in that area so I'm looking towards the tip of the ridge so this is a south facing slope a lot of times you'll have some of those if you're hunting a cold front something like that you'll have further north. west winds, especially here in Pennsylvania, so I like to focus on those areas when I go out.

What I'm looking for is a steep drop, where the survey line starts to close in and, for example, here on this line you see it. like a good spot, you've got a drop off here, a little flatter at the top, but it's still over the edge from the top of the hill, so I'd mark it as a possible place to put money on and then as I get out further ahead . At this point it becomes even more defined, so you'll come out, so it could be more of an easterly wind that would settle in there, but when you come out here, look at this place like this right here, this hard line at 1700 feet .

You can see a little flatter and a steeper drop, so again I would mark this so I can go and check if the ridge has any oaks that are producing or black cherries from the cherry trees that are dropping in late September and

early

October. These places can be fire, but you also know, as I was talking about south-facing slopes, also pay attention to north-facing slopes, especially if you have a warmer climate, let's say it's late September, early October and the weather rises to 70 degrees, you're hunting. At night they may like those cooler faces so north facing slopes might be even better during that time of year, as I mentioned food sources are key during this season, they may be harder to detect on a map than the other features just because it depends. on the map and when I was taking like in the photo if it was taking a little longer in the summer to be able to identify even in the winter you can see a little differences in vegetation but not necessarily what type of trees What I have discovered is that, Typically hard

woods

include oak, cherry, maple, birch and others, they are light green in spring images, darker green during the summer months, found primarily in onyx and oranges in autumn oaks.

They usually change color in the fall later than maples, birches, and some others, so if you're lucky, you can open Google Earth Pro on your desktop version. It's just a free version to add there. I don't like using Google Earth Pro on its own, but I do like using it as an addition to Onyx and being able to look at it so I can show you a little bit about what I'm about. I'm looking here, so in Google Earth Pro, if you go into settings and turn on the historical imagery slider, there are a lot of places online where you can find details on how to use this, but right here, the slider I'm always trying . look for a date that's around that October point of view because that's when the tracks are changing in a lot of places, you're out of luck and you can't find that, but let's say if you go to look at the most recent images, look at how this changes well , so this one went back in 2012 because the most recent one was in 2015.

Look, everything is green, it's hard to be able to tell the differences, even at the bottom, where there are fir trees, you can't tell it that easily, but when you jump to October 2015, this has a perfect example of this, you can see at this bottom, you have these fir trees running down the bottom, so you see that different terrain feature from here to the top, you have the green colored trees bright. where everything else is changing color, there's a good chance they're oak trees, so it just looks like a patch of them at this point and some at this point, so those are things that I'm going to take and I'm going to mark a waypoint or a placemark as they call it and name it oaks, save it and then once you get into the sidebar here, right click on save that place and make sure you save it as a kml file, that's what Onyx likes to find the place where you're going to keep it just around here.

I'll save it to my desktop, save it and then you go back to Onyx and my content and you can import select from computers, it says drag your kml. or file there so I'll go to my desktop and I'll be able to go down and find where I saved the kml oaks and open it up okay that's there save it to my content and now it's been added to a waypoint there so you can go in and change it, you can do it, um, you can add a different icon to it, you can add notes to it, you can do all the features that Onax has to be able to bring that into your phone while you're in the field.

Apple trees are another source of food. I love focusing on apple trees. They are almost impossible to identify on a map, so eastern apple tree

scouting

is difficult, but there is one thing you can look for when it comes to electronic apple tree scouting. Well, in this particular option, I'm looking here, there's a place called Apple Tree Hollow, I bet there are some apple trees there, but usually what I'm looking for is a bunch of different qrik bottoms or drains that meet each other. and like a place in the bottom that's open in these bottoms a lot of times you can find apple trees and that's not all the time and this is, I'm talking a lot about Pennsylvania, but I also found this in Ohio. so to be able to go in and go back in, I just mark it like this and what I'll do is I'll mark the food source icon and keep it red if I went to season and I actually found that and there's actually apples there or it's actually it's an apple tree, I'll mark it in yellow, so that tells me that I confirmed that place, that it's a place that actually had apple trees, I might have to move it over the icon a little bit, but it really helps me be able to identify it. and then the last thing is the youngest logging cuttings and one to four years old, they have great brows and can be a good hot spot at the beginning of the season, the new growth coming out of the ground is still very green and creates a great source of food for browsing. look it looks a little more open there, normally it will be a darker green if it's an older cut but this is an older season or one that has been cut in the last few years and if you are in an area that is federal lands public property, you can turn on the logging cuts feature and be able to see it, but in this particular area it is not state-owned land and I can tell from the images there.

I love e-scouting but honestly, to be successful early in the season you need to have boots on the ground in the spring. I would check out these areas I marked on the web map to confirm my opinions on possible betting areas and also food sources so you canI usually see acorn caps on the ground, if you find a place that produces acorns you know it by the bark of an oak tree, you can tell it by the different leaves, for example if you have a pointy oak leaf it's usually a red oak or one that has more. rounded lobes, you are looking at a white oak and those white oaks are money at the beginning of the season, if you can find those newer logging cuts in the spring, it will also give you an idea of ​​how quickly that new growth is emerging and if that be good at navigating so even though it's spring you can still notice it and a lot of the late season and early season stuff overlaps so if you see if you're there and there's still snow on the ground you see lots of tracks and digging other things there, it can also be a very good early season spot, so the last thing I pay attention to is the big community scrapes.

I say that in each of these videos, but any large community is torn between possible bedding and the area's main food source, those are the ones I'm going to focus on the most and particularly closer to betting more than the food source. food and like I said, bedding is a giant variable and the same goes for food sources, they can eat almost anywhere, but we're trying to look for our best odds to be able to put ourselves in that situation. I went to the valley that I had found on the map to be able to look for apple trees, so a lot of different valleys come to this place, it's a very open bottom, we have a beaver pond here and right behind me there is a group of apple trees and The good thing is I will mark this place on the map which was actually only 50 yards from where I found it on the map when I was exploring from home, so mark this place and then the important thing is to return right before the season starts.

At the end of summer you can tell when the apples are on the trees so you can see if this spot is worth hunting to install them on the apple trees. If I'm in a remote location like this, there's a good chance that

buck

s might hit them during daylight hours, that's where I'm going to start putting a camera in the apple trees and being able to literally set it up on top of them, but that it's just a nocturnal place which is not good for the morning because the deer can be here feeding and you don't want to chase them out so come at night and position yourself right above the food source using the stream to walk and not bump into no deer will make it much less intrusive. so after I found I found the apple tree I found a stream crossing I found trails that lead to that apple tree now I have to figure out how I'm going to set it up that's the important part you can find the good sign but you have to figure out how to hunt it so the stream runs towards me, the apple trees are right here in front of me and so on, no matter what time of year, no matter if it's hot or something.

The hemlocks and crick are going to drag these thermals downstream, so I want to be below the crick crossing behind me. I have a beaver pond at the head of a beaver pond, so deer aren't going to cross there. This is the The main area to cross this hemlock tree behind me can really keep you hidden so that when they pass you don't stick out like a sore thumb if you're in a single tree and you don't really even need to go. so high in this specific setup because of how the branches are, it would be only eight feet at most to be able to shoot under them, but still above the brush when they come out, so the trail here crossing the creek is only about 15 yards and the farthest apple tree is 30 yards away, that's a pretty good space for archery season.

Ideally I would like to hunt this with a northerly wind because it would come down this valley anyway and it would also mean cooler weather would come in. We would like to go out to feed earlier, but honestly, even if you had a southerly wind or anything less than ideal, these thermals will take care of you and be able to keep your scent hidden, so honestly, if it's right. time of year and I know these apple trees are taking a beating. I'm going to hunt them early in the season behind me. I have a large beaver pond.

It is the head of the beaver pond, that's how I showed it in the last clip. where the apple tree is, it's only 60 yards from here and it's extremely wide, no deer are going to cross that deep water beaver pond when they have the easy crossing point that is right above it at the top end. and the bottom end of beaver ponds are always good areas to cross and when you have multiple points of the hills coming down to the bottom and it creates the perfect storm for good areas to cross, you have a food source, you have scrapes, rubs on the signs and Beaver Pond Funnels is a great spot to be able to focus on later in the year, including during the pre-rut and rut, and can also be a good spot during the early season if you focus on the apple tree.

I specifically found a community problem here, as I talked to e-scouting, they like to be on the flat spots on the banks, so behind me you have a kind of steep hill that goes up to an oak tree at the top and then wobbles to another steep edge, there appears to be some bedding around this point a little further away, i.e. only about 70 or 80 yards and close to that bedding, in some of these beach scrub and mixed in with some oaks , you have this great community scrape. there are several branches to lick, I think there are six of them that I have counted here from years and years of use, an old sign rubs the tree, this place has been used for years and how I would hunt this specific place is at the beginning of the season if There are acorns at the top and assuming the

buck

s would be betting at this point I would hunt them in the morning so when the bucks leave the food will go back to bed, hopefully I can catch them at first light before they me I'm getting ready to go to bed for the day when I'm hunting a place like this early in the season.

I'll really only be hunting until 10am. m., I mean, I think most of your action will be first thing in the morning. the morning for me personally, so I'll try to spend a few hours and then go ahead and explore, but one of the things to pay attention to is when you don't have, you know, the densities of giant deer and and the bedding of males can be sporadic. I would know that the bucks bed here at some point, so it could take several days in a row to do this to be able to determine if this is a spot that is a fluke or if it is a spot that they are actually working during the season looking back on the other areas I've covered here, so you've got the apple tree, you've got a community scrape, you've got a sign, you've got a stream crossing and you've got the beaver pond back here.

For me, with multiple valleys found, this spot can be utilized by moving up and down just a couple hundred yards from the beginning of the season, focusing on the food source and pre-furrow zone, focusing in the community scrape and during the groove, where it really ties all of these together. areas together, so you basically have from the end of September to the end of November. You can hunt this specific area a little differently when I'm scouting. I'm looking for areas that have everything deer need in one place. so they don't need to migrate a couple of ridges if there's no oaks because they have brows and apples and they have other massive crops or if there's no cover, they know they have to move to different areas that this place has. all of that has the coverage it has the food it has the travel it has water it's all in this one place those are the types of areas I'm trying to focus my time on as much as possible to make the most of my season you