Pressure???

I've read alot of posts about finding spots with no pressure ...just curious on what type of properties are y'all finding with no pressure ? I've hunted alot of different areas and it always seems to be some type of pressure especially during gun season ..this year in particular I seen more pressure the last week of hunting than I've ever seen , maybe the lack of seeing deer all year ??idk but was just curious on thoughts of what no pressure means during season ...

When I say no pressure I’m referring to stand placement located where you can get in get out without disturbanc and not shooting. Comes into play hunting only specific deer and only shooting does last week of season.

caswelltrophyhunter said:

I've read alot of posts about finding spots with no pressure ...just curious on what type of properties are y'all finding with no pressure ? I've hunted alot of different areas and it always seems to be some type of pressure especially during gun season ..this year in particular I seen more pressure the last week of hunting than I've ever seen , maybe the lack of seeing deer all year ??idk but was just curious on thoughts of what no pressure means during season ...

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I hunted a 50ac farm and kept getting pics of an ice buck right after dark and right before legal light. Couldn’t get on him for love nor money, but I knew he was close. One day at the end of season I saw a rub near where I parked my truck. Followed a run line into a tiny pine thicket and ended up jumping him. 50yds from where I park, 20yds from the road going in and out. He watched me come in and leave.

His little thicker couldn’t have been 30yds by 30yds.

I’d never even thought to hunt that area, let alone switch my approach to be able to set up on it. He walked the inside of a hedge row further into the property, thus why I never saw tracks coming out by the truck.

Point being, he laid in the one spot I never went in to. Ended up losing that property that year.

With a few exceptions in some of the most remote rural areas, there aren't many places in North Carolina where the deer aren't influenced by hunting pressure, or some sort of human "pressure" in-general. That's my opinion anyway, based on my own personal experience. I hunt mostly in central NC, and some in south-central Virginia, and extreme hunting pressure is simply a given. The fact is, there are a bunch of us out there sharing a very limited amount of available hunting land. The notion of having good ground to one's own self is a fantasy land in these parts!

Justin said:

I hunted a 50ac farm and kept getting pics of an ice buck right after dark and right before legal light. Couldn’t get on him for love nor money, but I knew he was close. One day at the end of season I saw a rub near where I parked my truck. Followed a run line into a tiny pine thicket and ended up jumping him. 50yds from where I park, 20yds from the road going in and out. He watched me come in and leave.

His little thicker couldn’t have been 30yds by 30yds.

I’d never even thought to hunt that area, let alone switch my approach to be able to set up on it. He walked the inside of a hedge row further into the property, thus why I never saw tracks coming out by the truck.

Point being, he laid in the one spot I never went in to. Ended up losing that property that year.

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Hard to believe they can reduce their range so much in the late season. But your situation is uncanny to what I dealt with. Imo the bucks appeared to bed in a high traffic area that was not hunted so they could keep tabs on the hunters. I hate to give them to much credit but they adapt well. The two times I saw mature bucks I entered my stand away from our normal parking spot.

Message Patrick Williams on FB... I'd say he's got it figured out. Anybody that kills a 196 and a 181 in 3 years is doing something right.

HorNhnTr said:

Message Patrick Williams on FB... I'd say he's got it figured out. Anybody that kills a 196 and a 181 in 3 years is doing something right.

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Are you saying they were pressured because they had big antlers? Cause a lot of people have killed old deer.

No pressure, I will never be able to say that.

bowhuntingrook said:

Are you saying they were pressured because they had big antlers? Cause a lot of people have killed old deer.

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No I'm saying they were not pressured.

caswelltrophyhunter said:

I've read alot of posts about finding spots with no pressure ...just curious on what type of properties are y'all finding with no pressure ? I've hunted alot of different areas and it always seems to be some type of pressure especially during gun season ..this year in particular I seen more pressure the last week of hunting than I've ever seen , maybe the lack of seeing deer all year ??idk but was just curious on thoughts of what no pressure means during season ...

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since we cant control surrounding presure we have to look at what we can control.

darkthirty has part of it nailed down. you can create less pressure thru adjusting your hunting style. I'm sorry but driving up to cornpiles just isnt a low impact strategy. same thing for using the same stand over and over and over.

.25 contender has some great mobile strategies to prevent pressure. He climbs many sites seldom repeating. You can do the same with a ground set up.

many posters her have talked about not hunting an area until the timing or conditions are right. easy to say but hard to do. we all have limited time to chase them.

i dont see how anyone kills them by hunting field edges and then walking thru them after the hunt. my neighbors do this. I would say that is one strategy to avoid.

Justin's post is a reminder of just how far the deer may go to avoid us. The biggest one i saw this past season was in a very tight funnel that shaded him from view but so tight that you wouldnt probably hunt it on purpose.

Deer live in constant search of a pressureless area. they have us for a few months, but other predators 24/7 365.

We would do better if we could factor this in into our approach. regardless of what the folks around us are doing.

Great thread caswelltrophyhunter. sure got me to thinking.

There is an equestrian training farm that I hunt. Nobody else hunts this land. It is located right next to a state campground where hunting is not allowed. I waited until December 29 to hunt it for the first time. After sitting in my stand for 30 minutes, a group of 9 does came out of the campground land heading to the fields. Apparently, I'm hunting fantasy land.

Homebrewale said:

There is an equestrian training farm that I hunt. Nobody else hunts this land. It is located right next to a state campground where hunting is not allowed. I waited until December 29 to hunt it for the first time. After sitting in my stand for 30 minutes, a group of 9 does came out of the campground land heading to the fields. Apparently, I'm hunting fantasy land.

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why did you wait so long to hunt it?

We put little to no hunting pressure on land around the house this past season and were getting pics of bucks feeding in daylight, morning and evening
from October through December. We hunted a lot more last season and most of the pics of Bucks were at night.

oldest school said:

why did you wait so long to hunt it?

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Good question. This season I was regularly seeing deer at my primary location through the season until right after Thanksgiving. Then two homes started getting constructed which seemed to scare the deer away from the area. I'm kind of lazy sometimes so I preferred to hunt my primary location because I had ladder stands set up where at the horse farm I have to use my climber. I'm also limited to my crossbow at the farm. In the past, I only hunted the farm on Sunday evenings and this year I was limiting myself to only hunting one day per weekend so I chose my primary spot.

Another reason is that we moved our horse to another farm. I only wanted to ask permission of the male owner because I knew he wouldn't care if I hunted. If I requested the wife which is the one running the horse training complex, she may say no because we moved our horse. I didn't have his contact information. We hired him to trailer our horse to the NC State animal hospital when the horse had a serious eye infection. It was then that I attained permission to hunt.

Homebrewale said:

Good question. This season I was regularly seeing deer at my primary location through the season until right after Thanksgiving. Then two homes started getting constructed which seemed to scare the deer away from the area. I'm kind of lazy sometimes so I preferred to hunt my primary location because I had ladder stands set up where at the horse farm I have to use my climber. I'm also limited to my crossbow at the farm. In the past, I only hunted the farm on Sunday evenings and this year I was limiting myself to only hunting one day per weekend so I chose my primary spot.

Another reason is that we moved our horse to another farm. I only wanted to ask permission of the male owner because I knew he wouldn't care if I hunted. If I requested the wife which is the one running the horse training complex, she may say no because we moved our horse. I didn't have his contact information. We hired him to trailer our horse to the NC State animal hospital when the horse had a serious eye infection. It was then that I attained permission to hunt.

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Got it. I hope you get early access next year and use that xbow to great effect.

my best jordan spot was a similar set up.

The way our farm in WV is set up, with all the hills, ridges and hollers, it's very possible to pressure only a specific area and leave most of the property undisturbed. I can hunt late September-Dec 31 and still consistently see deer. This year, no one had hunted it until I got back home and hunted Thanksgiving morning. WV rifle season begins the Monday of thanksgiving week, and it seemed that many deer thought of our property as the safe haven away from pressure on neighboring properties because they were absolutely everywhere. Down here, hunting on public land, the only way to escape pressure once gun season begins is to get very far from roads where other hunters don't go, be mobile and constantly move, and target the thick stuff. I think the most I hunted any one particular area here this season was 3 times.

JJWise said:

Down here, hunting on public land, the only way to escape pressure once gun season begins is to get very far from roads where other hunters don't go, be mobile and constantly move, and target the thick stuff. I think the most I hunted any one particular area here this season was 3 times.

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It's not the only way to escape pressure. I hunt behind a residential neighborhood next to game lands. There are a number of 5-10 acre lots not yet developed. When rifle season starts, the deer migrate to inside the neighborhood. There are some evenings where I have not seen a deer on game land and then see 5-10 deer eating along the neighborhood roads while leaving for home.

Another thing to consider also is I think there’s a big difference between “hunting pressure” vs “killing pressure”. Deer aren’t stupid. They know where they stand the chance of being shot vs where they don’t.

I have deer at my house every day. I have no intentions of ever shooting them. It’s neat to watch them go about their life when they aren’t on edge. All summer and into fall in the evenings the deer would come into my food plots and eat for an hour or so then head across a 30 acre field into a wood lot about an hr before dark. Same in the mornings, about 830 or so, you’d see them coming out of the woodlot, across the field and come back into my food plots and and go bed down in my pasture, or cross the highway and bed down along the river. At thanksgiving, guys started hunting the woodlot (they’re idiots but that’s a story for a different day). I heard them shoot a couple times on evening after thanksgiving. From that point on, the deer were still like clockwork in my food plots but instead of going into woodlot, they stayed in my plots till dark. In the mornings, they’re in my plots at daylight. It’s not coincidence that they waited till dark to go into that woodlot.

I honestly think if more hunters would take a whole year and just watch deer and their behavior, their success would increase dramatically. But with that being said, you also have to somewhere they want to be as well.

darkthirty said:

Another thing to consider also is I think there’s a big difference between “hunting pressure” vs “killing pressure”. Deer aren’t stupid. They know where they stand the chance of being shot vs where they don’t.

I have deer at my house every day. I have no intentions of ever shooting them. It’s neat to watch them go about their life when they aren’t on edge. All summer and into fall in the evenings the deer would come into my food plots and eat for an hour or so then head across a 30 acre field into a wood lot about an hr before dark. Same in the mornings, about 830 or so, you’d see them coming out of the woodlot, across the field and come back into my food plots and and go bed down in my pasture, or cross the highway and bed down along the river. At thanksgiving, guys started hunting the woodlot (they’re idiots but that’s a story for a different day). I heard them shoot a couple times on evening after thanksgiving. From that point on, the deer were still like clockwork in my food plots but instead of going into woodlot, they stayed in my plots till dark. In the mornings, they’re in my plots at daylight. It’s not coincidence that they waited till dark to go into that woodlot.

I honestly think if more hunters would take a whole year and just watch deer and their behavior, their success would increase dramatically. But with that being said, you also have to somewhere they want to be as well.

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but wait- i thought you could kill one five minutes after dressing them out and leaving the gut pile?

shooting, atvs, nothing stops deer from coming by to get killed?

just playin darkthirty.

I agree with your approach and observations. less is more.

If your hunting Caswell county I've only seen the pressure get worse over the last 15 years. Our club has actually gotten better about not hunting much early but once ML comes in forget it, deer get hammered. Properties around us have always been hunted but it seems like now they're hunted by larger numbers of hunters as lease prices have gone up, one 90 acre tract has 5 on it, another 350ish has a pretty large group too. All seem to have a issues with their legs as they drive everywhere. Seems like every inch of ground has somebody on it.

30/06 said:

If your hunting Caswell county I've only seen the pressure get worse over the last 15 years. Our club has actually gotten better about not hunting much early but once ML comes in forget it, deer get hammered. Properties around us have always been hunted but it seems like now they're hunted by larger numbers of hunters as lease prices have gone up, one 90 acre tract has 5 on it, another 350ish has a pretty large group too. All seem to have a issues with their legs as they drive everywhere. Seems like every inch of ground has somebody on it.

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I think I hunted that 350ish property your talking about a few yrs back , even though we didn't pressure it much , we still had dogs running through on several occasions ... that's one type of pressure I'm talking about that a landowner or lessor can't control ..but none the less it's still a gun season related pressure

Over the years, I have learned even the high pressured areas have places the deer feel safer. It is usually places hunters overlook and the deer can usually watch or hear anything that gets close and slip out undetected, if danger approaches. Two places I know of are thickets in larger timber and right next to a road. Try to hunt right there in the evening they know you're there and either move after dark or go out the other side. I have also found deer must feel safer in thickets near houses, people usually don't hunt there. I have even had deer bed behind my kennels. Never seen the hounds bother the deer as much a hunter(human) pressure. We hunted one area all the time with the hounds and I was the only one that would stand hunt the area, until everybody took off work during the rut and the stand hunting pressure increased dramatically. Never had any trouble seeing deer until then, more hunters in the woods and the deer disappeared or seemed to. Most of the hunters went back to work and within a few days to a week the deer returned to the earlier patterns. Same happens when guys keep killing deer out of a stand, deer avoid the area in daylight. Let them stop hunting the area within a week without any one hunting there and I would see deer. That said if you cast hounds in the same specific spots all the time the deer will change where they bed, same as if you always jump them walking in to a stand. I have hunted several places over the years if you drove any vehicle in or near you would not see a deer, walk in 1/4 mile or more would see deer nearly every time. I have noticed deer seem to be really cautious around my baited sight, even when I haven't shot any there in a couple years. I backed off a couple hundred yards and watched deer in daylight 3/4 of the times. Deer did not seem to have a care in the world. These small pockets can be hunted, but a direct route usually is not the best choice. Knowing how the deer use the area is a must.

Reminds me of what happened to me a while back. I got permission on a family friends property, he said go talk to his relative, he will show you the properties. Well he took me to the areas that he didn't hunt, a 5 acre piece and a 60 acre piece. Both open hardwoods except the 5 acre piece was a triangle bordered by a road, a river and neighbors pasture. He didn't want to hunt these areas cause he rifle hunted and they are wooded. Well that 5 acres piece had a big mature buck bedding in a thicket 1 acre in size. Tons of scrapes and big rubs on big cedars. Saw him on camera then he snuck behind one evening in October and busted me. They will figure out somewhere to hide with pressure.

Edit: I was 75 yards into the woods from the road and my truck and he walked in between there when he busted me.

Bout the second week of December I transition to areas I saw deer in during summer where no one has a stand. Had lots of luck with bedding areas close to roads, hunters often over look them trying to get "deeper" into the woods.


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