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Big woods whitetails

Nick87

Nick87

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Northern Illinois
After reading @wllm1313's post on moving back east and the mention of big woods whitetails it got me thinking. Anyone have any stories or pics they want to post up of this style hunt? When I was kid I used to read about the Benoit family tracking big woods whitetails in the snow and was always fascinated by it. Someday I'll give it a go once I get a few other hunts checked off the list. Post up some pics or stories if you got em!
 
I love hunting big woods whitetails. I’m bad at it so I don’t have much advice to offer. Most of my success has been hunting ridges. In my experience ridges are about the only place big woods bucks will move during the day as they are very nocturnal. Most ridges offer some decent shooting lanes and rutting bucks seem to like ridges. Here are some crappy pictures of some pretty heavy deer. The archery buck was only 2.5 years old but I was pretty pumped to get an early season big woods buck with my bow. I was sitting behind a tree.
 

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I actually do have one important piece of advice. You Only have a couple of seconds to take your shot. Big woods bucks do not show themselves. You simply don’t have time to guess what a deer might score. If the buck looks big take your shot. Unfortunately I’ve experienced a lot of ground shrinkage over the years.
 
nick87 said:
After reading @wllm1313's post on moving back east and the mention of big woods whitetails it got me thinking. Anyone have any stories or pics they want to post up of this style hunt? When I was kid I used to read about the Benoit family tracking big woods whitetails in the snow and was always fascinated by it. Someday I'll give it a go once I get a few other hunts checked off the list. Post up some pics or stories if you got em!
Click to expand...
Love the idea of this thread! Thanks for starting it.
 
Here's one I posted last year. This is how I hunt at home. If there's any snow to track on, that's how I'm hunting, here in the Adirondacks.

An Adirondack Deer Hunting Story

I thought some of you might enjoy a hunting story from the public lands of the east coast. It's a tad long, so fair warning. My home hunting grounds are the high peaks of the Adirondack mountains. It's heavily forested, mountainous country and deer densities are low. It's tough hunting and...
www.hunttalk.com www.hunttalk.com
 
Here's another from a few years back. This one I took on bare ground. We'd just lost all of our snow in a warm snap, so I decided to hunt a mountain that I like, nearby. It was a pretty uneventful walk until I got just a couple hundred yards below the summit. All of a sudden, a couple of deer blew up from their beds about 30 yards in front of me. I could see antlers on one, but I wasn't able to get my rifle up in time and it ran off to my left. I couldn't tell what kind of antlers it had, just saw a flash of bone. I continued on up to the summit, a little dejected and was just looking around a bit, it's an open, forested top, with alot of bare rock and reindeer moss, deer sometime bed up there, but not that day. I was standing there, when I thought I heard a little crunch in the woods below me. I walked carefully over to the top of a rock ledge and looked down into the woods....nothing. I stood there for a minute until I figured I must have imagined it, when all of a sudden, this buck just walked into view about 15 yards in front of me and below. It was a fairly easy shot! He was a trick to drag out. I was only about 1.2 miles from my car, but I had 1400 vertical feet to descend. The first half of the drag, the deer was below me and i was basically controlling his slow fall down the mountain. He ended up being 5.5 years old. It's a crappy cell phone photo and I try not post my picture on here, so sorry about the photo quality!IMG_0843.jpg
 
Here's a story I wrote up a few years ago, about a remarkable day of deer tracking: I had a stretch of time available to hunt, from about 9:00am to 1:30, but had to be back for a work phone call at 2:00. I decided to try a new spot that I’ve been meaning to check out for a while. There was about 4 inches of snow on the ground when I arrived and I didn’t have to go very far into the woods to start finding tracks; first a doe, then a bear, then bingo; a nice buck. He was coming out of a chunk of private land, down low and heading up into a large state-owned mountain range. The track was made this morning, so I figured he’d been out chasing does all night and was heading up to bed. Perfect!

I followed his tracks up hill for about ½ a mile, when he was joined by another, even bigger buck. The two headed more or less straight up the hill, their tracks never more than 30 yards apart. After another ½ mile or so, they took a 90 degree turn, crossed a brook and started heading straight up a steep ridge. They split apart in a fir thicket that was crisscrossed with other deer tracks and I followed one of them as he kept working up the steep hillside. Soon after, I noticed another buck track, that was older (made during the night, I believe), heading down, with drops of blood in the snow nearby. The cause became apparent when I climbed another 50 feet or so up the hill and found a whole section of hillside absolutely torn up from two bucks fighting. Tracks and thrown dirt were all over the place. Many small trees were broken in half, their upper ends laying on the ground. Some were uprooted. Blood was spattered on the snow and on some of the trees (including some really nasty looking globs!). It was clear that this was not some half-hearted sparring session. They were trying to kill each other (or at least one of them was!)

I continued following my buck up the hill and he began to angle off as he climbed the very steep, rocky hillside. He’d parallel the ridge top for a bit, then climb straight up, then repeat. His tracks were looking very, very fresh. I was just below the top of the ridge and I knew that he was bedded nearby. His tracks were currently paralleling the top, along a fairly open lane, below some ledges. It was very still and I figured he would be on the top of the ridge. Since they almost always watch their backtrack, I figured now was the time to get up on the ridge and work my way down, looking carefully for him and hopefully surprising him from an unforeseen direction. I climbed 20 or 30 feet up to the top and started walking slowly down the top of the ledges, looking all over for the deer. I went maybe 20 yards when I noticed movement below and ahead of me, down at the bottom of the ledges. It took me a minute to realize that I was seeing the head of a mature buck, moving slowly, screened by brush. He was about 30 yards away and didn’t seem agitated, but all I could see was his head and his upper neck and there were too many little branches to thread a bullet through. He had thick, brown antlers with tall tines and a round shape, almost like a crown. If he moved the direction he was facing, he’d come into an opening, if he turned, he’d disappear. I tried moving a bit to see if I could find a window in the brush, but no luck. After 30 seconds or so, he turned and disappeared. I quickly snuck down the ledge further to a spot just above where he’d been, but when I peeked over, he was gone. I waited a few minutes, but all I heard was the sound of something snapping down in the woods below. I retraced my steps, back to the point where I’d made the decision to top out on the ridge. Instead, I now followed his tracks from the point I’d left them and discovered his bed, not 20 yards from where I’d stopped following him. If I’d kept going maybe ten more feet, I’d have jumped him in an open lane, at very close range (this is where some choice language may or may not have been uttered). I followed him to where I’d seen him (he must have heard something as I climbed the ridge and wandered off a bit). His tracks led down hill. I followed them maybe 30 yards down and came to the just abandoned bed of ANOTHER huge buck. They’d been bedded down a snowball’s throw from each other the whole time. I could smell the scent of rutting buck, strongly, as I followed them down another 40 or 50 yards and came to…. ANOTHER buck bed, this one with bloody stains all around it. I’d found where the fight’s loser was bedding and he’d been scared off his bed by the others. Three bucks, all bedded within a very small area, during the rut, at least two of them big, mature bucks!

The injured deer headed back uphill, but the other two were headed straight down towards the brook. As it was about 12:30 now, I chose to follow the original buck. He kept descending, sometimes walking, sometimes running until he split from the other buck and headed downstream, along the brook. This was the direction I had to go anyway, towards my car, so I followed. If I’d had more time, I would have sat down for a while and given him a chance to relax, but I didn’t have the time, so I kept on him, hoping for a long shot in the open woods he was now descending towards. He crossed the brook and kept heading down hill, almost like he was aiming to end up at my car and I kept right on him. He continued to alternate running and walking. Finally, at about 1:00, he slowed down and headed up a gentle ridge. Soon after, he made a scrape, then rubbed a small tree. He was starting to relax a bit and think about other stuff… I had maybe 15 more minutes before I really had to give up and the woods were pretty open, so I basically started jogging along the track, hoping to catch a glimpse of him on the other side of the rise, when I reached the top. I didn’t. He started running again and finally, I had to give up. Over the course of that chase off the ridge, out trail must have crossed 3 or 4 other sets of buck tracks. When I left his trail and started heading out of the woods, I’ll bet I crossed 3 or 4 more, all made in the last 24 hours or so. Undoubtedly, some of them were repeats, but there were at least 3 or 4 good sized bucks running around on that mountainside. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Needless to say, I know where I’ll be hunting for the rest of the season…
 
Two years ago, I had a fat-bodied buck with a small rack come by! I sit on the base of a tree to stay mobile. This sucker was coming straight at me, he must've thought I was another deer. It was barely light out, so I was amped from the footsteps rather than seeing him. He got about ten yards away, then figured me out, jumped back to about 30 yds. Then I dropped him. The hunt was with my Dad and favorite Uncle so it was special for me and I'll never forget it!
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Treestand hunting in the woods is aquired taste but can be very addictive!
 
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nick87 said:
After reading @wllm1313's post on moving back east and the mention of big woods whitetails it got me thinking. Anyone have any stories or pics they want to post up of this style hunt? When I was kid I used to read about the Benoit family tracking big woods whitetails in the snow and was always fascinated by it. Someday I'll give it a go once I get a few other hunts checked off the list. Post up some pics or stories if you got em!
Click to expand...
I am 17 and just got into hunting a few years ago. Needless to say I am addicted now. I live in Northern Wisconsin definition of big woods whitetail hunting. I hunt a chunk of state land that is mostly red pine planted by the CCC back in the 1940's. It has been a struggle as it is not the most deer dense area and not a very suitable habitat for the deer but hunting hard and logging a lot of hours in the stand has paid of with two does and an encounter with a mature buck last November. It is an awesome hunt but does take some time and a lot of e scouting plus boots on the ground.
 
coopcox said:
I am 17 and just got into hunting a few years ago. Needless to say I am addicted now. I live in Northern Wisconsin definition of big woods whitetail hunting. I hunt a chunk of state land that is mostly red pine planted by the CCC back in the 1940's. It has been a struggle as it is not the most deer dense area and not a very suitable habitat for the deer but hunting hard and logging a lot of hours in the stand has paid of with two does and an encounter with a mature buck last November. It is an awesome hunt but does take some time and a lot of e scouting plus boots on the ground.
Click to expand...
Yup I've bowhunted northern wisconsin, where we were deer numbers were thin or it seemed that way because it was so thick 20 yards was max visibilty.
 
madtom said:
@7 mag had a really compelling big woods whitetail story last fall.

Wife's 2019 nys buck

My wife's, 2019 nys thanksgiving day buck Our scale stops at 200 pounds he maxed that out, his heart weighed 7 pounds, 7mn RM /155 GR TLR /135 yrds
www.hunttalk.com www.hunttalk.com
Click to expand...
I clearly missed this one. At first it seemed harmless but then he was over selling it on page 2!
 
@Dougfirtree those are some awesome bucks!

Are you or is anyone else tent camping on these hunts?

Also what is a representative NW public buck, for example for the average CO hunter a 5x5 is a great and if you can get a 6x6 you are feeling good about your year.

@Boomerusaf would you say that was a public land deer you would be happy with any year?
 
wllm1313 said:
@Dougfirtree those are some awesome bucks!

Are you or is anyone else tent camping on these hunts?

Also what is a representative NW public buck, for example for the average CO hunter a 5x5 is a great and if you can get a 6x6 you are feeling good about your year.

@Boomerusaf would you say that was a public land deer you would be happy with any year?
Click to expand...
No not necessarily. I shot him on the 3rd weekend. He was the definition of a meat buck. Ive seen some monsters!
 
wllm1313 said:
@Dougfirtree those are some awesome bucks!

Are you or is anyone else tent camping on these hunts?

Also what is a representative NW public buck, for example for the average CO hunter a 5x5 is a great and if you can get a 6x6 you are feeling good about your year.

@Boomerusaf would you say that was a public land deer you would be happy with any year?
Click to expand...
None of these were shot from tent camps, but that's not super uncommon here and I've done it. It's a good way to get back there, especially if you have a group of friends, especially here in the Adirondacks, where there's considerably more backcountry than the other northeastern states.
One thing you'll find about northeastern big woods hunters is that they tend to talk about the weight of their deer, more than the antlers. The north woods are not known for producing giant antlers, but some places, like northern Maine and NH are known for big bodied bucks. 200 pounders are the goal of many wool-clad deer trackers. Around here, there are alot of folks who are just looking for a legal buck (not easy to do), but those who are holding out are usually just looking for a mature deer; a "racked buck" as you'll hear people say. Not only is it tough just to find a buck in these woods, but getting a chance to really evaluate a rack is very rare. Shot opportunities are fleeting, in general. Most mature bucks are going to be 8-10 pointers (no one speaks the 4x4 language here, though I think it's a better system) and most will be in the 100-125" range.
 
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