Do any of you guys hunt Urban deer. I always spot nice bucks near or very close to town, homes and housing complexes..i guess they feel comfortable.... My question to you is...do they feel more safe around these areas Where to look? Do you need to worry about your scent as much, since being so close to people...? what do you guys think, and do any of you guys hunt near houses or other establishments?
My best stand is roughly 200 yards from my house. I can smell the neighbors cooking out if the wind is right lol. I don't know that the hunting is easier or harder, its just different. I can be in the yard mowing and the deer pay me very little attention. Once I step in the woods, its much like anywhere else.
I did see a episode of "deer USA" urban deer hunting.have you seen that Jeff...they talked about how hard it is to predict what these deer are doing, and how hard it is to hunt them, because as we grow, and change , they do as well..so year after year, their patterns change..
Hmm.. my stand is set-up in a block of timber between the County Airport, a maximum security prison, the county jail, and several houses. When the wind is right I can hear the college's marching band and the high school football games. Recently, I have been dealing with the sound of little dogs barking non-stop... they are roughly 150-200 yards from my stand and there is easily close to a dozen of them that bark non-stop from 4:30 till dark. Scent doesn't bug these deer, it just doesn't. They smell humans no matter where they are in the woods and seem to have become numb to human scent. Sound isn't a big deal for them either... between dogs barking, accounments at the prison, airplanes flying over, people workin in their yards, ect... they aren't bugged by it. Sight is a HUGE factor for these deer, they are constantly on edge looking for something out of place. They know where the people are and if they spot anything in other areas, they are gone. The major problem hunting these deer is that they have very few to no patterns at all. There are so many bedding areas and so many areas that they feel comfortable at... not to mention that there are two ag. fields around the property and one of them is on land that is posted solid. They learn quick that this field/property is safer than the other and will utilize it more than the others.
its the truth..i go back this lane everynight to this guys house and we talk....on the way back ill see deer right by this drive way just watching me come and go as i please...its like a sense of safety..like they know their not going to get touched...but not easy to kill by no means..
Just for s--ts and giggles sometime try stepping off the pavement in their direction and see what happens. White flags and snorts is my guess. I believe you see bigger bucks in suburban/urban environments simply due to the age structure. They are able to get older because they simply cannot be hunted where they live. PA is a big state, but just about all of the state record deer are taken around the major cities. That is because they are able to grow older in these areas. Do you have to worry about scent? Yes, you do. You can't go into the woods with gas on your clothes after running a marathon and sit downwind of the deer and expect to get a shot. However, it is not as critical as it is elsewhere. As Buckmagnet said they are used to smelling people so human scent is not going to turn them inside out like it would in the midwest. You just need to smell like you're 150 yards away in a backyard instead of 15 yards away. The majority of my hunting spots are near horse trails, motorcycle paths, houses, and highways. This does not make the deer I hunt any easier or harder to kill. They have tendencies that are to their advantage and some that are to mine. I just need to recognize what they are and leverage them in my favor.
Bumping an old thread, hoping some can elaborate to help me devise a plan for my area. I'm in Southern New Hampshire, fairly suburban area - houses on 2-5 acre lots, backing up to town-owned conservation land. Somewhat low deer density (10-20 deer/square mile) but they're out there. I have done a lot of scouting and there are deer trails everywhere. As other have said, they just feel comfortable everywhere so they're very hard to pattern. I will set my trail cam over some fresh sign for a week, and come back to find 2-3 pictures of deer in a week. I will setup my tree stand over some fresh droppings and see nothing all day. I don't know if they passed through during daylight or nighttime, or which direction they were headed. Mainly just looking for some tactics to increase my chances of seeing a deer with my limited hunting time. Has anyone forgone treestand ambush hunting for still-hunting in these areas?
I can tell you my recent experience with a doe, not big buck. But I hunt one spot with a friend in Pittsburgh suburbs and I can see the tops of houses up over the hill of who granted us permission to hunt, you can hear their leaf blowers, etc. Last Thursday the wind switched and blew straight from me to two does feeding behind me. They snapped their heads up and both looked up the hill at the houses. They assumed that is where the smell was even though the wind was wrong. But they were unconcerned and went right back to eating acorns. I shot one of the does a few minutes later.
I have had similar experiences with deer in my area; they simply cannot live on high alert 24/7 so they assume most threats are benign. I'm trying to increase my number of deer encounters. How did you pick the spot you were sitting? Was there some fresh sign or a trail more heavily used than the other trails?
There was a pretty heavy trail with lots of acorns still. Also some rubs and scrapes were popping up. So I figured it was worth a try. I didn't see a buck but between my friend and me we saw 7 does. He was about 100 yards down woods from me.
We hunt heavily near residential areas in NJ and shoot nice bucks. Deer are definitely less anxious around homes. We engage in scent control just like we were 10 miles out. If you can get used to all the residence and road noises, there are great possibilities.
I'm not exactly urban but I agree that deer become accustomed to human scent. I have a stand where I can see a neighbors house when the leaves fall. Many times I have seen deer putting their nose in the air scenting the neighbors. Just an aside-their dog would start barking whenever it smelled deer. So, I always had advance warning when they came from one direction.
I hunt 24 ac outside of Washington DC. (Fredericksbug VA) The tomahawk shaped piece of ground has subdivisions on three sides I pick my spot based on the wind I have one stand 50 yards from my house. A sw wind blows my scent to the house and puts the deer in front of me.I get no deer traffic coming from the house and a shifting wind with good scent control may get a pass as they are use to smelling human scent from the house.Distant smells and noise have little or no affect on them. Make a move,smell or a sound at the stand and they are gone.
So do you intentionally hunt closer to heavily-travelled human footpaths, rather than going deeper into the timber?
