Hello! I got my now tuned, joined a hunting club and an archery club. I can hit the 3D's and Bulls eye (well, yellow and red rings). Now... I really need a little (a lot) communal help - Let's start here: Got my gear. Got my bow: Get out of the car, walk into the bush... Now what? How do I find animals? I found plenty of fresh and old "poop", but can't see an animal trail or any other sign of life. Where I was (will be) is a very hilly terrain. Not even any rabbit "scat". There have been reports of deer and small game. I'd love to learn how to try and find any game. Please help. This is a new sport to me and I love it! I am also starting archery to help with all my technique and shooting. I love my bow! (Bear Strike!)
First off, Welcome to hunting. If you are anything like me, it will engulf you as a major passion in your life. My first step, would be to talk to someone at your hunting club(or if you are friends with an experienced hunter, ask him/her) and ask them to take you out and show you what to look for. I always find it easiest to learn from someone with a lot more experience, and most hunters i know(myself included) love to take any excuse to head out and spend some time in nature. As for advice on how to find animals, my advice is look for natural paths through the woods, as deer are lazy animals and generally take the easiest path from point A-B. Find natural food and water sources as well. If your property has thick woods, look for oak or fruit trees, as they eat the acorns when they fall. Outside the Rut, the deer will spend the majority of their time going from bedding areas(where they sleep), to food and water sources. Also, see if you have any bedding areas on your property, as knowing where they are coming from is just as important as where they are going. EDIT: Also, when hunting, you need to be still. VERY VERY VERY still. as a beginner, i'd recommend a ground blind instead of a tree stand, as the ground blind will help conceal your movements much better. You can always start with a tree stand(i did), it just makes it less forgiving.
Thanks! I will try and go with an experienced hunter. Are there time limits for animals to eat? Like fishing? Better early mornings? I've been twice now and saw nothing except Kangaroos (can't kill the 'Roos). I'm just not sure what bedding or food trails look like. I found plenty of trails (easiest paths down). But all the hills are very deep. About 400-500meter inclines, maybe less, but damn deep. I went about 300m down, found some nice land which poop around, a huge rock to build a small blind (out of trees and leaves) but nothing came past. Just birds. Then a few trail bikes started screaming around in the next gully. Noisy pricks. Haha.
I am assuming that you are in Australia based on that, if you specify what you are wanting to hunt then there may be somebody on here who can help you out, but I know I assumed you meant whitetail deer, as I imagine most others did. Im not even sure what you can hunt over there other than wild hogs and water buffalo
Sorry! I'm only new to this, so small game is best. I don't want to start off with big game. I can hunt most small pests: fox, rabbit, turkey, hog other birds, cat, dogs, goats and all (most) deer. I'd be happy to hunt anything. I love the stalk!! Sorry about that. I haven't updated profile or anything. I'd be happy to find a fox! Obviously a deer is my pinnacle! I want to learn to hunt deer. Deer is priority #1! Deer tastes great and makes a great trophy!!
For a fox I would try predator calling with a wounded animal sound. Could be tricky to do with a bow though. Rabbits I would just slowly walk field edges and roads through fields, look for their eyes as they really stand out. Hogs, you could try around waterholes where there are signs of wallowing. What type of deer do you have?
Direct copy/paste of website: Probably all different to overseas. I think Red are the BIG boys. Wild deer Family: cervidae Including: Fallow Red Wapiti Rusa Hog Sambar Chital
I didn't realize there were so many over there. Maybe somebody that has hunted those species can help, all I know is whitetail
This may seem silly - do you have many hunts where you catch nothing? Worse case - see nothing at all? So how would you choose where to set up your blind/tree stand? You walk through the bush and then...? You sit close to water? I'm going to do a bit of flora study and figure out what the deer eat (what it looks like). I will invest in a good pred-call this weekend.
brotherbadger is very right about the expert and the water. water is always a good place to start and the expert will tell u where to go from there. if u have good visibility from those high spots it wouldnt hurt to just spend time with a spotting scope or binoculars and just look around in the lower areas and see if u can see any animals
I think my plan: hike to creek in the bush (a few KM/Mi in) and then just find something a little higher and watch. The forest I'm using is just newly opened to hunters (legally) 3 weeks ago and probably under 12 hunters have booked it (I was 4 of them) over 3 weeks. This thread is great help already.
Where in Australia are you located? I am in South East Queensland and there is a Huge Red Buck that beds about a kilometre from my house!! In the middle of the suburbs! Also being new to this, I have no idea if I am allowed to hunt it!
Never hunted deer other than whitetail...but if I did it would all be similar in that I'm going to "attack" their instincts. Instincts are all deer are, they live off of them and it's their instincts that keep them alive. They can't be analytical thinkers, for if they were we'd never kill any of them...PERIOD> think about it if you were being hunted and knew your predators couldn't kill you at night would you not just hunker down for the day? They can't do that...they're more like burglar alarms (Bill Vale idea). They can merely react to things...a smell, a sound or a wind direction. This game of hunting is a hobby to us and if we make a mistake and get winded we go home to a warm meal...a deer or animal lives this and if they make a mistake they're dead. They will almost always (at least high pressured mature deer) instinctively move and do what is safest. Example of how they do things to survive instinctively...one year I had a buck running around prior to light, I mean just terrorizing the ****ens out of the woods...light crept in and more importantly the pre-dawn wind became almost non-existent and the second the woods got quiet so did he, but I knew where he was because I heard him and faintly saw him chasing a doe throughout a marsh in front of me. I would grunt and call occasionally but nothing....it remained perfectly silent and the wind was calm, I didn't realize it then but he was waiting. I remember hours passed and I was about to get down when some wind starting whipping through the trees gently...causing the dry leaves to slide across the floor of the forest...it got hard to hear as well but something told me to call and call I did, but it got quiet again and calm...then like a switch the wind kicked back on and the floor noise returned and up the trail came my first buck ever a big P&Y buck jogging out of the marsh directly towards where he'd been hearing grunts throughout the day periodically. Long story short he was conditioned to know his chances of survival outside the marsh wasn't higher than staying put...but when the wind kicked in and his movements would be covered by the noise of the leaves and his nose was now a weapon for him (I blew right over him sitting at about 26 feet high though) he moved and lost....and now hangs on my wall. *His urges to survive still out weighed his urge to sustain his bloodline...something can get very fuzzy or even lopsided a few times a year for bucks. I share all of this to just press home that deer are "instinctively wired" and we as hunters can use this against them because we can analyze them...is it a guarantee no, but it allows us to have a higher percentage chance. Good luck and just keep asking questions, keep getting out into the woods and every single mistake you make can pay off in big ways if you analyze them!
