Ambush style bush bucks 2021

[DRhunter]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Remember in the end this is just one mans opinion and how I go about my hunts. There is many successful bush hunters out there that have developed their own style

Smoky, with that kind of talk you DO NOT belong on this forum. This forum is for serious hunters that know all and the ONLY WAY to do things is what they preach , please close your AO account asap so the rest of us members can continue to prove to all other readers how much more we know than every other hunter.

Now in all seriousness, love the thread and offering up some knowledge you have obtained through hard work, time, dedication in the outdoors in the hopes that it will assist in some other hunters success.

Thanks,

DR

[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by DRhunter

Smoky, with that kind of talk you DO NOT belong on this forum. This forum is for serious hunters that know all and the ONLY WAY to do things is what they preach , please close your AO account asap so the rest of us members can continue to prove to all other readers how much more we know than every other hunter.

Now in all seriousness, love the thread and offering up some knowledge you have obtained through hard work, time, dedication in the outdoors in the hopes that it will assist in some other hunters success.

Thanks,

DR

Thanks

I will work on my crappy attitude

[roper1]

Just done checking in. Now I have to go check my guns!

Thanks SB!!

[Walk-In-Pack-Out]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

The best locations are found by getting out and burning boot leather. It’s easier to locate mature deer if you stick to areas you can invest time in vs traveling far from home in search of magical deer heaven

After following this thread from the beginning I have seen you reiterate this point several times and I am grateful. Being newer to hunting I always think farther is better, but I filled my tag last year an hour from home.

[58thecat]

Ya I kinda wonder what’s in other areas but the cameras don’t lie what’s local so I end up hunkering down here plus I really know the area well so gives me an advantage and I will take whatever advantage I can get on these critters!


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[Smoky buck]

Another stand is up but 3 more to go. This a ladder that is set for my brother when he comes to visit. This is a location I found last season not far from where I took my buck. I am pretty confident this buck is the younger brother of the one I took last year. My brother has liked this buck since I got the first pic of him in June



This location is one of those ares that is overlooked by most because it’s just so stupid of a spot. It has a communal scrape that was found on an old systemic line in the bottom of a small valley. Nothing fancy just mixed timber that backs onto young poplar


Because the line runs in an S shape and a second line intersecting it the shot options are decent

If you look close enough you can see the strap for my trail cam

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[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by Walk-In-Pack-Out

After following this thread from the beginning I have seen you reiterate this point several times and I am grateful. Being newer to hunting I always think farther is better, but I filled my tag last year an hour from home.

My buck last year was a 20min drive from home. My farthest stand location I plan on hunting this year will be 40min from home. It’s nice to sleep in too

It’s better to know an area inside and out so you find the best pockets

I practice what I preach

[Smoky buck]

Been out checking cams, scouting, and another ladder stand is set. Forgot to take pics of the set up so but I will next time I check that cam

Some good and bad from theses outings

First off I am pretty confident someone has been messing with the one of my cams and sitting in my stand. It’s been many years since I have had any issues of anyone finding one of my cams or stands. If I confirm my thoughts I will pull that set up.

I have also now had all cams from a 3 pack of cheap stealth cams go crazy malfunctioning. I am down 3 cams. Not even a whole season out of them so I will be giving stealth cam an email to see if they will make good on any of this. I have used a variety of models of stealth cam with no issues till now

The area my wife has claimed is looking good with two nice bucks hanging around




Also did some scouting for new locations and stubbled on a nice heavy shed. Lots of good buck sign so I have set a cam to see if this old warrior is still around




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[Smoky buck]

Today’s tip never stop looking and be ready to adjust

The joys of hunting large tracks of public land your plans can fall apart fast so better have back up plans

You may have miss read the deer you were watching and they disappear. This is the time you will notice a shift in deer movement and by mid October you will know if they have moved do to seasonal food changes. Really all earlier scouting is trying to guess what they will do in the future. Sometimes you will get it wrong

The other fun one is your fellow hunters can impact the deer movement in your area. This could be directly at the location you have set up. But more likely it will be hunters interrupting a different part of the bucks home range. So if you are targeting an ambush location between food and bedding this can change if pressure causes the buck to pick a different feeding or bedding area. They don’t leave their home range but they may not be traveling through the ambush location you have chosen if there is pressure in the area. I can count how many times I have had hunters find my stands on one hand so this is not often an issue. But having hunters disrupt a bucks travels by putting pressure on near by areas has happened many times

You are also sharing the bush with the resource industries. They have a job to do and it can disrupt deer movement. They come back after things settle most of the time but you don’t always have time to wait it out. I have had service digs go on 200yards away cause a buck and most of the deer disappear for a few weeks. Logging might completely mess things up for the year or long term changes. New roads being pushed through is another

Increased ATV activity is another. If it’s temporary things will go back to normal over time. If it becomes routine deer do shift habits

Impact will vary from a change to basically night movement only, vacate the area temporarily or there travels may shift only 100yards. You may not have time to wait for things to settle or it may render your ambush point useless

It’s just part of it and the other users have a right to be there.

For this reason I never stop looking for locations and half my cams get bounced around to different areas well others stay put on areas I have the most faith in. I always have back up locations to move a stand to because of this. If I don’t have faith a stand location will rebound from disruption in time to provide proper hunting opportunity for the season it gets moved

This is why all my personal stands are hang on’s and I use strap on chunks of ladder they are fast to put up and take down. Unfortunately for my wife ladder stands are set for the season do to the difficulty of moving them

So be prepared for your plans to fall apart and be ready to adjust. Run multiple stand locations so you always have a place to hunt. Running set ups that are easy to move if needed is wise. Be realistic if deer movement has fallen apart and you don’t have time to wait it out move. Always have back up locations you can target. Never stop looking for locations that way you always have good areas to move too if needed. Be realistic and don’t get fixated on a buck or location if movement deer movement has fallen apart

I always experience some kind of bad luck for the season and the best thing to do is keep moving forward

[Smoky buck]

My cameras have been fairly slow which I find normal for most of October. I don’t know why but it just seems to be that way

The few cams I moved last did not yield much mostly does and small bucks. One buck with some potential but now to see if he sticks around or was just a random

No luck locating the buck that dropped the heavy shed but I am still trying.

Unfortunately I have confirmed my one stand location was found so that stand has been pulled. Worst part is that it was the location I had set for my brother so I really want to find a good substitute. The areas I have been watching have not shown anything consistent that really has his interest and would be gambling on hunting potential roaming bucks that may come seeking does otherwise. The new buck that I posted a pic of does have his interest but is not proven to hang around yet

So we have agreed to run a Hail Mary tactic as a final attempt. The game plan we are going with is I pulled all my non cellular cams and set them out in all new locations except for the one showing the new buck. I will let them soak till at least the 21st and see what is found. From there we will make a call on where his stand goes and possibly my last hang on

What I have not told him is if I don’t feel that this provides him with a good opportunity at a nice buck I may sacrifice my location where I found the split brow buck. I can easily adapt on the fly with my hang on stands but not his ladder stand

Basically I have spent the last 3 days covering miles of bush. There is places I have set cams that make me judge my sanity. The fact I had a stand found for the first time in a long time I think it motivated me to go places I normally would not go. Some nice looking pockets and some outside of my normal locations with great sign were found. A few nice bucks bumped in my travels too

I have no clue how many miles I have covered but my legs are now mush lol

Only time will tell if it was worth it


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[Phil McCracken]

You sir are doing things that many should.

Don't give up. Your day will come soon.

Good Luck!...

[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by Phil McCracken

You sir are doing things that many should.

Don't give up. Your day will come soon.

Good Luck!...

Thanks

I am just hunting the way I enjoy to hunt and I am way too stubborn to give up

[roper1]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Thanks

I am just hunting the way I enjoy to hunt and I am way too stubborn to give up

Yessir, that's why they call it hunting. Thanks for the thread, Man, great reads!!

[Bushrat]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Thanks

I am just hunting the way I enjoy to hunt and I am way too stubborn to give up

Yep, summers over, best part of the season's yet to come.

[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by Bushrat

Yep, summers over, best part of the season's yet to come.

I am looking forward to the 2 weeks I am going to be off mid November

[Prdtrgttr]

What an awesome thread. Thanks for sharing this wealth of information. Good luck 2 u fine sir.

[Smoky buck]

Not including the stand location I removed I now have 2 hang on stands and 2 ladder stands set. I remembered to take pics of the one when recovering/checking the cam but forgot to take a pic from the one I recently set. Again I will take a pic next time I am in there.

Notice a trend I forget my phone in the truck a lot when I am in the bush lol

So this stand is one I set for my wife overlooking a communal scrape. She is still new to hunting whitetail and hunting from a stand so it has been a series of adjustments to try and make her comfortable with heights/shooting from a stand. All her previous experience was hunting black bear, moose, and mule deer spot & stalk when we lived in BC so the last 2 seasons have had her outside of her comfort zone

So far she has not been able to seal the deal in the moment. Her personal goal is to shoot a buck big enough for rattling antlers

This is not a big buck stand but more so one that holds good numbers. My best cam check was 300 pics over two weeks. It is also in a supplemental WMU so if she chooses to take a doe she can still try for her first whitetail buck



This is the biggest buck I have pics of in this location right now but who knows what will appear in the rut. Yes I have lots of velvet free pics of this buck but they don’t show him as well. There is another 9pt and a handful of 8pts that will work for her rattling antlers lol

This stand location is in thick timber about 200yards off of a pipeline. The opening to hunt is available do to dead fall. There is a heavy trail that travels in front of the stand. This trail is intersected by a trail on her left and right that come out of the really thick bush the deer are bedding in that head towards the pipeline. The communal scrape is under the large evergreens at the intersection to her left. This should give opportunities at deer traveling between food and bedding, buck running does on these heavy trails and deer visiting the scrape. Shots will be 15-40yards

This pic is a view overlooking the communal scrape on the left


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[kujoseto]

Amazing thread!
Subscribed

[Smoky buck]

The other stand I set is also a location my wife choose but will also share it with my brother when he comes to visit. It shows real promise to produce a nice buck or two. I will take a pic from that stand next time I am out

[Smoky buck]

Forgot to mention for those who are scouting locations for the rut bucks are starting fresh rubs and pawing the ground for scrapes. They are getting ready

Now get off the coach and go find them

[Zuludog]

Thanks for posting this thread. I have found it very entertaining and educational.

[gray7mag]

Excellent thread thus far! I too have seen scrapes this year.

[Smoky buck]

I got invited to go on a waterfowl hunt for a few days out of town so I ran my cams early

Out of 9 cams only 2 showed bucks with potential. I forgot to turn one cam on so it was a bust by idiot error right away. The buck I found earlier did not return but I will check that cam again just before I hang my brothers stand.

For those who always think farther from the road is better well the worst two cams were about 3km in. Both cams only showed 1 lone doe each. I am kinda glad because one I crossed some ugly muskeg, a beaver pond, and a few elevation changes. Recovery would have sucked

Some cams showed really high doe numbers with no bucks. One cam that only showed does did have a fresh scrape 5 ft behind it though lol. Changed the angle on that cam



This guy showed up only once but on a 1 week check that is common for bush bucks. The area is a draw in a mix of poplar, birch, cotton wool, and willow with very few evergreens




This buck actually made 3 appearances within a week which is really good for a bush buck. This is not a normal area for the kind of places I hunt. It’s a large flat above a ravine that consists mostly small poplar with random large mature poplar and evergreens. Throughout the flat are small grassy openings. They are running a trail on the rim of the ravine and have a heavy trial heading down

Now to see what my brother wants to gamble on


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[Zip-in-Z]

SmokyB ... I sure am enjoying reading your story, it reminds me of the hunting trips I had with my Dad back on the farm in MB. He had various ambush points mainly along the river and we grew up hunting together and living off wild game.

My first rifle was Dad's old Enfield 303 as shown in the pic below, never shot straight but it serve us well. I no longer hunt, sold all my rifles when I relocated to Ab in 1999, those days are just fond memories of my Pops, the farm & living in the bush. Edit: I was 4 years old.

Look forward to a good ending chapter for your season, wish you all the success.

Cheers

David






.

[fishnguy]

Very good stuff, man! I caught up on reading this last page.

That shed is pretty cool. Wonder if that guy is still around.

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

I forgot to turn one cam on so it was a bust by idiot error right away.

Hahaha. When I regularly ran my 3 cameras, at times on the way out after checking or setting up, often far away from the set up, I would think “dude, you forgot to turn it on!” and then “Nah, it couldn’t be!” After some back and forth with myself, I would go back and check, lol. I think I only caught myself once leaving it off.

Last fall, during the excessively long hunting season, I found a spot and really wanted to see what hangs around there. My main goal was to hopefully catch a few good elk boys, so I decided to put a camera up. The issue was that one of the belt holes on the camera I took was broken. That I did not remember and only realized it when I got to the spot the next time to hang the camera. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to tie it with a rope using a couple of holes that looked like they would do the job. It so worked out, that I was not back to that spot until a couple of weeks ago, lol. I was so excited on the way to pick it up! I mean it’s been out in a prime spot for elk and moose for almost a year. The only disappointing thought was that the batteries may have ran out a couple of months ago. It is a great camera (Bushnell) that never let me down and took many amazing pics for me to enjoy.

Well, when I got to the spot and looked at the tree, I didn’t see a camera, lol. “No f-ing way!” I thought. I didn’t even remember the rope thing at the moment. There is no way someone could steal it in that spot, I thought. I would bet a good pile of money that I was the first and last person to be there in years and likely decades. I was sure of it. The elk, I thought couldn’t chew it up because it was fairly high up. Moreover, the belt would still be on the tree if that happened. That’s when it hit me that there was no belt to begin with. Sure enough, the rope was still on the tree, lol. Took me a good chunk of time to find the camera in the tall dry grass and other growth, about 5 meters away from the tree it was hanged on. Guess what the last picture on it was? The idiot who put it up there walking away! Of course, that idiot is me, lol. I must have tightened it more than I should have (why I did, I’ll probably never know myself) and it cracked the thin plastic around the wholes and it broke shortly after I left. Well… that was disappointing, to say the least, lol. I was probably preoccupied with hunting more than that camera at the moment and never gave it much thought when I put in on that tree. I used a rope from my cow call too because that was all I had with me then, lol. Here is a pic of the camera to give a better idea:



The camera wasn’t working when I found it either. Must have broken when it fell because it was fairly high and that is why me leaving is the last pic it took.

Sorry for a long story, but thought it was appropriate to share the “idiot” stuff. Don’t be too hard on yourself over a week worth of pics. I skipped a whole year! Lol.


Anyway, great thread, man! I enjoy every time I read it. Thanks for going at it and good luck in the next few weeks!

[58thecat]

Hmmmm I have forgot a few locations where a camera was just to find it in February...not turned on

Ohhh and a dam wood pecker pecked the plastic motion sensor all to hell on another one...plus moose licking them, bears chewing them etc.....I am sure with all the cams smoky buck got out there he must have a few cam stories too

[fainthopeacres]

Thoroughly enjoying this thread! Thank you so much for all the helpful tips everyone! I hope to improve my hunting techniques and this is pure gold right here! Cheers and thank you ;o)

[Smoky buck]

After having my brothers stand location found earlier and other headaches I have now put it in a new location

The location is a draw that is mostly poplar, cottonwood, and birch with a few evergreens. It does transition to more evergreens a few 100 yards away. The stand is set up on a small ridge overlooking the draw. Lots of good rubs in the area

There is multiple main intersection within view of this stand. There is a heavy trail running the bottom of the draw that is intersected directly in front of the stand, again to the left and another hard left slightly to the sack of the stand

There is very good visibility far better than I normally hunt. Shots will range from 20-100yards

The target buck in this location is a heavy but short 11pt.

Here is the view from the stand




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[NKP]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Today’s tip never stop looking and be ready to adjust

The joys of hunting large tracks of public land your plans can fall apart fast so better have back up plans

You may have miss read the deer you were watching and they disappear. This is the time you will notice a shift in deer movement and by mid October you will know if they have moved do to seasonal food changes. Really all earlier scouting is trying to guess what they will do in the future. Sometimes you will get it wrong

The other fun one is your fellow hunters can impact the deer movement in your area. This could be directly at the location you have set up. But more likely it will be hunters interrupting a different part of the bucks home range. So if you are targeting an ambush location between food and bedding this can change if pressure causes the buck to pick a different feeding or bedding area. They don’t leave their home range but they may not be traveling through the ambush location you have chosen if there is pressure in the area. I can count how many times I have had hunters find my stands on one hand so this is not often an issue. But having hunters disrupt a bucks travels by putting pressure on near by areas has happened many times
...

Increased ATV activity is another. If it’s temporary things will go back to normal over time. If it becomes routine deer do shift habits

It’s just part of it and the other users have a right to be there.

...

I've only been seriously hunting for 4 years, and I learned this lesson starting in September. Compared to previous years the deer seemed to be scarce. I can't pin point it to drought, increased ATV traffic, or what, but I've had to adjust. Luckily some of the deeper areas are untouched by ATVs, so the opportunities are still there. As you've stated, miles on the boots (and some camera action) has shown me the deer are still there.

[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by NKP

I've only been seriously hunting for 4 years, and I learned this lesson starting in September. Compared to previous years the deer seemed to be scarce. I can't pin point it to drought, increased ATV traffic, or what, but I've had to adjust. Luckily some of the deeper areas are untouched by ATVs, so the opportunities are still there. As you've stated, miles on the boots (and some camera action) has shown me the deer are still there.

This is why I don’t rely on “honey holes” because so many factors can change things and Mother Nature can throw big swings to resources/weather

I have large areas I like but my pockets within the area will always shift