Part VI. THE GAME

Chapter 20. Going Deer Hunting?

Deer is the most prevalent big game in the United States. Its range is extensive, and for every type of deer hunting, from long range mule deer shooting, to the hunt­ing of eastern whitetail deer in heavy cover, it has its counter­part in small game hunting of some type. It is the logical out­growth of those days spent afield after rabbit, squirrel and grouse. There comes a time when the small game hunter na­turally turns to big game. It is the testing ground of all the woodcraft he has learned and his ability with a rifle.

Let's take an excursion into typical deer cover, such as is found in a great deal of the west, north and eastern deer forests. These are not strange woods to a small game hunter. Fact is, it is very typical of squirrel, snowshoe rabbit and grouse cover. Perhaps while hunting small game you have come to a depres­sion under a hemlock where a large animal has bedded. As you probably know, this was a deer. Look at it closely. Not much to read from this actual impression in the autumn leaves, is there? Perhaps you had better take another look. After all, when you found evidence of squirrel cuttings under the oaks, you developed your hunt from that small beginning, didn't you?

Remember how it was—just a few acorn cuttings on a moss-grown log. You eased along the ridge, farther into the grove. Then you saw your first game, a beautiful gray squirrel near the top of a wide spreading oak. The rest was easy. You finished the day with four squirrel—and you developed your entire hunt because you read signs correctly.

This deer bed, sheltered from the rain and snow, has a lot to tell a deer hunter, too. First question a hunter wants to know is how fresh is this sign, for it may be the beginning of a successful deer hunt, just as those acorn cuttings were the be­ginning of a successful day of squirrel hunting.

See where the leaves are scuffed up how the brown soil shows beneath, as though it has been freshly turned? Notice how the forest litter is pressed flat directly in the bed, and hasn't sprung up again? Place your hand in the depression. Feel the warmth? When you angled up across the draw below, this deer probably left its bed. Before that he had heard you, traced your progress by the noise you made. But he was un­certain about the necessity of leaving his bed until you crossed the draw and turned up-slope.

You had him fooled up to that point. Your progress was that of unalarmed game—slow movement, a pause to scan the cover, slow movement again. The sound which he heard was that of a cautious deer moving in the cover. But when you crossed the draw below him, a thermal winddrift, moving uphill at this time of day, brought hunter scent to his keen inquisitive nose. He slipped out and left his bed for you to ponder.

A trained woodsman, reading the evidence would know a lot about the deer that made it. He would relate it to available feeding areas in the neighborhood. He would scout the cover for evidence of game movement in and out of this security-cover where he found the bed. By the time he was through his in­vestigation, he would know where his game was feeding, on what type food it was presently feeding, as well as how many other deer were with this one which made the bed under the hemlock.

Deer are secretive. They will spend time raiding farm gardens, grain fields and clover meadows, slipping in and out of their hideaways without betraying their presence to the irate farmer. Here in the dust of a farm lane will be seen the blunt toed tracks of a big deer, probably a buck. Here also will be found the smaller, slender tracks of lesser deer.

Maybe, some early morning or late evening they will be seen slipping along toward their feeding grounds. But in the more open feeding ranges of settled farm communities, they tend to become nocturnal. They quit feeding before good shooting light in the mornings. They only come out to feed in late evening after good shooting light is past. Once they have fed to reple­tion, during the night their day-bedding will be found in some
secretive place where they can keep a collective eye and nose on their security.

So tracks and beddings are the average hunter's introduction to deer, especially eastern whitetail and West Coast blacktail deer. Tracks at first glance seem to be made without rhyme or reason; beds seem to be placed without consideration of feeding and security cover, but once deer habits are more thoroughly understood, both tracks and beddings make sense. Like small game hunting, the basic premise of deer hunting is simply this: nothing is done without purpose. Even the most casual track of a deer has some over-all significance that ties in directly with your big game hunt.

When you walk through a woods looking for sign of game, what is it that first attracts your attention? It is cover which has been disturbed in some manner—ferns turned back to expose the undersides, branches which have been touched and have dropped their burdens of snow, bright red underbark of cedar, mountain willow, alder, showing deer "rubbings" or bushes hooked and broken by pugnacious bucks in autumn.

See what excellent training you had while small game hunt­ing? There sign reading was just as essential as it is now when you are hunting deer. Deer sign is more obvious than that of squirrel, rabbit or ruffed grouse, but it is basically the same-cover which has been disturbed in some respect.

How fresh is the sign? Again, you apply the yardstick of small game sign-reading. Fresh ruffed grouse sign such as the leaf turning and scratching, age at the same rate as deer tracks. In each case, dark fresh earth is exposed, and this is subjected to the same amount of weathering. Sun turns it grey. Rain beats it down, forming a surface crust which is quite apparent to even the most inexperienced hunter. Snowfall easily pin-points sign by erasing older evidence, leaving the cover like a clean slate for identification of the new sign.

There are three methods of hunting deer: trail watching, driving and still-hunting, though these three types of hunting are actually divisions of still-hunting.

Take a look at the first two methods in connection with your squirrel hunting. They tie in directly with the most successful techniques which you used on those bushy-tails. Fact is, there is no better place to learn the fine art of deer trail watching than waiting out the many squirrel hunting situations with which you are confronted in typical squirrel woods. It teaches you the importance of patience, of taking it easy. It shows you how often any hunting situation is improved by just waiting quietly for the hunt to develop.

Trail watching for deer is done on runways, natural passes, and escape routes through which game normally move when flushed from security-cover, or in going from one section of cover to another. When an army of hunters are on the prowl, they keep the game moving. Hunters who are most successful are those who have made a careful study of the section in which they plan to hunt, and have selected watching spots where they can intercept game jumped by other hunters.

That would seem like an almost impossible task if it wasn't for the habit of deer using about the same trails and woodland passes in their comings and goings. This phase of big game hunting is very extensively treated in my books The American Deer Hunter, and Advanced Hunting. Here it is touched upon only to show the relationship between this type of hunting and some phases of small game hunting.

In still-hunting deer, the problem of moving through heavy cover is essentially that encountered when still-hunting cotton­tail rabbit, snowshoe rabbit or squirrel. There is no distinct technique which is good, basically, for hunting rabbit and not good for other game.

Even at the expense of reiteration, the basic consideration in all cases is slow, careful movement. It is movement of a type which game find familiar, both from the standpoint of sound and rate of progress through the cover.

You, as an experienced squirrel hunter, know these things and practice them instinctively. (Chapter 19, Squirrel Hunting). Still-hunting techniques, such as this, have further application in driving game, such as deer. When you are on a deer stand you are a still-hunter; you are a still-hunter when you trail watch for game.

This important attribute of all hunting is intangibly grounded in proper hunter attitude—carefulness and acute knowledge of game reaction to hunting.

You cannot move around a stand, making loud noises, cough­ing, stamping to restore circulation, and expect game to be moved across your gunning position. You must wait as inconspicuously as if you were watching for gray squirrel. You must be alert for the snap of a twig, the swish of grey and soft bodies pressed against the cover, for this will probably be your first intimation of the deer's approach. Of course you are not going to train your rifle on this sound or movement, for that is criminally stupid, but it will warn you to be ready when fan-game breaks into an opening.

I actually have known inexperienced hunters who let deer cross stands on which they were posted without seeing them! They hadn't realized the importance of studying the stand, in selecting a spot from which to watch. They had left "blind spots" in their stands places which they couldn't cover. Later, when drivers pushed a big buck across, the deer took the most logical direction, threading its way up a small draw in one case, which afforded concealment, past the unsuspecting stander, and into the security-cover beyond the stand. It was all there in the snow, plain sign reading, even the spot where the big deer, unquestionably a buck, paused to look back in the direction of the posted hunter.

A small game hunter who has studied the best possible cross­ing to post when running either snowshoe or cottontail rabbit with hounds, has had this problem emphasized time after time. I am betting he wouldn't have taken up his position on that deer stand quite so casually. He would have known the im­portance of studying it in reference to his expected shooting.

If deer stands, like rabbit stands, are selected properly, the natural exit areas posted between the territory you plan to drive and the next security-cover, you will have little trouble moving them across your posting. Posting wrong, or driving wrong, only make for disappointment. Just remember, you cannot drive them out into inhospitable openings just because such places afford good shooting. There must be some attraction beyond the stand toward which they would logically move when put out.

Deer shooting in heavy cover, snapshooting as it is called, is perhaps the most difficult field shooting to learn, and at the same time, once this shooting is mastered, it is the most pro­ductive. It is difficult for the beginning deer hunter because the type of shooting is completely foreign to anything he has done in the past—unless he is an avid small game hunter. Then it is easy. Snapshooting of deer is essentially no different than snap­shooting a cottontail smoking across an opening between bits of cover. And that goes whether you are using a shotgun or rifle.

You have the same problem of a moving target. You have the same element of limited time in which to get off the shot. These two factors tend to do one of two things to a hunter. They either cause him to develop a fast rhythmical manner of mounting his rifle and getting off his shot, or they totally con­fuse him, reduce his shooting technique to a "yank and chance it" manner of shooting which is both inaccurate and com­paratively slow.

Small game shooting techniques, which have been em­phasized throughout this book, are tops for deer shooting. Actual snapshooting techniques as applied to deer shooting are quite thoroughly discussed in my book, The American Deer Hunter. It is sufficient here to point out the similarity of such shooting.

A small game hunter brings all this experience, plus a keen woodcraft, to the golden hours he will spend deer hunting. Never mind if you have never taken a buck, you already know more about the actual hunting of deer than many hunters who have made two or three kills. What is more, when you do down your buck, the event will be based on hunting know-how, not luck. It is the logical outgrowth of those many times you were out after cottontail, woodchuck, ground squirrel, snowshoe rabbit, grouse or raccoon.

The hunter must employ skill and knowledge when he successfully stalks gray squirrels in the hard-woods.

Squirrel hunting is often a waiting game.

The den tree of a raccoon.

The very good combinations: top, .257 caliber, Roberts W eaver scope and mount; bottom, .25/35 Model 64 Winchester Bushnell 8 power scope, Williams off-set mount, and Williams Foolproof receiver sight.

Bolt action small game rifles, top to bottom: F.N. Mauser action and barrel .270 caliber, Bishop stock, Weaver variable 2 ½ to 5 power scope; model 70 Winchester .30/06 caliber, Weaver scope and side mount; .257 Roberts, 98 Mauser action, Douglas barrel, K 2.5 Weaver scope and top mount; Winchester model 43, 218 Bee; Winchester model 69A, .22 rimfire.

Slide action .22 rifles and shotguns for small game: top to bottom, Remington “Field Master” model 121, Winchester model 61, Winchester model 62, and Remington model 870 shotgun and J.C. Higgins model 20 shotgun.

Handguns for small game shooting, top to bottom: Iver-Johnson .22, sealed eight; Smith and Wesson .38 Special Military and Police; Luger .22 automatic.

Kneeling field-shooting position. Rifle, model 71 Winchester, 348 Bushnell 3 power scope, post and crosshair.

Here is the trophy toward which you should shape your small same hunting.

Photo by Rex Gary Schmidt, U. S. Fish and Wildfire Service The raccoon is nocturnal in its feeding habits.

Photo by E. P. Haddon, U. S. Fish and Wildfire Service The common and popular gray squirrel.

Photo by V. B. Scheffer, U. S. Fish and Wildfire Service The Varying Hare offers a sporting target.

Francis Sell takes his squirrel hunting seriously.

This dog will be released when the cold-trailer hits the hot trail.

Photo by C. J. Henry, U. S. Fish and Wildfire Service Raccoon feeding on snails at edge of marsh.

Photo by Dr. H. H. T. Jackson, U. S. Fish and Wildfire Service The woodchuck is a fine game animal.