Thread: How to hunt from fresh deer poop?

Originally Posted by Alex_Z

I was trying my luck the other day in the forest and bumped into fresh deer poop. This was my first encounter of fresh deer signs and I was so excited. I then tried to look for footprints to see which direction the deer went. From the one print I was able to see I followed the trail which then lead to 3 different trails/directions. The bush was thick and dry so with every step I take I made a lot of noise. All 3 trails went to dead end or to an even thicker bush. Am I doing the right thing? or should I just waited at the spot? I did waited for about 15 min but I can only see about 15m ahead of me. What should I have done instead?

Cheers

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well you got some replys - some funny- some good advice - taste test now who would fall for that ??? - feed feed feed - learn your natives - deer shit simply means deer been there -why is more important - was it travelling to a feed area - summer likely good feed lower down clearings creek edges grass grass grass - winter no- to cold lower for growth so deer will wander looking for anything palatable - summer they will camp up high up -winter likely to live up higher to avoid cold valley bottom - -they need to sit and chew their cud so they will find a spot in the sun with security - now looking at your photos north island beech ridge and why is there a lot of undergrowth - because nearly all of it is not deer feed -they will pass thru that area to get up to a suitable bedding site -get up high and then slowly stalk down -I would bet if you went into the guts and have a look you may find better feed areas --on the ridges they look for windfall leaves and small regrowth - hard to hunt when feeding like that as they will travel -when they leave a bedding area they will start looking for food and browse as they go -find where they are going -this time of year I bet down to find good feed areas - learn mahoe, pate, karamu, five finger , fushia , this is not a full list but an easy way to see if its palatable try snapping leaves - all of these are soft snap easy and none grow more that about say 6-8 metres - now that twisted coprosma pictured low down in your photo try snapping that -yup bloody stringy tough not nice- there are always exceptions - a lot of places I hunt there are a lot of grass clearings - if left undisturbed and all that good grass they wont move very far -the bedding areas could be only 100-200 metres away and regularly used - but some north island bush it could be 1000 meters up and not always same each day - this has been a bit of a rambling reply but what I will do next few days as I am of wet days I will try to find ex Forest Service or DOC publications on deer palatable species -Forest Service especially did a lot of work on deer in sixties and seventy's a lot in Kaimanawas and Te Urewera - see what I can find - now you find a book on NZ natives start swatting time well spent