Sherburne refuge
Contributors to this thread:Minnesota
From: HorbachJ
21-Oct-18
Why arnt we seeing deer out there? I see sign so I’m assuming they’re just moving at night.
From: Amoebus
22-Oct-18
I only hunt it after the shotgun season - just too many folks before that for me.
But, when I did hunt it, they would spend the day in the thickest areas possible to escape the people - mainy in the river bottoms and swamps.
From: HorbachJ
22-Oct-18
Thanks, I’ll have to check those areas out. I see a lot of sign out in the open. Mainly in the oaks
From: mallard_maniac
23-Oct-18
if you're seeing sign in the open right now there's a 99% chance it's being made at night. It'll change soon but in the 1st- 25 days of October seeing a mature buck checking scrapes in day light hours is pretty rare in my experience. Whenever I've seen mature deer tending scrapes during shooting hours it's almost always in heavy cover or very small secluded areas.
A good friend killed a great deer over a scrape line last season @ 10 in the morning (wish I could claim it as my own) on public ground. It was a long way from a road or food plot in heavy timber. Those big dug out scrapes on a field edge can be very deceiving.
From: FrigidArrows
23-Oct-18
bingo^^^ And even during the rut, mature bucks checking sign in the open woods or field on heavily pressure public.......not likely.
From: South Farm
30-Oct-18
SNWR HATES trees, they cut more down every year in their over-infatuation with returning the area to so-called "prairie"...that's on top of fencing half the damn place and allowing moo-cows to stampede it all up and chew every living blade of grass and eliminate bedding cover. I've hunted there for over 20 years before throwing in the towel. The deer numbers are way down and the multitude of hunters are increasingly forced into smaller and smaller habitat. Bottom line is the place SUCKS compared to 15-20 years ago. Sure, there's still some deer, but you can do better elsewhere.