Tips for hunting pine

[chattfisher]

Hey, everyone. I got on a new lease this year and one of the properties has a lot of pine thickets on it. I went out there on Monday and saw a lot of sign and tons of trails throughout, but it doesn't look like there are very good shooting lanes. There's one small area of hardwoods in the area that run along a creek, but other than that it's all evergreens.

I've never really hunted pine thickets, but it looks like this is a pretty active area. Any tips? I'm hunting bow and gun, so I'm all ears!

Thanks!

 

[TKbigbass]

It depends on how big the pines are. If the pines are already tall enough to see under them, look for crab apple trees that maybe mixed in with the pines. There won't be many so you really have to cover alot of ground to find them. If the pines are small making too thick to hunt in them, hunt the edges. Back when Bowater owned property and grew their own pines, they had fire breaks (cleared strips ever so often that looked like single lane roads) and I use to do pretty good hunting on the ground along the edge of the fire breaks. </p>

 

[Shark]

Chattfisher,
This a bit on the extreme side, but it could work if you can afford it. Hire a pilot and helocopter for an hour and fly over and around the area. Take the best camera you can afford and take pics of trails, openings and bedding areas as you hover over them. I'm sure the thick pines will offer them all the protection they need to bed in. If that doesn't fit in your budget, then try to Google the location and change the settings so you are seeing a real view of the area. I'm not sure how close you can zoom in on your lease area, but it sure may help. Remember to print the entire area and you now have something to study and write notes on.

One more thing, you mentioned you never hunted pine thickets. If they are real thick and have other trees right up to the start of the pines, then you may need to change tactics. Do not hunt the thickets themselves. Hunt the deer highways entering the thickets. Find the most used trails follow them back into the hard woods and set up. Sit back in the woods a few yards off the main trails. Choose a few locations to hunt with wind direction and other prevailent conditions in mind and make shooting lanes for your bow. Ambush them as they come out to feed or heading back to bed. One very good place would be where 2 well used trails merge into one and it then leads into the thicket. Set up with-in shooting range where they merge.

 

[jigman1]

Hunt the edges especially around the hardwoods I've taken several good deer around edges of short and tall pines to. You may have to sit all day but it has always been productive for me. Good luck

 

[turkey killer]

exactly what shark said!!!!