Editor’s Note: If you locate places where no one hunts deer because they believe there are no deer in those areas, you may enjoy your best deer hunting ever.

Strip Mined Sites:

Everyone knows you don’t find deer in abandoned strip-mined areas. Devoid of cover, these regions have little or no natural food to draw deer to them. No one hunts these strip mines because everyone knows no deer live on them. However, during hunting season, oftentimes you’ll find briar patches and brush in the valleys of steep-sloped, abandoned mining areas but probably little food.  However a big buck may hold in a sparse-covered place like this during daylight hours to dodge hunter pressure. To take a buck out of these sites, let one man walk through the valley slowly and quietly, while the other hunter stands at the other end of the valley and watches for the buck to come slipping out.

Also remember that strip miners can’t cut the timber next to a flowing stream or cemeteries on the land they strip. In many rural areas, you’ll find small family cemeteries out in the middle of either a strip-mined area or a clear cut region. These old abandoned cemeteries only may cover less than 1/2-acre but may contain large oak trees. The deer have learned that during the winter they can move into the cemeteries, feed on the acorns under the oaks that have grown up among the tombstones and never have hunters harass them.

Few, if any, hunters will hang a tree stand in the middle of a 1/2-acre cemetery surrounded by a 100-acre clear cut or strip mine. However, the sportsmen who scout these places often will find that big bucks bed and feed among the tombs, and no one ever hunts them there. Also, you’ll usually find gaining permission to hunt an abandoned strip mine or a large clear cut not very difficult.

Generally you can hunt the many weird places and small plots where big bucks hold by simply asking permission. If you discover what problems a landowner has and solve his problems for him, you can ask him if you can hunt his prime, posted, private lands. When you provide a service to him, many times he will extend the hand of friendship to you, which may include the opportunity to hunt his lands. Then you can bag the big bucks no one else can hunt.

To learn more about deer hunting, go to John E. Phillips’ books and learn the tactics small property owners have used successfully by checking out John E. Phillips’s book, “How to Hunt and Take Big Buck Deer on Small Properties” at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OOC2T0Y#, available in Kindle, print and Audible versions. To receive your free book on “How to Make Venison Jerky,” go to https://www.emailmeform.com/builder/form/Ece3UZVcOo52cKPJcL.