Editor’s Note: Deer sign sometimes lies to hunters. If you could trust all deer sign, you’d bag a buck near every deer sign you find in the woods. But how do you know when deer sign lies, and when it tells the truth? How can you tell if the deer has made the sign during the day or the night, today or three weeks ago? To hunt deer successfully, you must not only find deer sign – you must interpret correctly what that sign tells you.

You’ll find the most-dependable, truthful deer sign in a thick-cover area, where no one hunts. To consistently bag bucks, you must eliminate sign that anyone can locate and read. Spend most of your time searching for sign where no one else will hunt, especially on public-hunting lands. For example, my home state of Alabama has a tremendous-size deer herd and more than two-dozen wildlife management areas. Almost all hunters consider the Black Warrior WMA, located in the northwestern region of the state, by far one of the most-difficult WMAs to hunt due to its steep terrain, dense undergrowth and intense hunting pressure. However, Charles Stewart of Decatur, Alabama, consistently takes nice bucks from this area with both his bow and his gun each season.
“You can find plenty of 130- to 160-point Boone & Crockett (https://www.boone-crockett.org/) bucks on the Black Warrior WMA, a part of the Bankhead National Forest,” Stewart reports. “But to take these bucks, you’ll have to hunt where no one else will. You must look for deer sign in the least-likely places.”

Stewart’s biggest buck he’s ever taken from the Bankhead National Forest scored 161 3/8-B & C points. “I watched that huge buck and another buck I thought was his brother for three years,” Stewart explains. “I found their trails less than 1/2-mile from the biggest campground in the national forest. Because I hunted a spot so close to the campground, other hunters never thought about hunting there. I could hear car doors slam and people talking around their camps while I was in my tree stand. Even though I was hunting in an area extremely close to a lot of people, these two bucks knew where and when they could move without being seen. Each year I would find them going along the same trails they always travelled and feeding in the same areas where they fed each season.”

To learn more about hunting deer, check out John E. Phillips’ book, “How to Hunt Deer Like a Pro,” available in Kindle, print and Audible versions, at (http://amzn.to/YpoQHA). You may have to copy and paste these links into your browser. (When you click on this book, notice on the left where Amazon says you can read 10% of the book for free, and you can hear 10% for free). On the right side of the page and below the offer for a free Audible trial, you can click on Buy the Audible book. To see more of John’s deer-hunting books, visit http://www.amazon.com/author/johnephillips. John and Denise Phillips’ new book, “The Recipes You Can’t Live Without,” that’s full of delicious, time-tested recipes for cooking wild game and fish and also ideas for breakfasts at your hunting club just was published in print this past week. Go to  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MYTMSMH?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860 to learn more.

Tomorrow: Understand Deer Sign Is History