Answer:
It is best to be in your stand a good hour and a half before you expect any movement to occur. This will allow you to get settled in and not risk bumping into any deer. This means you need to be out there at least three hours before sunset. Specialized clothing will allow you to stay warm for this length of time. First, pay particular attention to your hands and feet. One of the neatest products for your hands is the Hand Blanket from Ice Breaker. It is a large insulated muff that attaches around your waist and keeps your hands very warm. A good pair of warm pacs are a must.

Understanding Ridges
Ridges are heavily used where ever they exist because they offer excellent visibility and maximum security to bedded deer. Most ridges extend out over a bottom or ravine, and the point where the ridge ends is always a heavily used bedding area.

As you move farther back along the ridge, away from the bedding points and generally toward feeding areas, (oak flats or ridge top crop fields) you’ll find at least one heavy trail on top. It will most often be used by does and fawns, but bucks will also travel here if the hunting pressure is light and the rut is near its peak.

The Wind Will Kill You!
Anytime the wind encounters protected air it will swirl, just like the eddies of current in a trout stream. And like the stream, the swirling gets more violent and unpredictable as the wind speed increases and gusts.

Hollows and draws funnel wind and change its direction. The most severe case occurs when the wind flows 90 degrees to a ravine. Because of the way the wind hits the downwind side of the ravine, and how it swirls over the upwind edge, it will usually be flowing in the opposite direction at the bottom of the ravine. This can be a little unsettling. A more predictable situation occurs when the wind is quartering to the direction of the ravine, or actually blowing in the same direction that the ravine lies. In these cases the wind will be funneled to follow the topography.

To overcome the affects of swirling either hunt near ridge tops where the flow is unbroken and consistent, or sparingly in wide draws where swirling is kept to a minimum. If you take nothing else from this article, remember that getting the wind right is one of the greatest challenges when hunting ridge-country.

On either side of the ridge will be trails about 40 to 50 yards down the hill. These won’t be as heavily used and will often be marked sparingly by a rub line. In order to keep a low profile; bucks are most apt to travel these side hill trails. Look for rub lines as the primary indicators since you may not really find a trail. The travel route on the downwind side of the ridge top is the best choice for buck hunters. Success tends to be best in the morning as deer are heading toward their bedding areas.

Ridge Top Travel Routes

The author took this buck from a stand located along a brushy fence line that crosses an otherwise open ridge top. Bucks use the cover of the fence to cross from the cover on one side of the ridge to the other.

Ridge crossing pattern: When you find a brushy fence line or strip of cover that crosses an open ridge you’ve found the perfect travel route for a buck trying to keep a low profile. Without a doubt, there will be a deer trail (however faint) on each side of the fence or cover. Now follow the structure down the side hill on what would normally be the prevailing downwind side. You should hit the edge of the timber and then the edge trail that runs just inside. All that’s left is to find a tree that allows you to keep all three of these trails within range. Hunt it when the wind is blowing from the ridge out over the side hill.

Upwind stand placement: More than likely you’ll have to set up above the edge trail in order to cover both sides of the ridge crossing funnel. You can get away with this and still not spook deer on the edge trail downwind if you keep your stand high enough (at least 18 feet, more than 20 is better) and keep the stand location within about 15 yards of the downwind trail.

When there’s no crossing: If you can’t find a fence line or an unbroken band of cover that connects both side hills across an open ridge top, look for fingers of timber extending toward each other from opposite sides. Even though they don’t offer complete concealment for a traveling buck, the fingers do hide him for a portion of the crossing. The closer together they come the more they’ll be used.

The best way to access a ridge crossing stand is from below, straight up the hill into the wind. You should be able to get your stand without any deer knowing you are around. And because the wind is coming from the top of the ridge, once you get on stand your scent should stay above any downwind deer for a long ways. Don’t try to access these stands from above because the required wind direction to make the stand effective (from the ridge top toward the stand) will carry your scent to too many deer.

Ditch Crossings
Ditch crossings are my favorite stand location when hunting a new area for the first time. They are very easy to find and hunt requiring little in the way of scouting. Anytime there’s a slope there’s bound to be run- off and erosion. Some of the erosion ditches that cut down the sides of a ridge are so deep and steep that deer moving naturally are very reluctant to cross them. They are much more likely to go around such a ditch, meaning the upper end and the lower end are natural hotspots that nearly every deer using the side hill will pass.

When scouting a side hill, look for deep ditches and follow them until you come to the upper end, usually near the field edge (if the ridge top is wide enough to cultivate). The wind will be most consistent here making it the best place for your stand. Near the bottom, the swirling effect of the wind is too difficult to anticipate for good hunting. You can find these locations on a topo map and often even on an aerial photo.

Hunt the ditch stand only when the wind is blowing toward it from the top of the ridge. Your scent will be carried aloft for a long ways before it’s pulled to ground level below. When approaching or exiting this stand, walk right up the bottom of the ditch. This eliminates any chance that deer will see you, and reduces the risk that they’ll hear you. It’s worth taking the extra time to clear out a path if the bottom of the ditch is choked with deadfalls. I’ve carried a chainsaw into my hunting areas several times during the off-season to clear ditches. It’s hot, miserable work but it makes getting in and out a breeze. And after all, easy access is the very definition of a good stand location, making the effort very worthwhile.

Saddles

Deer are opportunists and will take the path of least resistance any time it doesn’t compromise their security. Saddles offer traveling bucks the perfect place to cross a ridge top. These terrain features reduce the work involved and keep a buck from being sky lined.

In general, set up on the downwind side of the ridge top, within range of the side hill trail that invariably will be located near the downwind edge of the saddle. The wind direction required to hunt the spot will depend upon where the deer are coming from as they converge on the saddle. Likely they will be following the side hill around, giving you an opportunity to set up just below the edge trail near the bottom of the saddle.

Benches Are Tough But Worth The Effort
Benches are the hottest places to hang a stand in ridge- country, but only if the wind will cooperate – which unfortunately, it rarely does. Every bench I’ve ever looked at was torn up with trails and rut sign. It is obvious that these bedding and travel areas serve as major contact points for bucks looking for does, and much of an area’s activity takes place here.

Benches aren’t easy to find. In fact, the majority of those that I hunt are actually old, overgrown logging roads. But regardless of how they were made, swirling winds make all benches tough to hunt. Only those benches located on a side hill facing the wind can be hunted effectively. Benches down in narrow draws won’t work because the wind will swirl too much. The valley has to be sufficiently wide to give the wind a straight shot at the side hill so it will be pushed up the slope in a predictable fashion.

The best way to access a bench is from above. I like to slink down a ditch whenever possible to stay out of sight. A stand near the point where the ditch meets the bench is a good choice because the ditch creates a second travel route by funneling side hill deer travel onto the bench.

On those rare occasions when the conditions allow you to hunt one of these hotspots, plan to stay on stand all day long. You may only get to hunt the stand once or twice per season, but if you don’t mess things up by hunting it at the wrong times, once or twice may be enough.

Hunting rugged terrain can be perplexing but when you keep things simple by focusing on how deer relate to only two terrain features you make the landscape seem a lot friendly and easier to understand.

About the author: Bill Winke is one of the most respected Bowhunting Authors and also runs Midwest Whitetail, an online bowhunting video company. to watch one of his shows on Preseason scouting see below:

These safe areas are called staging areas, and they can often be identified by the concentration of buck sign located in the immediate vicinity, such as rubs, rub lines, large tracks or freshly browsed second growth. A stand of conifers, a wooded ridge, an uncut corn lot or even a small over grown field can all function as a staging area to a time-conscious whitetail buck.

Still-hunters would be wise to mimic a buck under these circumstances, and remain poised but out of sight in their own staging area until it is time to “sneak and peek” along a route a buck might take. Here are a few examples to keep in mind the next time you are afield.

Make sure your staging area is down wind and out of sight of any nearby deer.

The trick is to position yourself in your own staging area near the buck’s bedding grounds well before sunrise. Choose your staging area carefully however. You must be able to reach your “safe area” without crossing any active deer trails or spooking any nearby deer—and you must do so in the dark.

A cluster of rubs near a feeding area is a dead giveaway. Bucks use this section of the woods as a staging area.

My favorite early season staging area however is the down wind edge of a deep woods feeding area, like an abandoned apple orchard or stand of acorn bearing oak trees. Bucks, especially mature bucks, will sometimes sneak in to feed here before sunset if there is plenty of nearby cover.

Plan on waiting patiently just outside the feeding area until 45 minutes or so before dark, and then sneak in yourself to see what’s there. If the orchard or acorn grove is indeed attracting whitetails, even a racked buck can be difficult to spot however. So stop often and scan under the trees, dropping down to your knees if necessary, for a long look-see. Examine the cover carefully for a piece of a deer, like a rear leg or a bobbing set of antlers. Keep your ears open, too. Bucks munching on apples and acorns make a soft but very distinctive noise!

Pre-Rut
It is best to change tactics when scrapes and scrape lines begin appearing in your deer woods. Bucks are more active now during daylight hours making them more vulnerable to a ground attack.

The trick here however is to first determine when the scrape lines are being checked by the buck—early morning or late afternoon—and then be there the very next time you expect the buck to appear.

Generally, scrape lines found near feeding areas are best still-hunted in the morning, and those located near known bedding areas are better left until later in the evening. Nearby rubs, tracks and the direction the forest duff was tossed out of the scrape can confirm your suspicions.

I like to position myself in my own staging area down wind or even cross wind of the scrape line, but in sight of the scrapes. You must see the buck first before he sees you, and the only way you can do that is to always keep the line of scrapes in sight. I will still-hunt the line ever so slowly, taking an hour if need be to check out the line, beginning at first light if it is a “morning” scrape line or just before dark if it is an “evening” scrape line. The plan is to again time your arrival with that of the buck.

Rut
The real fun begins when the rut peaks. This is when bucks are moving about all day long in a never-ending search for a doe in heat. Your best chances of intercepting a buck now are to zero in on the does.

In the morning, position yourself in a safe area adjacent to a feeding area preferred by does before first light, but choose a knoll or high vantage point. This will let you glass the area carefully for bucks as they crisscross the field searching for does.

One morning I watched from a hilltop as a buck worked a green field for does, then disappeared just behind a group of does and fawns along the far side of the field. I could see tails flashing every now and then indicating that buck was probably having a field day with those does, then nothing. Reasoning the buck was cavorting about in a nearby overgrown orchard; ideal for still-hunting I tucked my binoculars inside my jacket, and slipped quietly into the orchard for a quiet look-see. It was very thick, but a half- hour later I caught that same buck bedded down on the far side of the trees, unaware of my presence. That nine-pointer’s rack now hangs proudly in my den.

Conclusions:
As you can see, staging areas allow a bowhunter to keep tabs on his still-hunting route until “prime time”—the time a buck is likely to be positioned somewhere along that route. Only then should you be “sneaking and peeking” along that particular piece of turf. Good Hunting!

Check out this great short clip of some bowhunters stalking (still-hunting) for whitetail deer.:

It is a reality that despite our best intentions and efforts, not every animal we shoot at will be double-lunged and fall within sight. Blood trailing is a part of bowhunting, and with plenty of blood sign to follow, the odds of finding the animal quickly are much improved.
The vast majority of bowhunters pursue whitetails from tree stands. Many of the shots taken this fall will be at ranges of 10 yards, or less from stands 15 feet or more above the ground. Such shots create a sharply downward angle for which an exit hole is critical to the blood trailing process. It takes a hunting outfit set up with penetration in mind to do the job under these conditions.

On a marginal hit the most important thing is penetration. There’s no such thing as too much penetration. I hit a nice eight- pointer a few years back right through the lower part of his shoulder. I wasn’t planning to hit him there, but I did. My arrow not only cut deep enough to punch both lungs, it actually passed all the way through the buck and was laying on the ground on the other side. That’s one trophy that may have gotten away (the trailing process would have been much tougher with a single-lung hit) if I hadn’t been thinking penetration when I put my hunting rig together. I was shooting a heavy draw weight bow and conventional fixed-blade broadheads.

Increase Your Draw Weight

For every pound you increase your draw weight your penetration energy increases by approximately 1 ¾%. You can see that a couple of pounds may not make a big difference, but five pounds, or more, starts to have a significant effect.

Sharply downward shot angles make it more difficult to achieve full penetration unless you select your hunting rig with care. An exit hole under such conditions is important to the quality of your blood trail and the ease of recovery.

Shoot the heaviest draw weight you can handle accurately under all hunting conditions. There are many different standards floating around to help bowhunters determine their maximum accurate draw weight. One says to shoot the highest weight you can draw without having to raise your bow arm above parallel when you yank the string back. Another recommends the maximum you can draw sitting down flat on the floor with your legs out in front of you. I personally believe you shouldn’t shoot a bow that you can’t hold at full draw for at least a minute without shaking. Regardless of how you achieve your maximum draw weight; make sure to get in plenty of practice before and during the season to keep your shooting muscles strong.

Increase Your Arrow Weight

With all the unfounded hype surrounding arrow speed vs. penetration, it’s no surprise that many bowhunters believe dropping their arrow weight by 50 grains to pick up 10 extra feet per second is killing their penetration energy. In truth, a heavy arrow does absorb more of the bow’s energy when you release the string, giving it more in-flight (kinetic) energy, but the differences are much less significant than you may have been led to believe.

Based on efficiency studies performed on various bow styles shooting mid-weight arrows, (450 to 600 grains) a 50 grain reduction or increase in arrow weight results in a corresponding change of roughly 1 to 1 ½% in penetration energy. To pick up any real advantage by increasing arrow weight you would need to bump it up dramatically – to the tune of several hundred grains!

Even though the goal of this article is to look for ways to increase penetration, we shouldn’t overlook the important fact of knowing where not to look for it. Unless you’re already shooting light arrows, (under 450 grains) to give up 10 fps for only a one percent increase in penetration is a mistake.
Tune Your Bow Perfectly

In addition to being more accurate, arrows that fly perfectly penetrate better than those that slash their way to the target. When the arrow hits an animal with all its momentum directed right down the shaft, as it does when flying straight, penetration is maximized. Plus, straight flying arrows carry their speed better down-range, which also improves penetration.

For a quick reference on how to tune your bow, refer to edersbow archives and search under the key word “tuning”. For a comprehensive study on the subject of tuning, request Easton’s Arrow Tuning and Maintenance Guide. (There is a $2.50 charge for this 32 page brochure.)
Experiment With Different Shafts

Several years ago I witnessed testing conducted by AFC Carbon Arrows (before the product line was sold to Game Tracker) in which a couple of interesting outcomes were noted. Carbon arrows and aluminum arrows of exactly the same weight were both tuned and shot from a shooting machine at various distances into a wide variety of materials including sand, ethafoam and even beef livers. In all cases the carbon arrow penetrated more deeply (as much as 25% more) than an aluminum 2312 of the same weight.

How this correlates to performance on live animals is still inconclusive. No one has been able to perfectly duplicate the conditions of actual penetration on game in a controlled test environment. It is logical, however, that smaller diameter shafts would penetrate better than larger diameter shafts in many different mediums due solely to their reduced surface area. I’ll leave it you to arrive at your own conclusions as to whether carbon out-penetrates aluminum in real live game.

For what it’s worth, the test also showed that 40 yards down-range the smaller diameter carbon arrows retained about 1 ½% more of their initial velocity than did larger diameter aluminum arrows of the same weight.
Use The Best Penetrating Broadheads

We can shoot all we want into foam bales and measure how far the broadheads bury, but foam isn’t the same as an animal’s shoulder. Unfortunately, tests using foam and other inanimate materials are all we have to work with, so we have to make the best assumptions we can based on the information available.

All else being equal, broadheads with small cutting diameters penetrate more deeply than heads with large cutting diameters. It is purely a matter of the amount of tissue contacted. Heads having blades with a low angle have the potential to penetrate better than heads with a high blade angle and the same cutting diameter. In most cases, two- bladed heads will penetrate better than three-blade (or more) heads of the same cutting diameter. Under the majority of conditions, mechanical heads don’t penetrate as well as fixed-blade heads. And cut- to-point broadheads have been shown in testing I’ve seen to out- penetrate all other styles.

In other words, if you want a broadhead that promotes better penetration try any combination of the following styles: fixed- blades, fewer blades, cut-to-the-point designs and/or a smaller cutting diameter.

Penetration is an important part of equipment selection, even if all you hunt are whitetails. By doing all the things listed here you’ll greatly increase your penetration on game. An exit hole will be more likely on downward shots from tree stands and your chances for making a clean kill should you hit your buck of a lifetime in the shoulder could not be better.