How To Hunt Deer On Small Properties | Win With Limited Acres

Much of the deer hunting strategy and advice out there is geared toward properties that are 50+ acres. And that is great, but smaller properties require a more nuanced approach, especially when you get down under 10 acres. These small parcels are less forgiving and afford fewer opportunities to attract and hold deer. But the truth is, you can hunt deer effectively on tiny pieces of land, even as small as 1 acre. And this article will help you make the most of those small land opportunities, be them public or private.

This will usually be private land, you almost never see public land areas this small, however you will occasionally find challenging or baren public land that only has a few acres of decent deer habitat in an area. So many of these same tips will help you hunt public land too. If you are new to hunting, then be sure to also check this other article I put together for you as well: How To Start Hunting As An Adult Without Help – Easy 15 Step Guide.

Why Hunt Small Properties?

Years ago I started hunting small properties because that was all I had available to me. There may be 5 acres here or 8 acres there that I could get permission to hunt from friends or family. I had no connections and no success when out on my own trying to get access to 50+ acre areas. Other hunters had those permissions long secured before I came around.

Public land near me proved problematic as the few acres near me were overrun with an endless see pedestrians wearing orange and carrying arms who were calling themselves hunters. My early forays into suburban located public land were both fruitless and dangerous. I have since found many more locations where I could hunt more safely and effectively, but I still mostly hunt small private land properties, though it is for a different reason.

After years of developing strategy, learning the land, improving the habitat, and learning deer patterns, I find unparalleled success hunting on the small properties that I have access to. I have shot 3 nice bucks on my last 3 sits over the last couple seasons. I don’t know anyone in my half of the state who has that kind of an average on any size property, public or private.

But it didn’t start like that, it wasn’t until my third season that I even shot a doe. It would be two more seasons till I finally even saw a legal buck. But once I learned and implemented what I am going to share in this article, things improved quickly and rapidly. In fact, I had 660% more deer activity on one property after just 1 season.  In fact, I did a whole podcast episode just on that: How To Get 660% More Deer On your Property Next Season.

Can Small Properties Be Better Than Big Ones?

The short answer is no. larger properties will generally have more opportunities and potential than smaller ones, as well as more margin for error. You will have to work harder to get comparable results on small pieces of land. And your results will be more impacted by your neighbors. But often you can outdo your neighbors if you work smarter and more strategically.

Your neighbors are not likely going to diligently pursue sound whitetail habitat strategy and will not have the same level of discipline that you can by not over hunting. In fact, you can use your neighbors as a mechanism to push deer on your land. You can become the safe place that the deer run to. But while bigger is generally better when it comes to acres, small properties do provide some advantages you will want to exploit.

Small Property Advantages

Learning Every Inch Of The Land. A benefit of small land is that you can walk, scout, and learn every part of it. And not just learn it once but learn how deer use it year-round. An early season hotspot might be gone by rifle season, and swamp may get no use until late rifle season when the safe places are few. If you can keep an eye on land year-round, you can maximize your hunting potential. 

Fewer Trail Cameras Needed. Many of people with big land need a lot of trail cameras and only have them out for part of the year to minimize wear and tear and battery use. But if you only have two or three cameras on 10 acres, you can save a lot of money and time on camera maintenance and checking. You can then leave your cameras up year-round and learn how deer use the land at all times. Here is a good entry level trail camera that I use.

Mastering The Wind. When your land is small you can become intimately familiar with how the wind effects every stand location, blind, travel or access area. You can know exactly where to hunt during certain winds, and even use the wind to blow your scent off the property and better preserve the little slice of heaven you have to hunt. You can not just learn the wind but master it.

Save Money On Stand Locations. Fewer spots means less investment. Instead of 10 tree stands or ground blinds you may only need two or three. You need each one to count through. And you may opt to build some more permanent structures that require less maintenance after you finish optimizing your land and find the areas that produce the best results. 

7 Things Deer Want

  1. Food – Above all else, deer will come for food. If you have, find, or can add food to your property you can multiply your land’s potential. And it often does not require big food plots, heavy equipment, or major investments. I’ll talk more about this later in the article. 
  2. Cover – Deer must have cover, they will limit their time spent in open areas during daylight, especially as the season wears on. Bucks especially thrive on cover, even when moving. The more cover you have and the longer it lasts through the season, the greater the advantage your parcel can have. 
  3. Bedding Areas – Whitetails must have bedding areas. Does are more tolerant than bucks, and mature bucks are pickier still. But they will want cover, security, and freedom from human scent, sounds, and sights. If you have bedding you will be able to predict daylight movement much better.
  4. Water – Deer usually get most of the moisture they need from their food, but as you get into the rut when deer movement increases and green vegetation becomes scarcer, they will be drawn more and more to water. A stream, pond, or waterhole can be a hotspot for activity at certain times of the year, but only if other sources of water are limited or far away.
  5. Browse – This is a food source, but it is more of a casual food source that deer will munch on around their bedding. This is most often woody shrub tips, briars, and other things they can snack on while waiting for evening to head to their choice feeding areas. If you have browse you can hold more huntable daylight deer. 
  6. Safety – Whitetails gravitate to safety. Sometimes this means areas without traces of humans, other times it means areas they are not being shot at that moment. It will almost always include cover with minimal human intrusion. You can often give deer safety by hunting less than your neighbors and staying off the land during the hunting season except for strategic hunts. 
  7. Travel Corridors – Just like us, deer like to travel the path of least resistance. If you have travel lanes that cut through your property and enable deer to navigate through or around thick areas, elevation changes, impassible areas, fallen trees, etc, then you have a habitat feature that can bring deer to you and funnel their movement. Learn more with this podcast episode: Defining Deer Movement Patterns.

What Kind Of Property Do You Have?

No small properties are going to have all 7 things, in fast most larger ones still do not have all 7 in a meaningful way. But if you have at least one, you can significantly impact deer movement and have a disproportionately high number of deer on your property. If you have 2 or 3 of them, you can do better still.

There are properties that are nothing more than a thin strip of tangled mess between two much larger properties, but they can function as a major travel corridor between the properties. Create a few pinch points and even wasteland can become prime hunting land for when deer cross over. 

If you can identify the type of property you have, and the kinds of attractions there, you can develop a solid whitetail hunting strategy. 

Scouting & Picking Spots

It is much easier to scout fewer acres and find the best spots. But to pick those couple spots you need to identify how deer are u sing your land. They will likely on be on your land at certain times of the day, maybe only during certain parts of the season. More on that later. But to pick a spot you need to scout.

Trail cameras can help a lot after you’ve identified high potential areas. You want to look for significant movement patterns. Not just a few deer tracks here and there, but evidence that deer are frequently in an area. Lots of tracks, droppings, rubs, beds, etc. When you find a high potential area for a stand or blind you should setup a mock scape in the middle of the movement area to help focus the movement and put a trail camera on that spot.

Monitor when and how many deer use the land and use that info to decide if this is a good hunting spot. For more on mock scrapes here is a video: How to Make Mock Scrapes and a podcast episode: When To Setup Mock Scrapes & Trail Cams that I did.

Also consider what the most common wind direction is BEFORE you setup a stand. Ideally you want 2-3 spots on a property that work with different winds. This way you can have at least one spot to hunt no matter what the wind is doing if all other conditions are right. 

How To Sweeten The Land

If you have strong factors that draw deer to your property then perfect. If not, add them. You can add food, water, cover, browse, travel lanes, even safety with relative ease. Bedding areas are not so easy on small parcels, but that is ok. You do not need all 7 draws, just one or more.

The single biggest thing you can do to make a difference is adding food. Cover is second. adding cover can be as simple as taking down some trees so that sunlight can reach the ground and cause growth to spring up. Taking down a few trees and letting some time pass may do the job, and the fallen trees can provide cover in the meantime.

You can also plant switch grass or let parts of fields overgrow. You want cover that does not fall down after the first frost. It should be robust enough to help deer hide through the heart of the hunting season in your area.

I do not view mock scrapes as a way to sweeten a property and attract deer. They work to focus deer movement in an area and help get them where you want for trail cameras and shooting lanes but they are not going to cause deer to go hundreds of yards out of their way. They might go 20 yards out of their way. And that makes them a very handy tool, but the impact is limited. 

Micro Food Plots

If you have a small property then you only have room for small food sources. I am a big fan of micro food plots, maybe 1/2 acre or less. Something very small, even 1/10 of an acre is enough to make a difference. And depending on your area it can be a big difference. 

I often recommend people use white clover because you can plant it easily, without any heavy equipment, and it grows back year after year. So, effort today turns into years of payoff.  Here is a podcast I did focusing in on that specific subject: All About Planting Clover For Deer & Turkey Hunting.

Not everything makes a great micro food plot, and a lot of factors can impact what is best for you. But often clover works really well. Imperial Whitetail Clover is maybe the best clover seed I’ve ever used or heard of, it makes up the majority of what I plant. You do not need much for a microplot, $20 or less is often more than enough.

Planting some fruit trees may also be valuable for your area. Late dropping apples can give you a couple weeks of strong deer draw in areas where competing food plots makes clover or other smaller plantings less impactful.  The bottom line is that it does not take alot to make a meaningful difference. 

The 3 When’s Of Deer Hunting

When is the best time to hunt deer? That is not a hard question to answer but there are several dimensions to it.

Weather. The best weather is immediately following a drop in temperatures. Anything more than about 5 degrees can be helpful, but the bigger the drop, the more the impact. If the morning low is 10 degrees lower tomorrow than its been, that is a great morning to hunt. The reason is that the drop in temperature is refreshing to deer, especially after their coats start to thicken up. They can move around more in daylight without overheating. Here is a short podcast episode with more: The Best Weather Days For Deer Hunting

Time of Day, This changes as the year goes on. In the early season, evenings are generally better. When hot days begin to cool in the evening, deer start to move. In the pre-rut, mornings are generally better because bucks begin to cruise looking for early estrus does. During the rut, all day is a good time to hunt because deer are constantly moving. And in the late season, evenings are usually best because pressured deer often will move little during the day until it starts to get dark, and they go looking for food.

Season. Your property will likely have more deer activity at one point of the season. If you have lots of greenery and soft cover that goes down with the frost, the early season may be better for you. If you have dense hard cover, later in the season may be best as deer have fewer places to hide. You need to find out when your land is at its peak and make sure you focus your time and energy then. I hunt one early season location that is best the first 3-4 weeks of the season. After that, its draw reduces drastically, so I hunt it hard early on and almost always leave with a deer. 

Managing Hunting Pressure

One of the biggest mistakes deer hunters make is overhunting their spots. When you are dealing with smaller properties and fewer spots, this happens much more easily. If you want to have a higher percentage of successful hunts, then you need to hunt less. That sounds like a contradiction but if you hunt a spot more than 2 days in a row, your chances of taking a deer, especially a buck drop dramatically.

Pressure is applied to a property when deer can see, hear, or smell you in a place they do not normally detect people. By a trail they walk, on a food plot, or near a bedding area. Even if you live 200 yards away, they may be perfectly content with moving all around your house, yard and shed. But step 50 yards into the woods and you’ve entered their domain where they do not expect you. Even something that small can impact deer habits. Too much pressure will push deer away from your land or push their activity into the safety of the nighttime.

The best way to manage pressure is leave as little scent behind as possible, use the wind to keep your scent away from deer, and do not be seen or heard in an area. In other words, do not be in the woods near your best hunting spots often.

I never want to hunt the same stand two days in a row. I prefer to not hunt the same location more than once a week in these situations. What will help you doubly here is hunting the weather. If you wait for temperature drops. you will naturally hunt fewer days because only a few days are ideal every couple of weeks. This both gives you the best chance to hunt deer on high movement days, and also helps you keep from burning out your spots on poorer days. For more you should watch my video: Should You Hunt Deer All Day From Dark To Dark? Long vs. Short Hunts.

If you want to hunt more, you need to have more locations. Hunt the weaker locations on the poor weather days and save your prime spots for ideal weather and wind conditions.

How To Ask For Permission To Hunt

People often struggle with getting access to private hunting land. And people with 100-acre farms may get a lot of requests to hunt on their land and just do not want to be asked any more. However, folks with 15 acres may not get many requests at all and may be more approachable to letting someone archery hunt on their land in the early season.

When asking for permissions do not try to ask for lifetime access to a parcel, or even a whole year of access. If you can ask for something smaller, like perhaps a month, you are more likely to gain some consideration. And do not ask empty handed. Offering to pay may or may not be viable for you but offering to help maintain the land is often more valuable to the landowner. See if there is a project you can assist with or do for them. This builds relationships, and relationship can get you more access in the future. 

Then be sure to follow-up by sharing venison, a pie around the holidays, box of donuts in the summer, etc. Build relationship, show you are not a freeloader, and you may end up with a permanent place to hunt and the landowners blessing to plant food or modify the habitat to some degree. 

Conclusions & Recommendations

Having hundreds of acres to hunt deer is nice and a small parcel does start you at a disadvantage, but you can make up much of the difference if you hunt smarter and with more discipline. You can turn a small property into a bustling deer habitat that gives you great levels of success season after season. It will take more strategy, more study, and more planning. But you can actually spend less, hunt less and still have great success if you play the game well. Check out my video on the subject to go even further.

Be sure to listen to The New Hunters Guide Podcast and check us out on YouTube. 

Till next time. God bless you, and go get em in the woods!

George Konetes Ph.D. – Founder and Host of the New Hunters Guide.

The New Hunters Guide is simply what George wishes he would have had when learning how to hunt; a single place to get practical hands on knowledge about different kinds of hunting, gear, strategy, and tips that can improve your comfort and fun factor in the woods.

EP232 How To Hunt Deer In January

When the weather, habitat, and food sources fully shift to their winter phase, your hunting strategies should also shift to give you the best possible chance of success in the deer woods. On this episode I talk about how to hunt deer in January and what is unique about that month in the whitetail season.

January is a unique time of the deer season. Everything is different in how the woods look and feel. The cover is gone, the food is scarce, the days are short, and the air is cold. Deer are very much huntable, but they are not in the same places doing the same things they were during the rut. 

Shorter days means less daylight movement, but the deer are still there. In order to hunt them you must see things through their eyes and understand their core needs, namely food and cover. Finding food sources is more important now than ever and finding food near any kind of cover is like finding gold now that woods are bare and empty.

Deer are also less stressed as the busiest time of the hunting season has passed, however due to how wide open the woods are, spooking deer at this time of the season can send them running far away where they might discover better places to hang out. Stealth is of the essence.

If you are hunting deer in January you must realize that the deer are less forgiving. If you make a mistake or push the deer, those particular deer may not return for days or weeks. The season could be over by the time you get another chance at them. This doesn’t mean other deer may not come around but the bottom line is they are more skittish and have to run further in order to find reasonable cover so that they feel safe again.

So strategy and tacks need to change when hunting this time of the year. However, if you are willing to make a few adjustments and hunt this part of the season for what it is, you can be very successful in the deer woods. For some people, this is their favorite time to be out.

Listen to podcast episode for all the info.

EP231 Break These 5 Top Duck Hunting Bad Habits

Nothing can help you bring home more ducks than setting bad habits right. You cannot spend your way out of bad habits and no amount of gear can compensate for them. On this episode I talk about how to identify and correct some habits that will make you a better duck hunter. 

All you need to do to form a bad hunting habit is nothing. Making bad habits will happen by default, breaking them takes humility and work. But there is no faster way to improve and become a more successful waterfowl hunter and breaking bad habits. 

Some bad habits include:

  1. Not Practicing – Nothing will help you take home more ducks than practicing in the office season and there is no better and more realistic way to practice than by doing a few sporting clays courses. Put some of your gear money into a practice fund.
  2. Not Testing – Every gun, ammo, and choke may produce different and sometimes very different results. If you do not pattern test your gun every time you change something in your setup, you will not know what your performance and limitations are. 
  3. Lack of Stealth – Whether you are in a blind or on foot, stealth is vital to duck hunting. It is too easy to get careless and think you are invincible because you don’t see any ducks. But that doesn’t mean the ducks cannot see you. Do everything you can to minimize movement and keep your volume level low.

Somehow duck hunting feels different than deer or turkey hunting. The practice, sighting in, patterning, etc. that we often put into those pursuits seems specific to them. We often do not think we should apply the same diligence to duck hunting in the off season. But knowing our gear and sharpening our shooting skills matters just as much for duck hunting, possibly even more. This is a bad habit that is somewhat cultural to the sport. People assume they are proficient with their shotgun and ammo just because. 

The reality is that years ago these habits were likely started by people who lived in rural areas and often hunted constantly with their shotgun. They went out after turkeys, doves, pheasants, qual, rabbits, squirrels and more. Then the next day they picked up their shotgun and went out for ducks. That worked a lot better in those kinds of situations where constant shotgun use with the same ammo produced skills that were always honed.

But today things are very different. For those few who do hunt that many things and that often, they are often using different ammunition, required by law, and thus are not as proficient with it as they might like to think. Waterfowl ammo can behave very differently. Then there are the rest of hunters who rarely pick up a shotgun and just grossly overestimate their abilities. 

Listen to the episode to hear more about these and other bad habits.  Here also is a video I did on the top thing you can buy to enable you to shoot more ducks. 

How To Hunt Turkeys On Small Properties | Winning With Limited Acres

Everyone wants to hunt turkeys on endless thousands of acres of unpressured land, but the reality is often far from that. Some people only have access to small properties, sometimes just a few acres. Can you really hunt turkeys on small parcels and find success? The short answer is of course. But you cannot hunt those small properties the same way that you hunt large properties, you need specific strategies and tactics for small land.

There are two main approachs that I am going to cover in this article for hunting gobblers on small properties. The first is your traditional scout and hunt, just like you might do on public land, but with limited space. The second assumes you can enhance the property to draw more turkeys and make the most of a tiny parcel. If you are looking for information on how to start hunting turkeys, check out this article I wrote: How To Hunt Spring Turkeys – A Practical Beginners Guide.

How Small Can A Property Be To Hunt Turkeys?

You can hunt turkeys on properties as small as one acre. It’s not easy, but you can do it. And since you don’t have to track a turkey after a good hit, you can shoot and recover it in a very small area. I consider a property small if it is between 1-40 acres. At that size you are unable to run and gun much, you likely have limited locations you can setup, and your ability to move and use terrain to your advantage is going to be limited. So, most of these tips are going to be aimed at properties in that size range. Want more info on this subject on the go? Download my podcast episode: How to Hunt Turkey’s on Small Properties. 

First Thing – Are There Turkeys?

Whether you have 1 acre to hunt or 1,000 acres, there is a common truth. There must be turkeys there if you are going to successfully hunt them. The advantage of larger properties is there are higher odds that they will hold turkeys, but you still need to find them. Small properties have their own kind of advantage and that is you can more easily scout a small area and look for turkey sign.

You need to scout. Not just to find out if turkeys are on the property you plan to hunt but to figure out how they are using that property and when. The four best ways to do this are by walking around stealthily before the season and looking for tracks, droppings, scratches, features, etc. The second is with binoculars from a distance and the third is by using trail cameras. Number four might cost you some sleep, but if you get out there before dawn and listen for gobbling you can learn ALOT.

If you can find the birds you can hunt them. Things are not necessarily over if you do not have turkeys actively on your property. The beauty of turkey hunting is you can call birds in from other places. But that is harder to do and it is hard to scout those other places if you do not have permission to hunt there. Your ears and binoculars are going to be the tools available to you. For more, check my podcast episode: How To Find A Great Turkey Hunting Spot.

Seasonal Turkey Occupancy

People have a notion that turkeys in the winter means turkeys in the spring, or turkeys in the fall means the birds will be there when the weather warms back up. In truth, today’s turkey behavior may give no useful indication about where they will be a couple months from now. The reason is that turkeys move, they cover ground, they look for what they need right now.

Turkey’s need different habitat at different times of the year. However, spring turkey locations this spring may be telling of where the birds will be next spring. If a property has good spring habitat, then it will likely be a place that is pleasing to turkeys every spring. Nothing is guaranteed but turkeys do tend to frequent old stomping grounds.  The same is true for other seasons, this year’s fall hotspot will likely be hot next fall too, but they may be nowhere near that area come spring.

So while I am scouting for turkey’s year-round, whenever I am in the woods, I know where I find them today may not help me find them in the spring. But the time I invest scouting around the spring season can pay dividends for future spring hunting seasons.

But I never Did It Like That Before…

If you do not have many acres to hunt, you may not be able to hunt the way you would prefer to. If you do not have big trees you may not be able to hunt sitting up against a tree like many turkey hunters. You will have to explore other ways to hunt that area. Bushes, blinds, and ground cover may need utilized. Terrain features, self-standing turkey chairs, or even pop-up blinds might be what you need.

If you cannot hunt the part of the property that is most likely to hold turkeys because it is not wooded, you do not have the luxury of just going somewhere else, you have to improvise. Keep in mind, the goal is to take turkey’s not to hunt your traditional way, or the way people do it on TV. Think outside the box, look for ways to use the land, the shadows, the elevation changes, anything you can to get a chance at a gobbler.

Learn Your Limits & How To Cheat Them

Property boarders are the arch nemesis of small parcel turkey hunters. Beautiful land divided up by invisible lines that dictate where you can and cannot go.  People often setup so that for a turkey to come into shotgun range, it will have to cross onto the land they are allowed to hunt. They setup markers, mental notes, etc, and this is good, you MUST know the boundaries. But there are ways to cheat.

Sometimes being 60 yards back from the property line is too far back to finish the deal. Keep in mind you can move right up to the property line to call, you even go side to side along the border and then retreat back deeper into the property if you can get a bird’s interest. You can also call and then move along the border quietly and setup with your shotgun aiming parallel to the property line, ready to take a shot from the side as soon as a big tom walks on your property. Think in three dimensions and with some fluidity and you can expand your options. A good hunting map app like OnX Hunt or HuntWise can be very handy for knowing exactly where you can and cannot hunt, here is a written review where I compared both.

The Strategic Sit

The most commonly used turkey hunting method on little properties is the strategic sit. This involves scouting and working to learn the best place for turkeys to be on your property, the best place you can hide to hunt that place, and then sitting in ambush. You will call, but not likely move much or at all. This can feel more like deer hunting than turkey hunting, but it gets the job done. And truth be told, many turkey hunters prefer to hunt like this.

The strategic sit hinges on strategy. Picking the best spot and hunting it the best way possible. Your options are limited so long stealthy hunts are going to give you the best odds. But to power through those long hunts, you must have the concrete facts that only scouting can produce; that there are turkeys in the area. Whether you hear them or not. If the results of your scouting are poor then your motivation will be poor too. Good scouting produces good strategy, and strong drive to stick to the plan because you know you have a real chance to succeed. People often ask about decoy use. There is a time for decoys but often I think they can be a hindrance. For more, here is an article I did: How To Hunt Turkeys Without Decoys & Be Even More Successful.

It Almost Feels Like Cheating

Some people lament the use of a ground blind or pop-up blind for turkey hunting. I used to be one of them. But I became acquainted with the tool while hunting a very small property. I have since come to adore ground blinds for this kind of hunting because of the many advantages. Yes, I would rather be covering ground, going toe to toe to gobblers, using the terrain and everything I can to bag one. But if I am hunting a small property, the ground blind provides unparalleled concealment, comfort, and a different but fun way to hunt.

I like to use mesh on the windows of my ground blinds which offers even more concealment. I have found myself surrounded by turkeys when in a ground blind, birds within a few feet of me. The rush, the thrill, the learning, are very intense. I never get that close when sitting against a tree, at least not for long. But I’ve sat in the middle of feeding and dusting hens for half an hour, not moving a muscle, trying not to breath at all, not even wanted to blink so I do not spook them, while waiting for gobblers to appear.

I think the ground blind is a great tool, and it provides fun and excitement of a different kind than more active styles of turkey hunting. The beauty is we can have it all. You can travel to public land and cover miles, and you can sit in a blind on private land and not move a muscle while the birds come to you. We don’t have to pick; we can do both. For the last few seasons, I’ve been using a very large Barronett Ground Blind. This works good because I can easily fit two large adults with gear in it and it is very sturdy, the most durable blind I’ve yet to use. Blinds are always smaller than they sound, take the number of adults a blind is rated to fit and subtract one to get a more realistic estimate. 

The Wandering Gobbler

Sometimes you will hear gobblers at first light near or on your small property. Other times you will hear nothing at dawn but the birds may make their way to your location after a few hours. Sometimes there are no regular birds on or near your property that you can call in. But there is always hope. There is the wandering gobbler.

Gobblers pretty much never stop moving during the morning, they are always on the go, looking for hens, food, and more hens, sometimes they will wander outside of their regular patterns, even going miles in a day. These birds can come within ear shot of you, hear your occasional calling and come in for a visit. They may or may not gobble. They can come out of nowhere and are unpredictable. But they provide hope for all turkey hunters who cannot move to another spot. They also give a reason to continue calling from time to time, even when you do not hear a response. For more, here is a podcast episode I did on How To Hunt Silent Turkeys.

The Circuit

Just because you have a small property does not mean you cannot move. If you have at least a few acres you can establish some kind of circuit that you can walk from place to place or from property corner to corner and call for turkeys if there is no early gobbling or activity. This is in some ways similar to running and gunning but your goal is to reach out beyond the borders of your property as far as you can to draw birds in closer.

You will want to find or prepare travel routes that should let you move around the property quietly and behind cover. You will also want to identify good cover at each point you intend to stop, and call from incase a gobbler responds and begins to come in. The good news is that you can learn your land exceptionally well when you do not have much of it. You can learn every tree, every hill, every bush. You can get to a point where you walk your circle on autopilot with great stealth.

Does Moving Help?

Does moving around on a property really improve your odds of success? It depends. On 3 acres, probably not. moving around is likely a liability as you may spoke the birds you are hoping to attract. If you have 40 acres however, you may have several distinct spots you can stop and hunt and be able to locate gobblers that may have been out of call range from your home base spot. You may have birds on the property that you can move closer to or try to get in front of. Your options increase a lot when you have a few more acres.

I have walked a circle around a 12-acre property, calling at maybe 4 or 5 distinct locations only to sit down at my last point on the circuit and see a turkey within minutes that was excited by what it thought was a hen, making its way across the property. You do not want to move very fast when doing this, try to stay at turkey speed. You want to play the part; this kind of movement can do multiple things to get birds engaged. Check out this video I did for even more strategies to hunt small properties.

Ammo And Chokes For Small Properties

Typically, on a small property, you are not going to be able to take long range shots. You also want to keep the turkey and your shotgun pellets on the property you are permitted to hunt. So, you tend to take shorter shots, or as I call them, normal shots. Usually, you are shooting at turkeys at an average of 30 yards or so. To do this, I am going to prefer smaller pellets and milder turkey chokes. Maybe that is #6 lead or #9 TSS with your standard XX Full choke. I normally use Winchester Long Beard XR or BOSS Tom TSS, I did these full reviews on each.

You do not need ultra-tight chokes because the pattern can be too tight at close range, and you can miss. I like smaller pellets because you then have more of them and better odds of a quick humane finish. ALWAYS pattern your shotgun in advance and choose a load and choke that will let you effectively hunt the ranges your property affords you. The gold standard is to get 100+ pellets in a 10″ circle at the range you plan to hunt. If you can do that, your ammo and choke are perfect. And keep in mind, within 30 yards, nothing can kill a turkey any deader than cheap #7.5 target loads. You only need “turkey ammunition” for longer ranges. 

Improving Properties

If you own the property or have permission to improve the habitat, there is a lot you can do for minimal cost to make a small property more desirable to a turkey. You can both draw more turkeys and hold more birds throughout the season. It may take some work though.

In a given day, turkeys are going to want roosting trees, cover, open areas, dusting areas, strut zones, food, and water. The smaller the property, the fewer of these things you will be able to provide. But the more of them you do provide, the more draw your land can have for gobblers.

How To Improve Your Turkey Habitat

Roosting trees are either there or not. There is no short-term fix here. All you can do is seek to draw them to your large trees with the hopes of getting them to roost close by if possible. Cover and open areas can be facilitated. Turkeys like brush to hide and escape and open areas to feed and be able to see predators from afar. If you have lots of thick brush, then clearing some of it can help improve the draw.

If you have lots of woods, then taking down a half-acre of canopy can enable you to create a small patch of grass on one side with regeneration and cover on the other. Dusting areas and strut zones are harder to fabricate but they are often found in flat dry open areas with low vegetation. Toms want to be seen strutting, and good dust is often found in areas with bare sunbaked dirt. Create those and you give turkey’s more of what they like.

Water provides some benefit but only if there are no other easily accessed water sources within about a half mile. A stream, spring, creek, or even just a few puddles is all turkeys need, normally they only take one short drink per day, depending on their diet.  Food on the other hand is maybe the single biggest thing you can do to attract turkeys.

Food Plots & Clover For Turkeys

There are many things you can plant as food for turkeys that will drawn them to your property, but there is only one that I recommend as a starting point for new hunters and that is white clover. Clover is easy to plant, and you do not need any heavy equipment. All you need to do is create bare dirt. This can be done with a lot of determination and a weed eater with a big pack of heavy line. It can also be done chemically with Roundup and similar products, a few applications in the spring and summer can create a perfect place to plant for the fall.

You do not need to plant acres and acres of clover, in fact just a 1/4 of an acre can make a big difference. For the last few years I’ve been using Imperial Whitetail Clover, which I think may be the best seed out there, and for a small food plot it can be very inexpensive. Even just 1/10 of an acre can help.  For a micro plot like that, you’ll need $10 of clover seed and $20 of pelletized lime. 

The best part about clover is it grows back every year and provides high protein forage during the spring turkey season. It also works great as a grass that attracts bugs for turkeys to eat, and it is fairly low in the spring, giving the birds a nice open area. So you get multiple benefits. Deer like it a lot as well. For more, listen to my podcast episode: Turkey Hunting Food Plot Basics.

Conclusion & Recommendations

A small property can be a great place to hunt turkey’s, especially if you are able to add some food and improve the habitat. Even a micro property can be a place you can take turkeys. The most important thing you can do is keep your mind open, think outside the box, and think beyond the season. You need to do everything possible to stack the deck in your favor. And that means scouting, strategy, and habitat improvements. 

I have taken lots of turkeys on smaller pieces of land and I have come to really enjoy this style of turkey hunting. In fact, I now enjoy it just as much as I do hunting big public land. Each is fun and has its own pros and cons. I hope this article equips you to make the most of the opportunities you have available and have the most possible fun hunting turkeys!

Be sure to listen to The New Hunters Guide Podcast and check us out on YouTube. 

Till next time. God bless you, and go get em in the woods!

George Konetes Ph.D. – Founder and Host of the New Hunters Guide.

The New Hunters Guide is simply what George wishes he would have had when learning how to hunt; a single place to get practical hands on knowledge about different kinds of hunting, gear, strategy, and tips that can improve your comfort and fun factor in the woods.

EP230 How To Get 3 Ducks Hunts Into 1 Day

If you have a whole day to hunt ducks, why only hunt them in the morning? The truth is you can cram three unique duck hunts into a single day if you live in the right area. On this episode I talk about how to do everything possible to take home a limit of ducks over the course of a day.

The morning hunt is the traditional one that most people identify with, sitting in a blind with decoys out in front and calling birds in. This is a great way to hunt, and effective in many places if you’ve done your scouting. But it is far from the only way. This is likely the best way to start the day though. Get out early and try to bring home a limit of ducks early. 

The mid-day hunt takes on a different form. Once you have packed things up and gotten something to eat, you can run and gun, cover ground, and work to sneak up on birds on ponds, streams, and other bodies of water. This can be just as effective if you know the water in your area and have put together a good circuit.

The evening hunt is your last chance but it provides a good chance to get it done. The premise here is you have a whole day to hunt and do not want to go home empty handed or shorthanded. Hunting at the end of the day can be just as productive as any other time.

Listen to the episode to hear about all 3 hunting strategies for an all-day hunt. 

Sitka Fanatic GORE-TEX Wind Stopper Beanie Review

Disclaimer: I bought this beanie with my own money a few seasons ago, I have since become a member of SITKA Gear’s industry professionals’ program which provides me with discounts to purchase their gear and I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases using links in this article, thanks to them for their support. 

I landed on the Sitka Fanatic Wind Stopper Beanie when I was looking for the warmest piece of hunting headwear on the market. I wanted something warm, windproof, waterproof, quiet, and with one other prized feature I’ll mention later. At the time, this was Sitka’s highest-level beanie, and no other company I could find produced something in the same class. It is unique in that it is a very quiet GORE-TEX beanie. Those qualities do not typically go together.  However, it is not as water resistant as most GORE-TEXT hats, so there is a tradeoff.

My main intention for the beanie was whitetail deer hunting, but I have probably worn it waterfowl hunting even more. This is a very nice hunting hat, about as nice as they come. Sitka now makes a few other equally rated beanies for various pursuits, but nothing has replaced the Fanatic WS Beanie for deer hunting. I wanted to give you more than just my opinions as well, so I did an experimental test using this beanie and others and included the data in this review.

Review Context

This is a real review after hunting with this beanie for a few seasons. These are not just my topline thoughts after unboxing it, doing a video and returning it without ever taking it into the field like so many reviewers do. I am going to give you the nitty gritty, the good and the bad. Some might think I am splitting hairs, but those thinking about spending $90 on a beanie should split every hair they can. That is a lot of money for a hat.

Is the Sitka Fanatic Wind Stopper Beanie perfect? No, it certainly is not. Is it the best hunting beanie out there? For some hunters it will be, for others it is worth having in their toolbox, and for some they will want to explore other options. When doing my own research, I found a lot of reviews that basically just said this beanie is warm and windproof. This thing better be warm and windproof, that is in the name of the product after all. I wanted more information than that and you should to, so here you go.

Features

I couldn’t bring myself to just copy and paste all of the features from the product description, the marketing is just over the top. So here is a more realistic features list. Obviously, this review is not sponsored. I like the hat, but I’m not going to hype it up.

  • The beanie has a high loft Berber polyester fleece face and fleece lining which makes it soft and quiet inside and outside.
  • It has GORE-TEX Infinium Wind stopper fabric which they say is 100% windproof to keep the wind out and your body heat in. (And it is windproof, so long as the hat isn’t too large to create gaps)
  • There is a DWR Finish (Durable Water Repellant) that resists light precipitation and prevents the face fabric from wetting out. More on this later.
  • There is a 4-way stretch ear band that fits the shape of your head with ear ports, so your hearing isn’t compromised (much).
  • Primaloft Silver Insulation adds the warmth of down but also keeps you warm even if it gets wet. If you are unsure about what makes Primaloft desirable, I did a whole podcast episode talking about this and other insulations titled: Making Sense Of Insulation For Hunting Gear.
  • It has Sitka’s Optifade Elevated II camo pattern which is designed for close range whitetail deer archery hunting from a tree stand in the late season. It works good for other things too though. More on that later as well.
  • Full size design the completely covers your ears and top part of your neck.

My #1 Favorite Feature

Now on to my absolute favorite feature that sealed the deal for me with Sitka Fanatic Beanie. It comes in medium/large or large/XL and the bigger of the two sizes gives me plenty of room to wear something UNDER it. Why would you want to wear something under such a warm beanie? Because at -10 degrees Fahrenheit no beanie is enough and even in milder temperatures, I want to wear a facemask. I most often turn to my First Lite Tundra Balaclava, which is the single best piece of head warming gear I have ever found, I did a full YouTube review on it as well. Or you might opt for something a little lighter like the First Lite Furnace 350 merino wool beanie which is essentially a base layer for your head. 

Adding some merino wool under the Fanatic Beanie is a great thing to do. In any event, I want something that covers my face and neck when it’s really cold. So, if it is cold enough to wear the Sitka Fanatic Beanie, I am going to wear something under it almost every time. The biggest issue I’ve found with the other super cold beanies on the market is they just are not big enough to comfortably fit something sizable underneath them. Which to me defeats the purpose.

You should expect any company’s coldest weather beanie to have enough room under it to wear it with a facemask. Sitka got it right. This is huge and it makes this beanie compatible with huge variety of other options to enable you to hunt just about any conditions you could imagine. 

Pros & Cons

You are going to see something here you do not often see, more cons listed than pros. I already said before that I am splitting hairs here. They need split and this is the place to do it. The pros outweigh the cons by a wide margin. But I want to mention all of the cons, small as they may be, because people need to know so they can make informed decisions. I am in favor of this hat, the pros are obvious, but for some reason many reviews pretend there are no cons, so I’ve given them more space here.

Pros

  1. This beanie is very warm. The fleece itself is warm and the Primaloft Insulation takes it up a notch higher still. This is part of what sets this beanie apart from the rest of its competitors.
  2. This thing is windproof, which for me is a nonnegotiable for late season hunts. It doesn’t matter what it is made of, if the wind blows right through it.
  3. It does a good job keeping you dry both from precipitation and perspiration. I have worn it in pouring rain and done just fine.
  4. The camo pattern is good, though I don’t think it can live up to the marketing hype.

Cons

  1. I wish it had a brim, you do not realize how much that helps keep the sun out of your eyes, even on cloudy days. Though you could wear a ball cap underneath to give you a brim, if you are into that.
  2. The cost is high, more than almost every other beanie made by every other company. You do get more features than any other beanie though, but you pay for them.
  3. The beanie is so large and thick that depending on how you wear it, it can cut into the edges of your field of view. It’s part of the price you pay for a super thick cold weather hat.
  4. It is water resistant, but it is not entirely waterproof. Yes, it has a GORE-TEX layer that will keep rain from reaching your head, but it has a fleece exterior which eventually will become waterlogged, heavy, and no longer help to insulate you. This has not yet caused me a significant problem, but I assume their thought process is that this is for days colder than 32 degrees when you have snow instead of rain. It works perfect then. But I also wear it hunting in the rain and it does the job but that isn’t exactly what it was built for.
  5. I just have to call it like it is, this thing looks goofy on your head.  It is just not the most stylish piece of hunting headwear. And that is ok. It is a big bulky hat that is bent on performance at all costs.

Test Results

After I got this beanie, I decided I really wanted to know if the price I paid was worth it. So, I decided to do some real testing and see if I could generate some data. So, I ran an experiment and pit this beanie against everything else I could get my hands on. For the test, I filled several disposable coffee cups with boiling water and then put the beanies over top of them outside on a freezing day. Every 10 minutes I came back to measure the temperatures to see which beanie kept the water the warmest. I then graphed the trend lines to see how the beanies compared over time and which was the winner. 

I will put the video below so you can see the whole experiment, but let’s just say if the Sitka Fanatic Beanie did not perform well, I wouldn’t be writing this review, nor would I still be using the beanie. 

Ideal Uses

The Sitka Fanatic Beanie was designed for winter deer hunting, especially from a tree stand at close range. The camouflage, the features, everything was designed for that particular purpose. It helps you blend into barren trees and skyline. However, it works great for many more types of hunting as well. And if you are going to spend this much on a beanie, you will likely want to get more use out of it. Obviously, anything you would hunt from a tree stand in the late season is going to be a perfect fit. But you can wear this beanie on the ground too.

I have found it works great for duck and goose hunting. As I mentioned, it is better in the snow than the rain, but it does the job. When it’s really cold in the late season this thing blends into the frozen vegetation just great.

This hat is perfect for hunting predators in the winter, especially at night when its fridged and the wind is brutal. It gives you just about everything you could want for those scenarios. 

It is likely more than you need for active hunting like pheasants, grouse, small game, etc. You probably want something lighter and cooler if you are walking all day, so your hat doesn’t get soaked in sweat. Yes, this beanie is breathable and will dry, but it can only dry so fast and if you just keep sweating you will always be wet. 

The Cheapest Place To Buy

So what is the cheapest place to buy the Sitka Fanatic Wind Stopper Beanie?  Well, I have done a bunch of research on this, and my conclusion is that it is not about where you buy but when you buy. Everyone pretty much has the same price all the time. But every so often this beanie goes on sale. I have seen it listed for as much as 20% off. 

A couple times per year Sitka runs or allows sales, and those sales are usually across many or most retailers. So, when it’s on sale, it is on sale pretty much everywhere. I recommend trying the beanie on in a store to get the size and fit you like, and then wait until it’s on sale and then order it from the retailer that gives you the best shipping, points, and return policy. For me that is usually Amazon, unless I could catch it on sale in person in a store. But you do you.

Summary & Recommendations

So, what is the final analysis? I think this a great beanie. The Sitka Fanatic Beanie does almost everything I want it to do, more than any other beanie I know of right now. It might or might not be the best artic level hunting beanie for you, but hopefully I gave you enough information so you can tell if it’s a good option for your hunting style and needs.

If you want to pair this beanie with some other good options, I have done similar reviews for the Cabela’s MT050 Whitetail Extreme Bibs & Parka and the First Lite Furnace 350 Merino Base Layers. I have been using these as part of my super cold weather gear system and they work really well. If it’s not apparent, I only do reviews on gear I really like, it is not worth my time to write or do videos about stuff I don’t feel strongly about. So, if you see something I’ve done a review on, you can be pretty sure it’s a quality piece of equipment that has found a place in my setup. 

Be sure to listen to The New Hunters Guide Podcast and check us out on YouTube. 

Till next time. God bless you, and go get em in the woods!

George Konetes Ph.D. – Founder and Host of the New Hunters Guide.

The New Hunters Guide is simply what George wishes he would have had when learning how to hunt; a single place to get practical hands on knowledge about different kinds of hunting, gear, strategy, and tips that can improve your comfort and fun factor in the woods.

EP229 Trophy Hunter vs. Butcher On How Long To Wait To Recover Deer

If you ask a trophy hunter and a butcher how long you should wait to recover a shot deer, you may get different answers. Each has different goals, and there are pros and cons to the advice of each. But you need to be aware of both sides to help determine what is best for you.

Here is the episode of mentioned about how to track a wounded deer.

Trophy Hunter. You’ve seen them on TV, YouTube or elsewhere; professional hunters who shoot truckloads of bucks every year. They have a very admirable quantity; they want to recover the deer at all costs. It is a good philosophy, one that many hunters need more of. But the big question is what do they define as recovering the deer? Recovering the antlers at all costs is one thing, recovering the meat is not the same thing.

Butcher. The deer processers and professional butchers are not often on TV, few people ask for their advice, and few people even think about what they have to say. Butchers do their job after the deer is recovered and professional hunters are recovering the deer so why talk to the butcher about it? The answer is obvious, the butcher will handle and process more deer than the professional trophy hunter ever will. No one cares more about the meat than the butcher and no one has more to say about when you should recover a deer than a good butcher.

Listen to this episode as I share insights I have gained after hearing from several professional butchers who are also hunters.

 

 

EP228 How To Hunt Deer In December

December can be one of the hardest months to hunt deer, but if you know how to leverage the unique elements of this phase of the season to your advantage, you can be very productive! On this episode I talk about what you need to know to have success hunting deer in December. 

Come December and the rut is over, bucks are worn out from the rut and spend most of the daylight hours bedded down resting and eating. Does find themselves scrambling to put on pounds for the winter. Deer are behaving differently and are harder to hunt. If that were not enough, many states place their firearms deer season at around this time frame putting tremendous hunting pressure on these deer.

Cover is also changing and as grass dies and leaves fall, the places deer can hide well become more and more scarce. Couple that with shorter and shorter days and deer can much more readily wait out the shorter daytime in order to move and feed at night. They become food focused and cover obsessed. By the second or third day of the hunting season, the entire deer herd can seem like it has become nocturnal. 

This is the most difficult time of the year to hunt whitetails. But hope is not lost. If you know what to do and how to hunt you can still find success and maximize the time you spend in the woods to get the best odds for your hours.

The trick is to know when and where to hunt. Because going to an October or November spot or hunting at September hours will not produce results as well in December. Deer can become like a different animal at this point in the season, some of it is natures timing and some is the result human pressure and influence. 

Listen to the podcast episode to get the tactics and strategy you need to make the most of December hunts.

EP227 7 Tips For Jump Hunting Ducks

Jump hunting ducks can be tons of fun, inexpensive, and a great way to use the middle of the day to bring home some birds. On this episode I share 7 keys for being more successful hunting ducks on foot. 

Jump hunting is the practice of trying to sneak up on ducks to get “the jump” on them. It involves stealth with the intent to get into position and then ambush birds on the water or flush them and to shoot them out of the air. 

Hunting ducks on foot dates back to the dawn of duck hunting. It is both challenging and effective and enables you to bring home ducks while requiring only minimal gear and time spent scouting. 

Your goal is to get as close to the birds as possible before taking a shot, within 30 yards is the target. It is easy to underestimate the distance, in fact most people do. So, you must get closer than what seems necessary, especially since birds will instantly flush and move further away from you the moment you are detected.

Using terrain to close that distance is key, this will help you avoid being seen or heard by the ducks. Another key factor is wind. Wind creates noise and motion in the woods, masking you approach. Then if you move when the wind blows you can become nearly invisible. 

When shooting at birds on the water you want a long-range range setup, ideally with a very tight choke tube and denser than steel shot. I like to use an extra full choke with bismuth shells. Steel can work just great at short to medium range but it loses a lot of power at long range. Bismuth retains energy further out enabling you to hit harder at range. 

Similar to turkey hunting, your goal is to hit the ducks in the head and neck so you want a very tight pattern with a lot of pellets. Bismuth #4 shot is ideal. HEVI XII in #6 works even better but is much more expensive. Consider carrying a handful of high-grade shells and a tighter choke just for these kinds of hunts.

Note, you do not want to use actual turkey loads and chokes because then you will not be able to shoot birds when they flush. But that kind of setup can work ok shooting geese on the water or the ground due to their long neck.

Listen to the podcast episode for all of the tips.

 

onX Hunt vs. HuntWise Review | Which Hunting Map App Is The Best

Hunting map apps have made things drastically easier for new hunters and all hunters really. Being able to clearly see where public land is, where each parcel border is, and who owns private property is incredibly helpful for scouting, hunting, and tracking game. And the top two apps in the space are onX Hunt and HuntWise.  So which one is the best?

That question is not easily answered. The two apps have a lot in common, but they have a lot that is unique as well. Each offers different features and different price points, I have used both for a couple years hunting deer, waterfowl, turkey, pheasants, crows, predators, and more. In this review, I will give you the strengths and weaknesses for each app to help you decide which is best for you. This review is NOT sponsored, and I have no relationship with either company. These are my unbiased observations from years of use. 

If you are new to hunting, I did another article that could also help you get going: How To Start Hunting As An Adult Without Help – Easy 15 Step Guide

onX Hunt Overview

The first major hunting app to gain market share seems to have been onX Hunt, one of the variants of onX Maps, a company that flavors their mapping engine around a variety of pursuits. I have been a paying customer of onX Hunt for around 5 years at this point. They are one of the only apps that I pay for.

The big focus of onX Hunt is their mapping. They are all about creating the best, easiest, most intuitive map experience with numerous options just beneath the surface that do not clutter or confuse the user. They have all of the standard info like property boarders, who owns the land, how much land there is, what game management unit it is, and lots of other info. In fact, they invented what the standard info is.

There are lots of other features packed in to onX Hunt like weather, wind direction, crop info, tree types, access routes, and dozens and dozens of map options, overlays, 3d maps, and location specific data points. You can go as deep as you want, or if you are like me, keep it nice and simple. There are extra tools to mark hunting spots, make notes, measure areas, and my favorite, a line distance tool to help you estimate distances. And much more. 

HuntWise Overview

HuntWise is a bit late to the party and has been trying to encroach upon onX’s market share. However, HuntWise did come to play. They have many of the standard features you will find with onX but they double down in one big specific area and that is weather and their feature called HuntCast.

HuntCast is their way of forecasting the best hunting days and times of day based upon the weather, time of year, breeding info, migrations, and various other factors for most types of game. I’ll talk more about this later. But if there is one big thing that sets HuntWise apart, this is it. And it is significant. They are trying to help you find the best day(s) of the year to hunt deer. I also did a podcast on this subject that can help you for free: The Best Day Of The Year For Deer Hunting?

There are also some other unique features like gear deals and a bit of a social network type environment for those interested in such things.  Their mapping engine looks and feels a little different, but it does many of the same things at a surface level. Overall HuntWise is a very robust app. 

How To Compare Both Apps

It is worth noting that neither app has a good concise comprehensive list of features, the list would be too long and too painful to read let alone try and compare with other apps. I hope to give you the specific details you need by synthesizing my actual use of these apps as I compare them section by section.

I am going to spare you the painfully intricate details of each app’s minute details and give you my general feedback instead. If you want to look through the magnifying glass at every option and feature, your best bet is to get a free trial of each app and run them side-by-side to see not just what they can do but how easy and intuitively each app can do it. But trying to do all of that in a review would be too tedious for me and for you.

For the sake of brevity, I am going to be very frank, but fair. Some of this is subjective and amounts to my own opinion after using the same tools in both apps. 

Maps & Layers

First and foremost, the mapping features for both apps are excellent and will do all that most people need and want. The biggest thing they do is help you find public land to hunt. Below is a video I did on the subject to help you beyond just a mapping app.

Is one better? I would say that onX Hunt does have slightly better mapping capabilities. It is not so much that their maps are better but that their mapping interface is more intuitive and less glitchy. I can find places and do what I need to do easer with onX Hunt than with HuntWise. Also, onX Hunt seems to work better on phones that are older or with slower processors.

Property Boarders & Info

Again, both apps are great and give you everything you need. Both show you where property boarders are, how much land there is, public or private land, who owns it, what wildlife management unit, ect.  This matters a lot when hunting near property boarders or on small parcels. Hunting on small properties has become a hot topic, here is a podcast episode I did that goes more in depth: How To Hunt Deer On Small Properties.

onX Hunt seems to have more consistent and reliable data but HuntWise sometimes has more data. So, it is a tradeoff. Is one really better than the other? I am going to say it is an even draw for this one.

Weather & Wind

Both apps provide current wind and weather data, as well as forecasted data for any parcel you want to look at.  They give you the ability to visually see the direction the wind is blowing and with what level intensity. HuntWise goes above and beyond though with their HuntCast feature. They show more granular data, further out, and it is more intuitively accessed. 

Both apps give you everything you need but HuntWise specializes in the weather and wind area and they have developed a better offering for that. 

Markers & Way Points

As you might expect, both apps let you mark stands, sign, locations, notes, etc. And both let you share that information with others. But I think onX Hunt does better in this area. They provide more features with more intuitive and less glitchy use than HuntWise does. onX Hunt also has the very simple but supremely useful line distance tool which I cannot find in HuntWise even after years of looking for it. If it’s there, it is definitely not intuitive. 

The line distance tool lets me scope out how far a hunting spot is to other houses, how far a hike might be, or how far I covered in a day if I retrace my steps. I use this tool all the time and I deem it critically important for my hunting style. It’s so helpful for determining if I am far enough from houses to hunt with a bow or firearm.  But even aside from this tool, onX Hunt still feels better in this category. 

HuntWise’s Gear Feature

HuntWise’s has some functionality that is unique to them such as their Gear tool. The gear tool is a really interesting idea that essentially compiles a list of discounts from HuntWise partners. The more expensive your plan is, the larger the discounts you have access to. It sounds pretty cool.

But in practice I have not been impressed with it. None of the deals have ever been helpful to me or they were the same or similar to other deals the companies were running anyway. HuntWise just compiles them for you. In my opinion it is of some benefit but not much. Certainly not worth upgrading your plan for.

HuntWise’s HuntCast Feature

HuntWise also has HuntCast. This feature is fairly impressive. You can select whatever you are hunting, deer, turkey, waterfowl, bears, etc. And the tool will forecast what coming days and time of day provide the best prospects for hunting that game. It considers weather data, breeding seasons, and more to calculate the days the times game is most likely to be moving. If you have the free version you can see two days out, and the more you pay the further out you can see, up to 2 weeks in advance.

Is HuntCase really accurate? In my experience, yes, as accurate as such predictions can reasonably be.  They double down on this feature for Whitetails, partnering with Jeff Sturgis, one of the most prolific authors and content creators on the subject to adapt his weather algorithm to the app. I have followed Jeff for years and consumed well over a thousand pieces of content from him and other researchers that he follows like Dr. John Ozoga. I boiled much of it down into a simple podcast episode you can listen to here: The Best Weather Days For Deer Hunting.

In short, Jeff Sturgis’s work predicting deer movement and optimal hunting days and times is the best I’ve seen or heard of on the subject. I have learned and been employing his weather algorithm for years now and with great success. HuntCast captures that, along with providing a library of videos from Jeff, directly in the app, to guide and equip deer hunters. This could be the single best tool on the market to help new hunters find the right times to hunt deer and learn how to hunt them more effectively. 

For me, it doesn’t really matter though because I have internalized these weather algorithms and the library of Jeff’s teachings. So HuntCast doesn’t add anything to me. But I know I am the exception and not the rule here. This is a great tool for the majority of hunters. I should mention that HuntCast is not as robust for all other game species outside of Whitetail Deer. They do not have as good of algorithms or industry leading experts infusing lifetimes of knowledge into any other game seasons like ducks, turkeys, bears, small game, etc.

How Much Do onX Hunt and HuntWise Cost?

This is the great equalizer between these two apps that provide various features. You might be thinking that HuntWise gives you more despite onX Hunt being better in some areas, and you would be right. But HuntWise also charges you more, alot more.  As of this writing the pricing is outlined below, I should also mention that I do not believe the prices have changed in the last couple of years, though there are periodic sales from both companies. 

  • onX Hunt sells for $30 a year for 1 state, or $50 a year for all states. 
  • HuntWise has a PRO plan that is $20 a month or $60 a year.
  • HuntWise also has an ELITE plan that gives you the full suite of whitetail deer hunting tools and longer HuntCast for $40 a month or $120 a year. 

So, at best you can get the cheap version of HuntWise for double what onX Hunt costs. However, if you want the PRO version, you probably want the ELITE version too and that is a lot of money to spend on an app. 

Conclusions & Recommendations

So which app provides the best mix of features for the cost? It is going to depend on what is most important and valuable to you. I currently only pay $30 a year for onX Hunt and now use the free version of HuntWise which has limited features, including only 2 days of HuntCast. I have had the full version in the past but $120 a year is just more than I am willing to pay for an app right now. And onX Hunt does everything I need and want.

For me, onX Hunt is better because its mapping and map features are a little better. The most compelling elements of HuntWise are not as compelling to me because I’m well studied in those areas. But I think for most deer hunters, HuntWise could be the right tool, if you can fit it into your budget. If you are considering HuntWise for game other than whitetails, a lot of the allure fades. 

Be sure to listen to The New Hunters Guide Podcast and check us out on YouTube. 

Till next time. God bless you, and go get em in the woods!

George Konetes Ph.D. – Founder and Host of the New Hunters Guide.

The New Hunters Guide is simply what George wishes he would have had when learning how to hunt; a single place to get practical hands on knowledge about different kinds of hunting, gear, strategy, and tips that can improve your comfort and fun factor in the woods.

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