Staging areas

[jsasker007]

Might be something that gets overlooked by a lot of folks. I've found that even on great food plots that attract deer every day where I'm at in central Minnesota the deer almost always hang back and mull around in staging areas for maybe a half an hour before they come out in the plots. Many times I've been out hunting bow or rifle and can hear the deer and catch glimpses of them in the staging area but the deer just seem to know just how long to wait to be safe. Can be frustrating when you know they are there but they won't show themselves until it's too dark to get a good shot. Then you gotta walk out at some point and wind up jumping deer and find out there were more than you thought and tails are everywhere. Sickening feeling to be so close and come up not even getting a shot. I've been setting up maybe 40 yards in the woods trying to catch them traveling because I can't seem to get them out in the open before dark. Any tricks to get them in the plots earlier? I really do like a shot at a deer in the open foodplot vs thinking you have a clear shot and hit the small branch you couldn't see in low light during archery. Same issues during rifle but the small branches don't affect my rifle like they do an arrow.

 

[SwampCat]

Back when all I did was bow hunt, I always hunted about 25 or 30 yards back in the woods. The deer were paying attention to the food plot - looking and trying to catch scent of something out in the food plot. Was much easier to draw on them than once they got in the food plot. Also, seemed much more likely to “jump” the string when out in a food plot

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I've had a couple stands in pines on the downwind side of food plots at camp. Like Swampcat said above, deer would hang in those pines testing the wind and looking out into the plots from the darker, shadowy pines. I set my stands along trails leading into the staging areas of the pines. Deer in those pines were much more relaxed than when they moved into the open plots. Out there, they seemed to be nervous - on red alert more. I've had some really close shots with a bow inside the pine staging areas - like 10 to 15 yards - when they were relaxed in the shadows.

Maybe do some early shooting-lane trimming to give easier shots in the staging areas? I cut off any branches that might interfere with a shot in several places along those trails. But I kept my outline broken with a number of branches on the sides the deer would approach from, so when they stepped into a shooting lane - it was too late for them. 10 to 15 yards doesn't give them time to react before the arrow is in them.