Hunting Big Bucks on Small Properties (Video)

[Sam Ubl]

This season has tugged at me for much of October through the early part of December. As always, every season is a journey and I learn from the experiences. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad, but in the end it's worth it when you find yourself missing the grind even more than you longed for it to begin. I've been documenting my hunts behind the lens over the last 15-years, we have what you could call a love/hate relationship. I started Chase Nation (http://www.chasenation.co) in January, 2017, and since then we've released twenty-one full episodes of fair chase DIY hunts and fishing excursions taking place on public land and small acre private all over the country. Of all the social networks out there made up of a core audience of hardcore hunters, the Hunting Beast has been my solace when I need me a little forum time. I figure if there's a place to share a video of my bow season, it's right here. I hope you guys enjoy, but more than anything, I believe everyone of us will be able to relate to this one in some degree, or another.

https://youtu.be/NNdCh-Q1qpA

[DaveT1963]

Great hunts and I applaud you for such a diligent search for the 1st buck.

[<DK>]

"Get it together Charlie"

Congrats Sam! Hes got a lot of character

[daveynewman]

Awesome video man. I love self filming also it's such a fun time bringing the camera gear in.

[matt1336]

Great job as usual Sam

[hunter10]

Good to see the effort you put in to try finding that deer. Congrats on the buck too

[tgreeno]

Excellent work Sam! Love you guys videos!

Congrats on the buck!

[d_rek]

Great video but your idea of small property and mine differ greatly lol.

[Sam Ubl]

Great video but your idea of small property and mine differ greatly lol.

Thanks d_rek, and I can appreciate that. So this piece is a 5 acre wood lot and 30 acres of open alfalfa. I suppose it’s all relative.

[d_rek]

Great video but your idea of small property and mine differ greatly lol.

Thanks d_rek, and I can appreciate that. So this piece is a 5 acre wood lot and 30 acres of open alfalfa. I suppose it’s all relative.

No sweat just had to rib a little.

I bought 4 acres a couple of years ago to build a home on. We cleared the front acre and the back 3 is huntable. I get deer bedding behind the house and have them on camera all the time, but hunting it is extremely challenging! The convenience is nice but it's not my goto spot. Entirely too easy to blow animals out and push them off the property or, worse yet, make them nocturnal!

What was your tactic for hunting the small woodlot? I'm guessing you were able to pattern entry/exit points off the alfalfa field just by glassing?

I have been experimenting behind my house this year with a couple of tactics but nothing has paid off. The neighbor to the west hunts just about every day so i'm sure it has something to do with daytime sightings. And I have this guy torturing me a couple of times a week but he's totally nocturnal!





The best I can come up with is I either need to get permission to hunt adjacent properties where he beds or wait until the rut next year. At this point in our season he's just not going to slip up and come out during daylight.

[Sam Ubl]

What was your tactic for hunting the small woodlot? I'm guessing you were able to pattern entry/exit points off the alfalfa field just by glassing?

I've been fortunate to hunt this piece over the last 12-years, so I've learned a lot about how the deer move through the land from observing over the years. Go back twelve years and I placed a stand in the field corner. When you're driving down country roads and you glance out across a field looking for deer as you pass, where do you usually look? I typically scan quickly across the entire field edge along the wood line, but most often I cut a glance towards the corners and that's where I seem to see of deer. It was this concept that motivated the plan for my first stand on the land after securing permission that first year back in the early 2000's.

Because the woods are small and options for stand placement is limited, when I move locations it typically isn't very far from the last time, albeit the land does have a couple dynamics to it that allow those short moves to be effective and potentially see deer earlier in an evening, rather than after legal shooting hours when they break cover and feed into the fields. While there is one old hang-on growing into an old hickory tree that I sit from time to time, being mobile and hang-and-hunting is the best option to keep the deer guessing out there so they never catch on to you.

Fast forward through the years and I've learned this property can be extremely good in the early season when the bachelors are still grouped up and maintaining their summer feeding patterns. The hardwoods are primarily white oaks, so the deer will browse under the canopy of the woods on acorns until last light before stepping out into the open to feed in the field. This can make it tough to hunt the field, so I've cut shooting lanes in multiple locations along the field edge where I can shoot into the woods, but still have visibility out into the field with open shooting.

During the rut I want to have as much visibility as possible. Cruisers on this piece typically stick to just inside the woods where they have visibility out into the field in case there are doe's feeding out there, yet have the wind in their favor in case they smell doe's bedded down below them on the hardwood ridge. The shooting lanes I have cut in multiple spots allow me to see into the woods and catch those cruisers, but I tend to see most big bucks that are nudging doe's come out into the wide open, so it's really important to me I can see across as much land as possible. I've had tremendous success coaxing bucks into shooting range using contact grunts and snort-wheezes.

In the late season I stay out of the hardwoods completely because I know there is high likelihood deer are bedded just inside the woods from the field edges. This makes it really challenging for me because I have to cross the field to get to the woods; there is no direct access for me to walk in the "back door" as it's surrounding by 3-5 acre private parcels owned by non-hunters who have allowed me to search for and recover deer I've hit, but haven't yet allowed for me to access the land I am hunting by walking through their properties. In other words, late season is a challenge because they see me coming long before I get to the woodline to hang-and-hunt. I often hunt from the ground when it's late season because of the lack of leaves and how easy they can skyline me on the edge of the woods looking out into the wide open.

[Sam Ubl]

Excellent work Sam! Love you guys videos!

Congrats on the buck!

Thank you, tgreeno, means a great deal to me.

[Sam Ubl]

Good to see the effort you put in to try finding that deer. Congrats on the buck too

Absolutely. I would do the same if it were a doe without question. My Dad instilled the value of the animal and the meaning behind a hunt into me when I was very young. I'll never be one to give up too early, even if it means trading hunting time on days off of work to seek out answers of unsure hits. I truly respect these animals, and more than a month later it still haunts me not knowing the true fate of the buck I hit. Is he alive? Did he eventually expire? There's no pleasure in wounding an animal, but there is a lot to learn from the experience and tracking. I believe most commercial hunt productions avoid sharing these stories due to backlash from their fans. When I started Chase Nation the motive behind what we represent was presented loud and clear to the guys hunting/filming for Chase Nation; we tell the story behind our hunts, no filters, no re-enactments, no acting, no shame in sharing what really happens in the every day hunters experiences outdoors. When you start adding sponsors to the table, you lose the ability to tell the truth behind every hunt and share reality because "someone" else's name is now behind it.

Thanks for watching and commenting with the positive feedback, hunter10, means a great deal.

[Sam Ubl]

Great job as usual Sam

I really do appreciate the feedback, matt1336, thank you so much for watching. We've got six more whitetail hunts in post-production mode right now from this past season and I'm chomping at the bit to finish them and share them.

[Sam Ubl]

Awesome video man. I love self filming also it's such a fun time bringing the camera gear in.

Thank you, davenewman! I checked out your channel just now - SUBSCRIBED. Keep it up!