When hunting whitetail deer it is important to understand where deer like to be. Deer like a few key things: bedding, food, and water, but how do they use them?
What deer need and when they need it
To know what habitat a deer wants, you need to know what a deer will be looking for.
In the morning, the deer will be feeding as they move to bed down. In the middle of the day, deer will sleep or lie down. In the evening, deer are back on their feet looking for food, deer will feed all night until the middle of the day. Usually, a deer daily pattern will take them by water so they can get a drink. This pattern may change depending on the time of year; for instance, during the winter a deer will spend more time out moving and feeding to stay warm.
In the late spring months, doe (female deer) are having fawns. When a doe has fawns, they follow the same pattern, with a few minor changes; When a doe is about to have a fawn, they will separate from the other deer to have her fawn. When the doe has her fawn they need thick cover to hide it tell they can join with the herd. So you need some kind of thick cover, preferably switchgrass, for the deer to hide in.
In the rut, deer are looking for mates; to do so they will change their schedules. Bucks (male deer) completely forgo their routines to search of doe. The only thing bucks keep doing is drinking water. At this time of year, bucks are fighting each other, while trying to find as many doe as possible. Because bucks are so active this time of year, it can be very stressful on deer, so it is important to have the right habitat too, like high-quality food.
What plants deer like eating
Most of a deer’s day consists of eating, so deer need the right forage. Deer are browsers, meaning they are not picky about what they eat. Deer’s favorite foods are buckwheat, alfalfa, radishes, plantains, corn, soybeans, clover, and young shoots of native grass.
Deer are moving a lot so they need adequate nutrition. This is why deer like eating some plants over others, as some are higher in nutrition than others, which is why you want to have a lot of variety when planting food plots to find what deer want.
Deer also like to eat in certain places more than others. Deer do not like to eat in open fields late in the day because they don’t want to be spotted in the open with nowhere to hide. In the evening, deer will feed in the open because it is getting dark. In the morning, deer will prefer to feed in more cover so they don’t get spotted by predators. This cover is usually is in the form of small food plots next to or in trees or tall grass.
Water
Deer do not need to drink water, they can get water by eating high water content foods. In the summer months, deer do not like to move any more than they need so they can stay cool. When hunting early season, or scouting, in the summer you may want to focus more on high water content food rather than the water itself. However, deer will drink water when they are near it. During and after mid-October, deer will drink water because most high water content food is gone.
High water content food is in the form of apples and berries. So you will want to plant some fruit trees and berry bushes on your deer hunting property. You can also put out water sources, such as kitty pools that are buried in the ground.
Tip: bucks will stop by water midday when all the doe and other bucks are bedded down.
Bedding
Bedding for deer can be very different depending on what time of year it is.
In the winter deer need to stay warm. There are a few types of cover that keep deer warmer than others. In the cold, deer like to bed in native grass. Native grass keeps deer warm because the grass will reflex their own body heat, and native grass is in the sun, so the grass will heat up before it will in the trees. A deer won’t bed in the open forest because the cold wind will blow right through them.
In the spring, deer look for shade on warm days and thick grass on cold days. In mid to late may, does are having fawns; When a doe has a fawn she wants to keep that fawn in thick cover so it’s safe. No doe will have their fawn in a super open forest where a predator could see them.
In the summer, deer want to stay cool. Deer will bed more in forests where there is shade. The main thing they look for is shade, if there is no shade, deer won’t bed there in the summer. Bucks will bed in more open areas because the antlers they are growing are still soft and can feel pain.
In the fall, deer will bed anywhere. Deer will bed in native grass, thick brier patches, or thick shrub patches. Deer will bed in all their bedding areas in the fall. The main thing is deer will transition from shade, in early September, to thick grass in the sun, closer to late October.
The best overall thing to do is test. All deer herds prefer different things. Just take a couple of acres and experiment. Find what your deer like. It doesn’t even need to be 10 or 20 acres, while that would be ideal, all you need is 1 or 2. Try 1 acre of native grass and another in trees to see what deer like. Soon, with enough testing, you will have a property full of healthy deer and big bucks.