Arizona Hunting Club & Outdoor Adventure Group

Profiling Hunters and
Their Predictable Hunting Patterns

Each year, I begin the hunting process by dragging out one or more U.S. Forest maps, Delorme topographic software, Microsoft Live Earth aerial photographs and numerous other resources to begin planning my hunting trips.

My process used to begin in July, but now thanks to the AZ Game & Fish, it starts around April. Once I get drawn, which is every year because I am an archery cow elk hunter, I begin planning and scouting immediately. The process is always the same.

I spend the summers camping in the nice cool environment of the Arizona national forests. One weekend at a time, I will camp in various areas that look good on my topographic maps and satellite 3D terrain scouting tools and spend the weekend driving my quad down every dirt road I can find. I will visit every single every single stock tank in an area to see where the animals seem to be hanging out. I also walk as many creek beds and drainages as possible to see if I can find secret puddles of water that no one else knows about, except the deer and elk.

For me, there is nothing more fun than driving the backcountry dirt roads and startling the numerous herds of deer or elk, which have not seen a person since the last hunting season and hardly expect to see a person driving or hiking through one of their favorite bedding areas at this time of year.

In April, I rarely see another campground full of people. The only other people in the woods are usually people that like riding horses. I envy those people. I wish knew someone that would teach me about horses or allow me to go horseback riding with them.

But as summer approaches, more and more campers emerge and the ATVs begin hauling ass through the woods and scaring the living you know what out of every animal in the woods. It doesn't take long for the animals to recede back into the woods in areas away from humans who they know eventually will bring guns and try to shoot them during the coming hunting season.

The point of this story is that humans are very predictable animals. Just like bucks and bulls will follow scrapes straight to doe and cow bedding areas during the rut, humans head straight for stock tanks and the surrounding areas during the pre-hunt scouting season. This is why most big animals go more and more noctural as the human noise level increases.

So the goal for you as a hunter is to learn where the secret stock tanks are located. Where are the protected grassy pastures located in the middle of the woods a mile or so away from the road? Where are the bedding areas on hills near these secluded watering and feeding areas?

Humans are like a virus. They come into the gates and the dirt roads and spread like a disease that will kill you. Pretend you are an animal. Try to find areas where you can eat, drink and sleep without the thought one single person interrupting your morning bedding session. Where can you get up walk a quarter of a mile and get a drink of water without being seen or disturbed? Where can you get up and feed for an hour in the afternoon without the risk of being seen before you bed down for another couple of hours and wait for the sun to set?

And while you might think you need to hike 20 miles into the wilderness to find these secluded areas, that isn't always the case. You just need to find secure areas with food and water that are slightly outside of the normal human travel patterns, which means a quarter mile away from any road and on the quiet, downwind side of the mountain.

Hunters read a lot about patterning animals. The biggest bucks and bulls are hard to pattern because they know when and where most humans will try to find them.

The key is to step outside the hunting patterns of most average hunters. Seek out areas where most hunters won't venture or know the animals' travel routes well enough to know that when animals are pushed by novice hunters, where the escape routes are that will take the deer and elk to the darkest, dampest and most secure parts of the forest to hide. These areas will provide elevated beds that overlook green pastures with plenty of green food to feed on and secluded water to drink.

To find these areas, the first thing I do is draw a line that parallels each known road a quarter mile into the woods. I take a pencil and shade in the area between the line and the road. The shaded areas represent areas I don't usually scout. They are too close to the road and too close to humans.

Next, I look for potential water holes (blue circles), potential feeding areas such as pastures (white areas) and benches on high hills over looking these areas which serve as bedding areas. Benches can only be found by looking at a topographic map.

Some of the areas will look great in the spring, but there might not be much sign. When the hunters show up, the deer and elk will always recede into these secluded areas. The key is to learn where they will be when the pressure is high. Learn the lay of the land. Look for old game trails that will serve as escape routes from the shaded areas on your map.

For example, let's say you have seen a great pasture next to the main road. On the backside of the pasture is a tank that is hard to see from the road. Above the tank, you know where some great benches are located 1/3 of the way down from the top of the ridge that runs parallel to the road. Above the bench, there is a ridge that runs parallel to the main road. If you know where a dip in that ridgeline exists, you can bet that there is a game trail that serves as an escape route.

If you are sitting on that saddle on opening morning, this is the perfect ambush spot. As hunters start driving the roads. They will see the tank on their map. Stop. Walk across the field looking for the tank and then walk the perimeter of the tank looking for sign.

By this time of the morning, the elk will be bedded down at the top of the hill watching over their food and water source while they chew their cud. When they see the hunters approach, they will quitely get up and take the saddle to the other side of the hill away from the road and the hunters.

What they elk don't know is that you have quietly walked down that ridge at 4:30 am in the morning when they were still in the field feeding. Since the wind current is blowing uphill with the morning thermal, they will never know you are there and they will walk right past your tree stand.

This is why some hunters are successful and others are not. Learn how to use the dumb hunters to your advantage. Dumb hunters don't do their homework. They have never even seen a topographic map and have no idea that there is a bench or a saddle at the top of the hill. They have no clue that there are elk or deer with several hundred yards of them watching their every move. These are the hunters that go home pissed because they didn't see anything.

Do some research and spend some time scouting for these situations. They are very easy to find if you simply look for them. If you do, one day you will become the king of the hunting hill. :o)

When combined, our seasoned hunting club members can account for more than 2,000 years of hunting knowledge and experience that we would be more than happy to pass onto to you.

If you have any questions regarding the content or strategies outlined on this page, please post them so that we can further explain complex topics that need additional clarification.

In the hunting world, there is no such thing as a dumb question.