5 Spring Whitetail Habitat Tips for Every Hunter

Scouting is something serious hunters should do year-round, as terrain and conditions change constantly on the land where we hunt. Spring is when it’s especially crucial. Another season is right around the corner, and preparation starts as early as spring.  

Using your HuntWise Markers is crucial when scouting during the off-season. These markers allow you to more easily see when buck signs have changed. If your are constantly taking notes of any changes in rubs, scrapes, and licking branches near your stand, your hunts for the upcoming season are most likely going to be more successful.

However, spring scouting is just the beginning! Today, whitetail guru and habitat design specialist, Jeff Sturgis, of Whitetail Habitat Solutions, outlines five land management habitat tips all whitetail hunters should adopt in the spring to become better hunters in the fall. 

#1 Create a Whitetail Waterhole

In May, a whitetail waterhole can be the perfect addition to a whitetail habitat and a very powerful attraction to your target buck come fall. 

The conditions that support a waterhole are locations where deer are bedded dry all day, feeding on woody brows, shrub tips, and briars. A whitetail waterhole thrives in the dry space between day bedding and evening food sources. 

Sturgis suggests creating a waterhole with a 100-gallon stock or cattle tank in a shaded location so the water does not evaporate. Let Mother Nature do some of the work by putting a tank into the ground before May. Heavy rains of early spring will help fill the waterhole.

#2 Get Invasive and Explore Your Hunt Area

To Sturgis, spring is “the perfect time to be invasive in your woods.” 

This means that if you spook deer, there are many months of forgiveness ahead before hunting season rolls around.  

Throughout the spring, there are little to no leaves or bugs, thus, you can learn the lay of the land. In the field, use HuntWise to drop pins in locations where you find buck signs and look in thick areas where the landscape is filled with shrubs and briars you can’t see through.

Check Thick Vegetation

Thick vegetation is appealing to deer because it provides high cover. 

In thick cover, there will be a high concentration of rubs and scrapes. Within these locations, mark points, learn why deer move, and choose specific locations over others. In most cases, scrape locations are indicative of where bucks will be in the fall and should inform where you hunt. 

Over time, marking spring deer movement and signs can help you understand why deer choose a location in the summer, fall, or winter.

#3 Find Fall Rubs and Determine Fall Patterns

With leaves on the ground, spring is the perfect time to scout for rubs and scrapes. However, to Sturgis, “not every rub is created equal.” 

When scouting for rubs, you must be able to determine whether a rub originated before, during, or after the hunting season. 

Across most of the country, the leaf drop occurs from late October to early November. 

• If shavings from the rub are underneath the leaves, the rub is from the summer or early season. 
• If the shavings are on top of the leaves, the rub indicates peak season activity. 

For bucks, there is a giant summer transition from summer to fall patterns and habitats. Often, in early September, as bucks are exiting velvet, their initial, early-season rubs may have nothing to do with where they are in the fall’s peak season. In this way, a buck’s fall habitat may be a mile away from their summer habitat.

#4 E-Scout Hunt Areas Before Hitting the Woods

“Part of your springtime scouting begins on the couch.” 

E-scouting your hunting land in the spring pays major dividends in the fall season. In searching for areas where you can successfully hunt bucks, look for food sources, bedding areas, fall food sources, and bedding areas. Most importantly, when looking for locations, consider access points where you can get in and out in the fall season without spooking deer. 

Sturgis urges hunters to look at e-scouting as a barbel with food and bedding on either side and access points and travel in-between. 

The great thing about the springtime is there is no new growth, so vegetation hasn’t taken place on the forest floor. In this way, it is much easier to find a tree to hang a tree stand on later in the year. Through the spring, you can mark possible stand locations on your map with confidence because you found a trail with a connection to your habitat.

#5 Identify Whitetail Micromovements

On a daily basis, identify micromovements of deer patterns that take place during the fall. 

No matter the location, there will always be a pattern. Once you look at the entire system, there is always an afternoon food source that the deer feed on every day, a doe bedding place, which is typically within 100 yards of the food source if there is a cover, and a buck bedding area behind the does.  

Observing this is important because if solid cover is built from buck beds to doe beds and to food sources, then you have micromovement. If you can find these pieces and identify them, they are applicable to patterns in the fall.

Learn more about these tips from our friend and partner Jeff Sturgis in the video below!

Explore a Whitetail Habitat and Get Ready for the Fall with HuntWise

Want to take your whitetail hunting to the next level? Use HuntWise maps, markers, and other features this spring while preparing for the fall hunting season. 

Backed by more than 30 years of data, the HuntWise app is the world's most powerful deer prediction tool. HuntWise gives you an extra edge by delivering peak movement times with a 15-day forecast and monitoring weather conditions on a weekly, daily, and hourly basis. Use HuntWise's 250+ map layers to view land boundaries and landowner contact info, map hunting property with custom pins, and much more!

Download the app and start your free trial! Spring (and fall) await. 

Content updated March 29, 2024.