This hunter set up along the edge of two different plant types and arrowed this big doe when she came through just at dark with a group of smaller deer. Photo by P.J. Reilly.

“How in the world are we going to hunt this?” I asked one of my hunting buddies a few years back.

We had just gained permission to bowhunt a 200-acre section of woods that we knew was loaded with deer.

But the land was flat as a pancake. It had no streams running through it, and it didn’t border any crop fields.

It was just one big chunk of topographically featureless woods -- and it seemed as though the deer could be anywhere in it.

“Well,” my buddy replied, “I guess we’re just going to have to sit in our tree stands and see what we see. And then go from there.”

The first night we hunted, I chose to sit in the middle of a rectangular stand of tulip poplars.

They were like a sea of tall telephone poles. There wasn’t another species of tree in this particular block.

One side of it was bordered by a strip of pines that had been planted decades ago. On the other side was a mix of saplings, tall gnarly maples and greenbriers -- obviously the result of a selective timber cutting several years before.

I picked that stand of tulip poplars because from within that block, it was easy to see a good distance. I figured that if any deer cut through the stand, I’d spot it instantly.

That night, I saw two processions of deer. One string followed the line where the tulip poplars met the pines, and the other group followed the junction between the poplars and the old timber cutting.

None of them ventured into the middle of the stand of tulip poplars where I was sitting.

Well, nobody had to hit me over the head with a board to get me to change locations.

The next evening, I selected for my climbing stand a tree on the edge where the poplars met the pines.

Just two hours into the hunt, I arrowed a nice 8-pointer.

LIVING ON THE EDGE
Deer live on the edge. That’s no secret to farm-country bowhunters. For decades, they’ve been ambushing deer from tree stands and ground blinds set on field edges, where a stand of timber meets a crop field.

But aside from obvious edge cover in a whitetail’s world -- such as the border of woods and fields or areas where standing timber gives way to a fresh clearcut -- there are plenty of subtler edges that savvy bowhunters would do well to key in on.

EDGES OF TERRAIN
Mountain Country
In many parts of the whitetails’ world, the terrain varies. There are peaks and valleys and benches and hillsides. Any place where the terrain changes can be considered an “edge” that whitetails are likely to frequent.

Climb any mountain and you’ll hit a ridge at the top. Whitetails like to cruise two parts of a ridge. They’ll walk along the crest, right where it breaks downhill, so they can sniff rising thermals for signs of danger.

Or -- provided the grade is not too steep -- they’ll cruise just downhill from the top to keep out of sight of any predators or hunters who might be working the crest.

Play the wind to key in on which side of the mountain the deer will be working on any given day. Typically, they’ll choose the side that’s forcing the wind uphill. Like other prey species in mountain country, deer prefer to watch for danger downhill. And they like it when the wind is carrying to them the scent of any predators.