Video: Tips for hunting whitetails in the bottoms of hill country

Anyone who hunts whitetails in hill country, even in smaller, more rolling hills, knows it is challenging to get away with hunting in the bottoms within this kind of terrain.

So many factors come into play. 

There’s rising and dropping thermals that are important to understand. This pertains to where and when you choose to set up, as well as understanding how deer use those thermals to their advantage when it comes to how they travel, especially when bucks are trying to be efficient looking for does during the rut.

At the basic level, thermals rise as the day warms and fall as the day cools. But it’s not that simple in practice. Timing and terrain matter. I have hunted incredibly steep hills in Missouri where thermals have much greater pull than the smaller hills and river bottoms I hunt in Minnesota. 

Then there’s swirling winds down low that need to be considered.

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You have to worry about access by thinking about how deer can smell and see based on where you expect them to be upon your entrance. If you are going in for an afternoon sit, know that deer often bed high overlooking these bottoms, and your hunt can be over before it even begins if you don’t pay attention to these things.

There are simply multiple ways deer can bust you with both their nose and eyes.

Some say it’s not worth hunting bottoms in hill country and that you are better off setting up on adjacent ridges with a safer wind. That is sound advice in many cases, but the sign down here — worn trails that meet, along with huge rubs and scrapes — certainly make it tempting.

In this video below, I detail how I try to wait for specific winds and terrain features to hunt these low-ground areas. Included is an example from 2020 during the opening weekend of the archery season where ideal conditions led to shooting a buck over a creek crossing.