Wade Bourne: Whitetail deer are among the most adaptable animals in the wild. They can survive and even thrive in places most people wouldn’t think they could. This means hunters should look for these animals in unusual places as well as more typical woods, thickets and other commonplace areas.

For instance, radio tracking studies have found that some mature whitetail bucks have a habit of bedding in thick cover next to busy roadways, as close as 20 yards. While 18-wheelers zoom by the deer lay up, feeling safe that they will be undiscovered by predators, including humans. They ignore the noise on the highway, and they relish the relative security that these unlikely bedding areas offer.

Obviously, you can’t hunt that close to well-traveled roadways, but they can formulate an effective hunting strategy based on the knowledge above. Hunters can find where deer are feeding away from the highways and set up an ambush on trails leading from the bedding areas to the feeding areas. Bow hunters can position their stands as close as 100 yards to highways. Gun hunters should move out to 300-400 yards and be careful to take shots away from the roadways.

The noise close to the roads may be obnoxious, but the opportunity to score on a mature buck can be high. Hunters who learn to disregard the whine of traffic and stay on stand between bedding and feeding areas just might score on the biggest buck of their lives.

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