Special draw hunt. 3 days to hunt. No scouting before the hu

[jonsimoneau]

Guys I drew a special hunt here in Illinois. You cannot step foot on the property before the hunt. It's 800 acres. There r big deer. I have only three hunting days. What would you do? Right now my plan is to spend the first day scouting and hunt the other two. I start on Tuesday. What would you guys do?

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[blackwolf]

I would do the same, after checking out topographics and aerials.

[kwaldeier]

Post aerials and topos here and have us analyze it and then fine tune it the first day. Sounds like a pretty good deal. Have not heard of anything like this. Good luck!

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[Dewey]

You should be able to narrow it down with topos and aerials. Scout out fresh sign with your stand on your back and hunt it immediately. If you only have 3 days I wouldn't ruin the spot by scouting first. Once your scent is in there your chances go way down.

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[jonsimoneau]

I'll post photos if I get the chance. I've been studying them since winter so I have a couple ideas.

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[wmihunter]

I agree with Dewey. The exception would be if you had rain on day 1-then I might do done scouting

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[Stump]

You alone on 800 acres? You and 20 other guys?

Other hunters would weigh heavily on my decision on where to hunt. Go deeper in than most everyone else and hunt the pinch points/funnels.

[str8shooter]

I agree with Dewey, no sense in not taking advantage of that first day. Sounds like an awesome opportunity to connect on a slob. Best of luck Jon!

[phade]

Three days is tight. I really support scouting, such as when going out of state (glassing, etc. where you aren't burning ground)...but here...I'd want to be in a hunting state for as much of that time as possible.

To me, the really only hard part is that first morning...going in blind outside of your aerials/topo, etc....that could be tough.

[Edcyclopedia]

If it's shared with a good amount of hunters, say 10+, I would look for swamps and thick stuff!

Sit tight on mid-days (day 2 & 3) if you have good sign in the thick areas and let the others do the work for you

[jonsimoneau]

Two other guys are also allowed to hunt. They may or may not be there.

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[James]

So only 3 guys for 800 acres? Sounds awesome. I'd probably skip the morning hunt on day 1 unless there is an obvious field edge / food source. So hard to setup in a tree blindly in unknown country. Assuming you have aerial scouted, I'd follow that plan and immediately start to identify trees that I will hunt for the next 2 days. If this is a rut hunt I would be on the hunt for an evening sit on day 1. For 3 days it will be critical to get some stand time in.

This doesn't happen to be the power plant hunt near a town NW of Minneapolis in the far out suburbs is it?

Can you glass the edges from roads? Shining?

[Swampthing]

I would,nt physically scout on foot but make your best guess by google earth or something.

[huntinsonovagun]

What are your dates? I too would just hunt (no on-foot scouting, at least as minimally as possible). Looking forward to seeing maps

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[dan]

Depends on the hunting dates... Rut, most of my scouting would be done before I touched the land, and my trees would be picked...
If your talking outside the rut, I would have multiple areas pinned down, I would skip morning and scout the fringes of suspected bedding areas based on map scouting and then go to the best one and set up for the evening... Day two, start over and repeat.