Let's Have a Little Fun

[dkoy85]

Okay guys and gals, I have a hypothetical scenario for everyone. It takes place in November during the first few weeks of the rut. You're hunting a huge chunk of public land for the first time, without feet on ground scouting- just waaayy too much time scouting google maps. The land is absolutely perfect with creek and river bottoms- some of it swampy(some of the flat bottoms are 500 yards wide and the creeks/rivers snake througout), high steep bluffs, marsh and wet lands dispersed sparingly throughout, thick and nasty, with ag fields spaced around, mainly in the bottoms but some on top, and the draws are very well defined. Basically a beast hunters paradise.

My question is where do you begin to scout a property like this, as it can be very overwhelming? What would your method be? Hit the points looking for big buck sign, alerting you to a bed(without actually going to the bed)? Scout the tops of the draws that create a funnel looking for hot big buck sign and setting up? Scout the ox bows in the creek bottoms? Edge of thickets? Find the doe bedding and locate hot sign around them? Do you spend numerous days scouting before hunting, or do you scout with stand on back, find hot big buck sign, hang, hunt/observe, and move in?

This should be fun and very informative. This is hypothetical and I'm sure some of you wouldn't hunt an area without actually scouting first- so just humor me.

[PK_]

I hunt a lot of areas without putting boots on the ground. My basic strategy is this:

Spot check potential bedding areas(without penetrating or disrupting them) until I find hot sign. I set up for the evening, I try to pick a tree that will work for a morning setup as well. I hunt it that evening and the following morning. After the morning hunt I dive right into the bedding area and see what is what. I take what I learned and move to the next bedding area that afternoon and repeat the process.

Edit: Sorry, I just realized you said during the rut. That is much easier. I hit the hardest most secluded funnels( considering best potential buck/doe bedding) and sit them hard. Dark to dark.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[justdirtyfun]

My first consideration is are there any shooters? I might not hunt the funnels but spot check different types to find desirable tracks. This might be a first day if its a big sweet area.
Second get back to the maps/intel and recent wind/weather.
OTOH for rut you could confirm doe areas are being used and stick near them. The bucks will also.

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[Brad]

I'd hunt the funnels on the leeward sight, or close to the points on the leeward sign.

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[KLEMZ]

Since the area is new to me, I would try a couple different strategies to try and learn as quickly as possible where the deer are. I would wait for daylight and then scout my way in to a preselected leeward side cruise stand. Hunt it till 12:30 then get down and scout some thickets for active doe bedding. If I find fresh sign I would set up and hunt. If I didn't find active doe bedding area I would keep walking till dark..no sense hunting if the deer aren't there for sure.

If I did find a fresh used doe area I would search my maps for more similar terrain in hopes of finding even more doe bedding. I may continue to bounce between the ridge cruising and the doe bedding hunts till I connected. if I found a hot spot I would hunt two hunts in a row there.

[dkoy85]

Since the area is new to me, I would try a couple different strategies to try and learn as quickly as possible where the deer are. I would wait for daylight and then scout my way in to a preselected leeward side cruise stand. Hunt it till 12:30 then get down and scout some thickets for active doe bedding. If I find fresh sign I would set up and hunt. If I didn't find active doe bedding area I would keep walking till dark..no sense hunting if the deer aren't there for sure.

If I did find a fresh used doe area I would search my maps for more similar terrain in hopes of finding even more doe bedding. I may continue to bounce between the ridge cruising and the doe bedding hunts till I connected. if I found a hot spot I would hunt two hunts in a row there.

Interesting KLEMZ, I like your idea of heading in at first light to a predetermined area and setting up, then getting down to scout some more.

[dkoy85]

Also, if anybody has accomplished this feet on a mature buck, I'd love to hear the story and how you got onto the buck!

[Twenty Up]

I'm currently scouting a tract exactly as you have described, so hopefully some of my findings can help you out some.

First off, any significant bends or U's in the creek, on the thicket side, tend to hold bucks. They normally bed on the edge of the thicket and hardwoods.
Secondly I found the bucks would cross the creek and "hop" from one side to the other depending on what's being grown in the ag fields (ag fields on either side of small 20-30ft wide creek) So they feed from June-Sept on the North side when the Soybeans are prevalent but then change their pattern to the South when the Persimmons start dropping. They stay inside the core area when the acorns start dropping.

I also found some massive rubs, from what I'm perceiving to be the dominant buck of the area in the front of the tract. His core area turned out to be flooded timber swamp bottom. Judging by the flagging tape, many hunters have walked around the flooded timber deeper into the WMA and right past this buck. This was the hardest part for me because the flooded timber never showed up on Google Images, Bing Maps or the Caltopo..

[dan]

New ground during the rut, I would be at the tops of draws most of the time... Pressure would dictate the certainy in that comment... If it were early season I would be in the marsh... Late season the swamp.

[JoeRE]

The very first thing I would do is figure out where everyone else hunts and rule that out....in my experience that eliminates 3/4 or more of the property. Then I will look for the very best combination of factors I can find to channel bucks in the rut - terrain bottlenecks such as ditch crossings, saddles, transition lines, between likely doe bedding and such like some have mentioned.

[PK_]

Also, if anybody has accomplished this feet on a mature buck, I'd love to hear the story and how you got onto the buck!

I have killed at least a few mature bucks this way with gun, and some younger bucks with bow.

But I hunt this way a lot. I find it exciting.

[dkoy85]

[quote="PalmettoKid"]I hunt a lot of areas without putting boots on the ground. My basic strategy is this:

Spot check potential bedding areas(without penetrating or disrupting them) until I find hot sign. I set up for the evening, I try to pick a tree that will work for a morning setup as well. I hunt it that evening and the following morning. After the morning hunt I dive right into the bedding area and see what is what. I take what I learned and move to the next bedding area that afternoon and repeat the process.

Edit: Sorry, I just realized you said during the rut. That is much easier. I hit the hardest most secluded funnels( considering best potential buck/doe bedding) and sit them hard. Dark to dark.

[ Post made via iPhone ] [/quote

Palmetto, do you dive into the bedding area after you hunted the spot for future reference? Can you explain your method?

[PK_]

Yes. I want to learn as much as I can about that bedding area and what better time then right after I burnt the bridge already by hunting it twice in a row. I need to see how it is being used so I can hunt it correctly in the future or skip it if I can't hunt it effectively. Also I take how the deer are using that spot and look for similarities in other spots in the area.

[ Post made via iPhone ]