For years I have been hunting this farm and today I sat down and looked over an aerial as if I was a new man and came up with som new information id like to share. I've never broken a piece down into sections to scout better or notice the out of the way hideouts but wanted to give it a try..
As you can see in the picture below I have the farm split into 5 sections with the top North white section being private I do not have permission to. I have hunted this farm for years and know it very well... or so i thought.
#1. this is the main woods. cut and dry its the place i hunt 95% of the time. there is a small finger jutting into the field that has bedding. I hunt outside of it down in a creek bottom and have had close chances and good mature bucks on cam over the years.
#2. Really not much to this section. the tree lines are thin, farmer uses the area frequently and has mainly been a turkey killing area.
#3. As the picture shows, this is all short pasture where the likeliness of mature buck use is minimal its basically a dead zone
#4. to the west of the 4 number is much like #2 (open terrain, frequent farmer access) BUT there is a small rub line in a 50yd strip of short saplings I encountered last year.. This didnt make sense to me because its not near anything that makes sense so I disregarded it.
#5. As you can see, this section is different colour because Ive never looked at it until now. its a very thick creek bottom that is annoying and hard to get around in so its never touched. It joins onto the neighbouring farm and out of my control. I sat looking this over and thought "why wouldnt a mature buck hide back in this thick corner, its never touched" I quick scouted it today to see what it was all about. It was thick and miserable to navigate but The north pocket of this section is a low bowl with shoulder height brush and grass (perfect bedding) the deer can hear you coming from all directions. As the map shows, there is trails leading out of this back pocket and the red X is a scrape on the strip of trees coming south(on my land). This also seems to make sense why there is a rub line in section #4. the pink X is a tree under 85 yds from this bedding pocket looking over the scrape and the only spot i can hunt in this corner. On a side note, further west off the map the creeks runs eventually coming to a road and more bush on the other side. This spot in the road has been known for years to be the high percentage spot of vehicle/deer collisions because of the movement from farm to farm. Well the corner i have newly discovered is part of the funnel structure that deer likely are using on their way towards the road.
Now, seasoned hunters do you think Im navigating this correctly with the new found information? do you have suggestions? does this seem like a likely mature buck spot? the neighbouring land to the north is hunted hard and used as the young boys dirt bike adventure area
I put this together because of my new found teachings of breaking down a farm and hunting it for what it is and now what I want it to be ( likely why I havent killed a mature deer off this farm since ive hunted it) but I also hope it helps others break down their own farms. This is how i will be breaking down any new land to scout so i see everything.
