How many spots is too many?

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BassBoysLLP
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby BassBoysLLP » Sat Sep 03, 2016 6:01 am

Never too many spots. Always not enough great spots.

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headgear
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby headgear » Sat Sep 03, 2016 6:09 am

The other benefit to having lots of spots is adaptability, some of the smaller spots I hunt (1000 acres or less) might not hold a mature buck every single season, sometimes all the bucks get mowed down by rifle hunters and it can take an area several years to recover and start producing mature deer again, it can also be very hard to predict when one will show up. For the most part I try and avoid these spots for spots that hold bucks every season. However when they are around there might be only 1-2 areas they will bed so if a stud starts using that area I can move in have pretty good odds of getting on him in a short amount of time.

Then you have to find a balance of over hunting an area and spreading yourself too thin.
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Dewey » Sat Sep 03, 2016 7:11 am

headgear wrote:The other benefit to having lots of spots is adaptability, some of the smaller spots I hunt (1000 acres or less) might not hold a mature buck every single season, sometimes all the bucks get mowed down by rifle hunters and it can take an area several years to recover and start producing mature deer again, it can also be very hard to predict when one will show up. For the most part I try and avoid these spots for spots that hold bucks every season. However when they are around there might be only 1-2 areas they will bed so if a stud starts using that area I can move in have pretty good odds of getting on him in a short amount of time.

Then you have to find a balance of over hunting an area and spreading yourself too thin.

Very good point. I have 100's of spots marked and like you mentioned some go dead from time to time but then can be great again later. I am a firm believer in having as many spots as possible and this can only be accomplished with a great deal of scouting. Especially going into a new area to hunt for the first time I DO NOT want to only have a few option for spots to hunt. When I'm scouting I'm thinking about findings spots good for every single wind direction and this requires a ton of work. I don't want to arrive and figure out I have no options and then end up wandering around and ruining the entire area. Knowing the land inside and out is so important.

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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Stanley » Sat Sep 03, 2016 9:17 am

Kraftd wrote:
Stanley wrote:I've kind of touched on this before. 10 good spots is more productive that 30 junky spots. :think: Sometimes we tend to hunt a spot even though we are pretty sure it won't produce. This is why I promote quality over quantity. If you sit in a junky spot you are merely padding time in the stand. I would rather stay home and watch football than spend time in non productive spots. The fresher you keep yourself, the longer you can grind it out if necessary. :think:


Or just keep the feet moving and scout with your bow at that point. That's where I am.


In my mind scouting is kind of counter productive during the season. If your feet are moving the bucks feet will not be moving. You can scout 12 months out of the year. You can only hunt a couple of months out of the year. :think: Optimizing your time in the stand is what puts bucks on the wall.
You can fool some of the bucks, all of the time, and fool all of the bucks, some of the time, however you certainly can't fool all of the bucks, all of the time.
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby john1984 » Sat Sep 03, 2016 1:55 pm

Stanley wrote:
Kraftd wrote:
Stanley wrote:I've kind of touched on this before. 10 good spots is more productive that 30 junky spots. :think: Sometimes we tend to hunt a spot even though we are pretty sure it won't produce. This is why I promote quality over quantity. If you sit in a junky spot you are merely padding time in the stand. I would rather stay home and watch football than spend time in non productive spots. The fresher you keep yourself, the longer you can grind it out if necessary. :think:


Or just keep the feet moving and scout with your bow at that point. That's where I am.


In my mind scouting is kind of counter productive during the season. If your feet are moving the bucks feet will not be moving. You can scout 12 months out of the year. You can only hunt a couple of months out of the year. :think: Optimizing your time in the stand is what puts bucks on the wall.


What about" scunting"? , as whitetailassasin calls it. Thats mobile hunting at its mobilist. You can kill a buck while scouting during deer season.

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Jackson Marsh
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Jackson Marsh » Sat Sep 03, 2016 1:57 pm

Stanley wrote:I've kind of touched on this before. 10 good spots is more productive that 30 junky spots. :think: Sometimes we tend to hunt a spot even though we are pretty sure it won't produce. This is why I promote quality over quantity. If you sit in a junky spot you are merely padding time in the stand. I would rather stay home and watch football than spend time in non productive spots. The fresher you keep yourself, the longer you can grind it out if necessary. :think:



How do you know which spots are junky and which spots are good without hunting them? :think:

Observations, trail cameras, sign, experience/gut. A new hunter starting out will see many spots he thinks are good, until he hunts them and learns most are junk. Another hunter with some experience under his belt might be able to tell which spots are junk without hunting them.

I've got a lot of spots to hunt, most are junk but some are good....I only learned that by hunting them.

Now I try to find more good spots :lol:

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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Hawthorne » Sat Sep 03, 2016 2:13 pm

Jackson Marsh wrote:
Stanley wrote:I've kind of touched on this before. 10 good spots is more productive that 30 junky spots. :think: Sometimes we tend to hunt a spot even though we are pretty sure it won't produce. This is why I promote quality over quantity. If you sit in a junky spot you are merely padding time in the stand. I would rather stay home and watch football than spend time in non productive spots. The fresher you keep yourself, the longer you can grind it out if necessary. :think:



How do you know which spots are junky and which spots are good without hunting them? :think:

Observations, trail cameras, sign, experience/gut. A new hunter starting out will see many spots he thinks are good, until he hunts them and learns most are junk. Another hunter with some experience under his belt might be able to tell which spots are junk without hunting them.

I've got a lot of spots to hunt, most are junk but some are good....I only learned that by hunting them.

Now I try to find more good spots :lol:

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This is so true. I hunted a ton of junkie spots when I was younger but still managed to shoot deer out of some of them always does or young bucks.It took me 10 years of pretty much learning on my own before a shot a 3.5 year old buck. Then I realized I needed to be in better spots mostly in thick areas with little to no hunting pressure in areas of about 20 acres or more. In my area even a 10 acre thicket will hold good bucks if people don't enter it. There can even be some hunting pressure around it. Then I started hunting more by myself and I was dropping them. Wish I would of had the beast 20 years ago. These young guys can get good a lot faster with the beast. I'm still learning to but I don't get hung up in bad areas like I used to. I know what I'm looking for and the beast has helped me. I didn't find this info till I was 39 years old. Every thing I've read has made so much sense because I had already experienced a lot of it.

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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Stanley » Sat Sep 03, 2016 4:16 pm

Jackson Marsh wrote:
Stanley wrote:I've kind of touched on this before. 10 good spots is more productive that 30 junky spots. :think: Sometimes we tend to hunt a spot even though we are pretty sure it won't produce. This is why I promote quality over quantity. If you sit in a junky spot you are merely padding time in the stand. I would rather stay home and watch football than spend time in non productive spots. The fresher you keep yourself, the longer you can grind it out if necessary. :think:



How do you know which spots are junky and which spots are good without hunting them? :think:

Observations, trail cameras, sign, experience/gut. A new hunter starting out will see many spots he thinks are good, until he hunts them and learns most are junk. Another hunter with some experience under his belt might be able to tell which spots are junk without hunting them.

I've got a lot of spots to hunt, most are junk but some are good....I only learned that by hunting them.

Now I try to find more good spots :lol:

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Great point, once you do learn a spot isn't any good don't sit in it just to be hunting. That was my point. I know a lot of guys do this. A lot of my friends do this.
You can fool some of the bucks, all of the time, and fool all of the bucks, some of the time, however you certainly can't fool all of the bucks, all of the time.
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Stanley » Sat Sep 03, 2016 4:26 pm

john1984 wrote: What about" scunting"? , as whitetailassasin calls it. Thats mobile hunting at its mobilist. You can kill a buck while scouting during deer season.

Scunting is good roaming around looking not so much. My point was to make your time in the stand as productive as you can. If your stumbling around looking you will struggle. I like to have a plan and have the areas I am going to hunt scouted out before the season starts. Then I can concentrate on hunting.

I know guys that get done hunting and roam around looking after every hunt every day. Not sure why they haven't found what they are looking for.
You can fool some of the bucks, all of the time, and fool all of the bucks, some of the time, however you certainly can't fool all of the bucks, all of the time.
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Longhaul » Sun Sep 04, 2016 2:56 am

Too many choices is a good problem ! All of us have to make decisions about where / when / how to go about our hunting. This almost unlimited freedom is a huge part of the attraction the outdoors holds. And more than a few rewards along the way.

You are in some beautiful country. Keep hunting and enjoy every day of it !
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Ryan » Mon Sep 05, 2016 1:15 pm

Stanley wrote:
john1984 wrote: What about" scunting"? , as whitetailassasin calls it. Thats mobile hunting at its mobilist. You can kill a buck while scouting during deer season.

Scunting is good roaming around looking not so much. My point was to make your time in the stand as productive as you can. If your stumbling around looking you will struggle. I like to have a plan and have the areas I am going to hunt scouted out before the season starts. Then I can concentrate on hunting.

I know guys that get done hunting and roam around looking after every hunt every day. Not sure why they haven't found what they are looking for.


Great points here Stan, i think a few great spots are alot better then just a bunch of maybe spots..with that comes available hunting time, if i could hunt everyday then i guess i would like having a bunch of maybe spots, since i only can get out every so often i need a few high quality spots. Which i can only find in the offseason usually cause during season with limited hunting time i need to be in a stand to have the highest probability of success, walking can produce but i would say its less likely then being silent in a stand where you know deer travel. "If your feet are walking the big bucks aint" now that is a great piece of wisdom Stan!

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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby Swampbuck » Mon Sep 05, 2016 1:54 pm

Stanley wrote:
Kraftd wrote:
Stanley wrote:I've kind of touched on this before. 10 good spots is more productive that 30 junky spots. :think: Sometimes we tend to hunt a spot even though we are pretty sure it won't produce. This is why I promote quality over quantity. If you sit in a junky spot you are merely padding time in the stand. I would rather stay home and watch football than spend time in non productive spots. The fresher you keep yourself, the longer you can grind it out if necessary. :think:


Or just keep the feet moving and scout with your bow at that point. That's where I am.


In my mind scouting is kind of counter productive during the season. If your feet are moving the bucks feet will not be moving. You can scout 12 months out of the year. You can only hunt a couple of months out of the year. :think: Optimizing your time in the stand is what puts bucks on the wall.



That is dependant on the terrain. From April thru November I cannot get in the swamp I hunt. The undergrowth is 8' high, solid... until the freeze kills it it's almost impossible to get thru. Plus the ditches used to access it are choked up with grass so getting any small boat in is a monumental effort. Plus once the undergrowth is gone it changes thier patterns so much its necessary to know what they are doing when you can hunt them.. so u are almost forced to split the scouting and hunting during season. Granted what you scout is pretty much burned for that year but it's Intel for the next. But sometimes you can find something hot and succeed immediately. For the most part I hunt on last year's intel and search for what I can for next year. But I know this is probably out of the norm of most the country

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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby hunter10 » Tue Sep 27, 2016 12:40 pm

I knew i remembered seeing this post somewhere and thought id chime in. Long story short, before finding the beast I had lots of farms to hunt and still do but what the beast did for me is teach me how to narrow down a farm to 3,4,5 or 10 good spots to hunt and a reason for it instead of having a farm pre beast and randomly hunting inside corners and fields.. I was more confident last year after studying the beast than years past and in return I had more mature buck sightings than ever and had a hand full of close calls..

This year I have more confidence and better trees to climb than last year due to more in depth scouting and understanding.. which was learned here.

Tonight I finished up my hunting log book which breaks down every farm I can hunt into 2 categories (bedding or beds and Non-bedding/Extras). I am hunting some of the same stands as last year because of what I learned and observed, I lost a farm, I let a couple trees go that I had no confidence in, I gained a couple more farms to hunt and in return came up with this 2016 hunting plan

I have a total of 60 spots to hunt
split between 15-20 places to hunt ranging from 10-200 acres roughly
29 are beds or bedding
31 are Non-bedding/Extras - i.e leeward ridges, funnels, potential rut travel routes etc

They are all split into wind directions with most being fairly equal with East winds being the less frequent.

I wont hunt 60x this year so I easily have more than enough places and even if I can hit every bed or bedding area Ill be happy.

Last year, I didnt have as many places but I did the same layout as above and in return I came close to shooting a mature deer, past a mature deer I under evaluated and saw first hand some things talked about on here that really clicked when I saw them from the tree

i.e 1. Early season bucks usually bed before light.. Had a buck likely doing his J hook and entering the bed with wind in face 30 mins before first light
2. hunting spots I used to never thick would produce and actually having better encounters
3. giving up field edges unless standing corn and giving up open woodlots
4. hunting the leeward side and seeing and beleiving in the tactic.
5. came within 10ft of a 110-115" buck, letting him go to only see him dead in pictures on the neighbours land by 9am the next morning
6. being close enough to a bed to watch a mature buck come down a ridge and hit a scrape 10 mins before dark.

What I am getting at is I used to have access to many places to hunt and had many tree stands but I didnt understand how to hunt. Now from starting to see things click with the beast I understand having more is better even if you wont hunt half... One thing I wish i was told when i started hunting was to get permission to 1 good spot and learn it and understand the deer and sign before even looking for another piece of land.
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Re: How many spots is too many?

Unread postby mainebowhunter » Tue Sep 27, 2016 1:13 pm

Swampbuck wrote:
Stanley wrote:
Kraftd wrote:
Stanley wrote:I've kind of touched on this before. 10 good spots is more productive that 30 junky spots. :think: Sometimes we tend to hunt a spot even though we are pretty sure it won't produce. This is why I promote quality over quantity. If you sit in a junky spot you are merely padding time in the stand. I would rather stay home and watch football than spend time in non productive spots. The fresher you keep yourself, the longer you can grind it out if necessary. :think:


Or just keep the feet moving and scout with your bow at that point. That's where I am.


In my mind scouting is kind of counter productive during the season. If your feet are moving the bucks feet will not be moving. You can scout 12 months out of the year. You can only hunt a couple of months out of the year. :think: Optimizing your time in the stand is what puts bucks on the wall.



That is dependant on the terrain. From April thru November I cannot get in the swamp I hunt. The undergrowth is 8' high, solid... until the freeze kills it it's almost impossible to get thru. Plus the ditches used to access it are choked up with grass so getting any small boat in is a monumental effort. Plus once the undergrowth is gone it changes thier patterns so much its necessary to know what they are doing when you can hunt them.. so u are almost forced to split the scouting and hunting during season. Granted what you scout is pretty much burned for that year but it's Intel for the next. But sometimes you can find something hot and succeed immediately. For the most part I hunt on last year's intel and search for what I can for next year. But I know this is probably out of the norm of most the country

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Its interesting as I am about ready to start the best part of my season here. I totally understand what your saying Stan. I have bunch of stuff prepped and ready to go. I will be hunting for a couple weeks straight, sitting all my sets until I either kill or come up empty handed. It makes sense.

However, it makes sense...until things change during the season that you do not anticipate. Granted, the state I hunt, its not that great for deer hunting. Better than some, worse than most. So staying on deer takes a ton of work. Honestly, in the midwest I can put in 5% of the work I do here in the Northeast and get back way more back in return. Its why I beg steal or borrow to get their every year.

The variables that change every season are huge. No water. Tons of water. Acorns. No acorns. Apples...no apples. Its a HUGE game changer here. Cover is abundant. If you have 20yrs experience on any one of these combos, your in the game. But if you do not have 20yrs of experience, you need to in season adjust to anyone of these variables. You can bust your hump pre-season and post season and still end up coming up short on areas you counted on.

Its really why I scout so much ground every season. I have varying degrees of properties. Some are A properties, I run cameras on and only check every 2-3 weeks. Pretty much stay out of known bedding areas. No reason to go in to these areas...I know what is there. Then there are the B. properties. I may hunt them. If camera pulls confirm what I my preseason scouting found, I will hunt. If not, I will continue to scout them. Then there are C. properties. Only way I will hunt them is if I get some kind of stupid camera pulls and bucks are doing something I can capitalize on.


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