Question on how to hunt a staging area

[bowmike]

As Ive said before I don't get a ton of time to scout. The one area I want to hunt is actually one that is pretty darn close to a windmill road. Some of these often get overlooked on public land. Anyway in an effort to try to sneak in some scouting time I took the windmill road home from work in the Pontiac vibe (work car) yesterday.

Roughly 200 yards or so from where I will be hunting I had a nice buck for my neck of the woods, 8 point 14-16" wide cross the road in front of me and walk into the woods. When I scouted this area and picked my spot, I am on kind of a skinny pinch between a straight cliff, and field where a windmill is. The bases of these windmills are fields about 80 yards by 80 yards squares. My stand is about 25 yards from the windmill field, and 25 yards from a straight cliff. A really tight funnel. I feel if I climb up to where I did the other day, my scent will be going over the cliff or out into the field above their scent zone. Will test with milkweed.

Where I will be climbing my treestand is where I found a decent amount of acorns, and a couple smaller scrapes. The tracks in the scrapes are suggestive a 2 year old buck so it could be his. I would be more than happy to take this buck. As some of my earlier posts have suggested I really want to just put meat in the freezer to take my boy out.

Now my question to you is this. Do I hunt my stand location that I picked for the acorns and scrapes. Or should I move down to where the buck crossed. The are he came from is a pretty decent thicket. This was at 6:45 in the evening.

My worry is that if I hunt where I initially thought I would miss him before he gets to the acorns to eat. I think I may hunt that cliff stand in the morning and on my way out give the other area a look. I know there is a group of pines between my acorn/cliff spot and where he went into.

I am picturing him coming out of his bedding in the thicket, and working over towards the acorns and possibly staging in that pine area before working his scrapes on the cliff and eating the acorns.

Any thoughts on this?

[dan]

If I had to choose between the two, I would almost always choose to be closer to staging/ bedding. He might show up at the stand at dark or later, and you might push him out of the area when you exit t6he stand. I would choose the funnel during rut.

[mainebowhunter]

If I had to choose between the two, I would almost always choose to be closer to staging/ bedding. He might show up at the stand at dark or later, and you might push him out of the area when you exit t6he stand. I would choose the funnel during rut.

X2 - I know most of my setups are all within 75-100yds of bedding areas.

[bowmike]

Thanks guys. That was my thoughts as well.