PredatorTC your up!

[Bowhunter4life]

I have to say for your age Joe, you have a wealth of knowledge. There’s just not a lot of BS and it’s straight to the point with you. I like that man and keep sharing!! Great information for hunters of all levels to take something away from your post. I know I have and my hats off to you. Look forward to seeing more from you in the future!

[ScottSpitzley]

I feel a little bit foolish typing this because I am so young and have so much to learn yet. I look back at some of my footage from 5 years ago and listen to the stuff that I said and I just look silly and foolish. I hope I don’t come off arrogant, but these are all my ideas that have been shaped not only through the forum, but mostly in the woods.

Great write up, Joe! Very good intel. You got me even more pumped up for this summers scouting and glassing.

This may have been asked already as I did not go throughout all the pages, but do you use video or pictures for trail cameras trying to get that direction of travel? I'm assuming video?

Also, you ever find yourself sneaking into setups in the tree glassing as well?

Thanks Scott!

I sure do use my cameras for direction of travel. I used to have all my cameras set on video mode for this reason until a bunch of my cameras had issues with the video mode. Now I just set most of them on a 3 shot burst which gives me a sense of direction as well. There are a few posts where I go into detail a bit more about this that may be worth a read.

I don't have any setups that I can sneak into because I setup the stand and sticks 100% of the time. On many occasions, I have brought my stand along and glassed from that. Its a real sun of a gun in the summer heat, but I look at it this way; I'm not the kind of guy to go to a gym but I want to try to stay in shape. Why not turn my workout in to something fun and beneficial and put in the hard work of setting it up and tearing it down. Doing it a few times is a must especially last year when I was hunting the two booners. I didn't want my first stand setup of the season to be opening night and screw it up and bust out the two big boys. I got my practice in in the summer and could make sure my stand wasn't popping or creaking.

Love it! I don't hang and hunt 100% of the time but I know exactly what you are talking about. Its a great workout for sure!

[JoeRE]

Just wanted to say great job with this Joe. I like how you conduct yourself. Keep up the good work man

[PredatorTC]

I have to say for your age Joe, you have a wealth of knowledge. There’s just not a lot of BS and it’s straight to the point with you. I like that man and keep sharing!! Great information for hunters of all levels to take something away from your post. I know I have and my hats off to you. Look forward to seeing more from you in the future!

I really appreciate that man! Your an absolute killer yourself, and I definitely envy the pigs you put down year after year. Whenever I read your posts, I think to myself "that's some outside of the box thinking". But then when you really analyze the type of thinking it takes to put down solid deer, it really ALMOST comes down to looking at a situation and applying common sense. And we've probably all heard the old saying... "Common sense really isn't common". I over think the heck out of things and it's funny because I've asked Dan questions before and he's called it out and told me to stop over thinking it.

I have mad respect for what you yourself are doing!

[PredatorTC]

Just wanted to say great job with this Joe. I like how you conduct yourself. Keep up the good work man

Thanks a lot man! I need to get listen to your podcast yet. Sounds like there are a handful of golden nuggets in there based on what others have said.

[PredatorTC]

Just wanted to say great job with this Joe. I like how you conduct yourself. Keep up the good work man

Thanks a lot man! I need to listen to your podcast yet. Sounds like there are a handful of golden nuggets in there based on what others have said.

[Natenlsn2]

Hey Nathan- I recently saw your hunt for Macho man and that was top notch! Loved it!



Are these woods huge? Like thousands of acres, or are they woodlots? I honestly haven't done a ton of the big woods scouting or even hunting so I probably couldn't give you some of the best advice on this, but I have hunted some big sections and I would think that it has got to be similar. Within those woodlots or big sections in my scenarios, there are your little honey holes at different times of the year. If its big woods, I would imagine that those honey holes are like our crop fields for us in regards to the way deer head for them to feed. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, but I would start by looking for these areas. I think attention to detail would be a really huge deal in big woods. There would be a few things I would be looking for.



1.Scout for those trees that are nicked up. Remember your rubs aren't always big and glaring.

2. Look for stuff that they are nibbling on. Look for where they are chewing on buds, maybe wild flowers? If this is in season scouting, this sign will be great because you can tell if they have been hitting it recently based on how chewed up it is and if the chewed up stuff has grown back or if its way chewed down.

3.Tracks is an obvious one.

4. And then poop. I know there is a lot of debate around this, but I've always believed that big body deer have big poop. The thing with poop is that it ages. You can tell if its weeks old or hours just by how it dries up. This can tell you if you need to setup that day or if they are no longer around. The poop in these areas is going to make it a bit more obvious that they are feeding there

For me, I think half the trouble would be locating them in the big woods and I would do this by finding where they are going and not necessarily where they are. Going to be much easier. I wish I could tell you what they like to feed on in those big woods. Maybe you know? Or can someone else speak to this? Hard to say for me without ever being in your exact shoes. I may be way off, but maybe you can take away one little nugget from my experiences that click for you.

I

Thanks man!! I really appreciate that! Most areas I am hunting on public are thousands of acres of unbroken timber, no ag fields anywhere within miles...in fact, we only have a handful of soybean fields in my whole county haha! I do hunt some areas that are a couple hundred acres of a wood lot, but pretty much It is just solid woods.
I have been noticing more now that near buck bedding, the buck will brake branches and twigs to get buds down at face level. I should for sure look into the whole wildflower thing, never heard of that before but would make sense!
Just yesterday I scouted the transition line of a big marsh, found over 150 rubs along the edge with numerous bedding spots (one was a hundred yards off a major road!). I think the challenge with a big woods buck is that he could bed in a hundred different spots along that marsh/in the marsh. Hunting the specific bed will be tough because no guarantee he will be where I want him to be haha. Do you generally get out overhanging the marsh? How far do you hunt from the bed/bedding area?
Hoping to see some good tracks this year!
Baiting is legal in my kneck of the woods, so that is a big draw for the deer, also slashings are major food source. I generally don’t find much buck sign unless there are slashings in the area. Logging is so good for deer!

What kind of marsh is it? Is it a big cattail marsh? Or dogwood and cedar? Or just cedar? and how big is the marsh roughly?

The marsh is more like 2-4ft marsh grasses, we don’t have cattail swamps in my area, little pockets of cattails in the marshes but no mono culture of cattails. With the damp grasses not being very tall, makes for great visibility for bucks but tough for hunting since you can’t sneak though it unless you belly crawl haha! I believe the brush is dogwood.

[Natenlsn2]

Hey Nathan- I recently saw your hunt for Macho man and that was top notch! Loved it!



Are these woods huge? Like thousands of acres, or are they woodlots? I honestly haven't done a ton of the big woods scouting or even hunting so I probably couldn't give you some of the best advice on this, but I have hunted some big sections and I would think that it has got to be similar. Within those woodlots or big sections in my scenarios, there are your little honey holes at different times of the year. If its big woods, I would imagine that those honey holes are like our crop fields for us in regards to the way deer head for them to feed. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, but I would start by looking for these areas. I think attention to detail would be a really huge deal in big woods. There would be a few things I would be looking for.



1.Scout for those trees that are nicked up. Remember your rubs aren't always big and glaring.

2. Look for stuff that they are nibbling on. Look for where they are chewing on buds, maybe wild flowers? If this is in season scouting, this sign will be great because you can tell if they have been hitting it recently based on how chewed up it is and if the chewed up stuff has grown back or if its way chewed down.

3.Tracks is an obvious one.

4. And then poop. I know there is a lot of debate around this, but I've always believed that big body deer have big poop. The thing with poop is that it ages. You can tell if its weeks old or hours just by how it dries up. This can tell you if you need to setup that day or if they are no longer around. The poop in these areas is going to make it a bit more obvious that they are feeding there

For me, I think half the trouble would be locating them in the big woods and I would do this by finding where they are going and not necessarily where they are. Going to be much easier. I wish I could tell you what they like to feed on in those big woods. Maybe you know? Or can someone else speak to this? Hard to say for me without ever being in your exact shoes. I may be way off, but maybe you can take away one little nugget from my experiences that click for you.

I

Thanks man!! I really appreciate that! Most areas I am hunting on public are thousands of acres of unbroken timber, no ag fields anywhere within miles...in fact, we only have a handful of soybean fields in my whole county haha! I do hunt some areas that are a couple hundred acres of a wood lot, but pretty much It is just solid woods.
I have been noticing more now that near buck bedding, the buck will brake branches and twigs to get buds down at face level. I should for sure look into the whole wildflower thing, never heard of that before but would make sense!
Just yesterday I scouted the transition line of a big marsh, found over 150 rubs along the edge with numerous bedding spots (one was a hundred yards off a major road!). I think the challenge with a big woods buck is that he could bed in a hundred different spots along that marsh/in the marsh. Hunting the specific bed will be tough because no guarantee he will be where I want him to be haha. Do you generally get out overhanging the marsh? How far do you hunt from the bed/bedding area?
Hoping to see some good tracks this year!
Baiting is legal in my kneck of the woods, so that is a big draw for the deer, also slashings are major food source. I generally don’t find much buck sign unless there are slashings in the area. Logging is so good for deer!

What kind of marsh is it? Is it a big cattail marsh? Or dogwood and cedar? Or just cedar? and how big is the marsh roughly?

Another thing I was thinking. In your situation, If your trying to figure out if bedding is in the swamp in certain situations, go back into your old trail cam photos and scroll through them and look and see if they have mud on their legs. This is one small tip that has been handy for me. Lets say you have a photo of a good one 20 minutes after dark coming sort of from the direction of the marsh that your referring too and he has mud on his legs. Based on direction of travel and if he has mud on his legs yet, you can then narrow down that he came from something wet and that the specific buck is not bedding on dry land. Time of year matters for this too. Obviously a rutting buck not on a pattern can mislead you if your looking at this.

When I figured that little trick out, I went back through a lot of my old photos and it solved a lot of old mystery's for me and helped me to understand what was going on in my area.

That is a great idea! Since I have just been getting into beast hunting tactics I have not had any trail cam intel of bucks coming and going right from their bedding locations near marshes, so i will use this in the future! This reminds me of a hunt of Todd from Bowhunt or die, (not sure if he is a beast hunter) but he shot an early season buck this past season over a scrape on the edge of a marsh. The buck still had mud on his feet when he shot it! That hunt really confirmed in my mind what Dan talks about with bucks bedding in the marsh and hitting a scrape right away. If you get a chance, check out that video! https://youtu.be/iXJwEzNX1vM

[creepingdeth]

Amazing stuff...I really like your suggestion about being careful of mimicking someone else's style and/or tactics and failing, wondering why. Being in a huge learning mode, I listen to others, sift through things I could understand/use, then plug it in and see what works...No way I can be 100% like others, I'm more of a mutt tacticwise Great job and thanks for sharing

[PredatorTC]

Hey Nathan- I recently saw your hunt for Macho man and that was top notch! Loved it!



Are these woods huge? Like thousands of acres, or are they woodlots? I honestly haven't done a ton of the big woods scouting or even hunting so I probably couldn't give you some of the best advice on this, but I have hunted some big sections and I would think that it has got to be similar. Within those woodlots or big sections in my scenarios, there are your little honey holes at different times of the year. If its big woods, I would imagine that those honey holes are like our crop fields for us in regards to the way deer head for them to feed. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, but I would start by looking for these areas. I think attention to detail would be a really huge deal in big woods. There would be a few things I would be looking for.



1.Scout for those trees that are nicked up. Remember your rubs aren't always big and glaring.

2. Look for stuff that they are nibbling on. Look for where they are chewing on buds, maybe wild flowers? If this is in season scouting, this sign will be great because you can tell if they have been hitting it recently based on how chewed up it is and if the chewed up stuff has grown back or if its way chewed down.

3.Tracks is an obvious one.

4. And then poop. I know there is a lot of debate around this, but I've always believed that big body deer have big poop. The thing with poop is that it ages. You can tell if its weeks old or hours just by how it dries up. This can tell you if you need to setup that day or if they are no longer around. The poop in these areas is going to make it a bit more obvious that they are feeding there

For me, I think half the trouble would be locating them in the big woods and I would do this by finding where they are going and not necessarily where they are. Going to be much easier. I wish I could tell you what they like to feed on in those big woods. Maybe you know? Or can someone else speak to this? Hard to say for me without ever being in your exact shoes. I may be way off, but maybe you can take away one little nugget from my experiences that click for you.

I

Thanks man!! I really appreciate that! Most areas I am hunting on public are thousands of acres of unbroken timber, no ag fields anywhere within miles...in fact, we only have a handful of soybean fields in my whole county haha! I do hunt some areas that are a couple hundred acres of a wood lot, but pretty much It is just solid woods.
I have been noticing more now that near buck bedding, the buck will brake branches and twigs to get buds down at face level. I should for sure look into the whole wildflower thing, never heard of that before but would make sense!
Just yesterday I scouted the transition line of a big marsh, found over 150 rubs along the edge with numerous bedding spots (one was a hundred yards off a major road!). I think the challenge with a big woods buck is that he could bed in a hundred different spots along that marsh/in the marsh. Hunting the specific bed will be tough because no guarantee he will be where I want him to be haha. Do you generally get out overhanging the marsh? How far do you hunt from the bed/bedding area?
Hoping to see some good tracks this year!
Baiting is legal in my kneck of the woods, so that is a big draw for the deer, also slashings are major food source. I generally don’t find much buck sign unless there are slashings in the area. Logging is so good for deer!

What kind of marsh is it? Is it a big cattail marsh? Or dogwood and cedar? Or just cedar? and how big is the marsh roughly?

Another thing I was thinking. In your situation, If your trying to figure out if bedding is in the swamp in certain situations, go back into your old trail cam photos and scroll through them and look and see if they have mud on their legs. This is one small tip that has been handy for me. Lets say you have a photo of a good one 20 minutes after dark coming sort of from the direction of the marsh that your referring too and he has mud on his legs. Based on direction of travel and if he has mud on his legs yet, you can then narrow down that he came from something wet and that the specific buck is not bedding on dry land. Time of year matters for this too. Obviously a rutting buck not on a pattern can mislead you if your looking at this.

When I figured that little trick out, I went back through a lot of my old photos and it solved a lot of old mystery's for me and helped me to understand what was going on in my area.

That is a great idea! Since I have just been getting into beast hunting tactics I have not had any trail cam intel of bucks coming and going right from their bedding locations near marshes, so i will use this in the future! This reminds me of a hunt of Todd from Bowhunt or die, (not sure if he is a beast hunter) but he shot an early season buck this past season over a scrape on the edge of a marsh. The buck still had mud on his feet when he shot it! That hunt really confirmed in my mind what Dan talks about with bucks bedding in the marsh and hitting a scrape right away. If you get a chance, check out that video! https://youtu.be/iXJwEzNX1vM

I love that video and the way he worked the wireless cam to stay out and take his best stab when it was go time! That buck was on a mission to those acorns too. Very cool!

[PredatorTC]

Amazing stuff...I really like your suggestion about being careful of mimicking someone else's style and/or tactics and failing, wondering why. Being in a huge learning mode, I listen to others, sift through things I could understand/use, then plug it in and see what works...No way I can be 100% like others, I'm more of a mutt tacticwise Great job and thanks for sharing

Thanks!

[<DK>]

What a BEAST!

[Fireman324]

Great Stuff PTC! I like the part about everyones situation being different and how their style of hunting will/could differ from the next guys to work in the area he is hunting.