bing.com/maps - So the first image is the "big picture" image. I envision the deer coming from the area near the parking lot and the browse on the south and east side of it. As they filter back to the NE, there's a little "island" of large trees. I figured they could possibly use this as a funnel between the really thick stuff and the river on the way back to bed. I also figured, and made the decision based on the wind, that I could walk the river bank to get back there without leaving a scent trail. I always like to enter my morning sets by looping around.
This second pic is further zoomed in on the "island". I also rotated the map. I find that rotating the map on bing.com/maps gives you a different image each time, sometimes from different times of the year and different lighting conditions, which allows you to pick up on things you missed with the first angle. You can often find exact trails going through cattails.
I picked that tree in near the front and center of the island because if you look at the scale, I'd be able to shoot anything moving through or near the edge of those big hardwoods. You can also see that river bed access better. All sand.
What suprised me was that once I actually walked into those tall trees, the ground was all sand. No brush, no grass, just big maples spread throughout. Must flood every spring and the dense canopy doesn't allow small growth? I've never seen that before, so I was initally a bit nervous about the set. But I got up in that tree, facing N (which would be facing away from the direction they'd come from). Sure enough, that buck came in from that middle red arrow. Would have been perfect for filming, since it was so open in there. Had shooting lanes out to probably 60 yards in several directions. Actually had the camera all set up, but didn't think there'd be enough light so I didn't bother. After the shot I turned the camera on and it had plently of light. O well, live and learn.
After it got light and I found the deer, I found that a better spot to sit likely would have been right on the edge of those tall open trees and the smaller trees I've labeled as "bedding". Even though I didn't see any over there, this buck probably would have made his way there, and there was a heavy trail through some tall grass right on that edge.
To put the aerial images on my GPS, I followed this tutorial:
[bbvideo=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fnYEDuoT8s[/bbvideo]
Once I have the bing.com image I want, I hit the PrtSc (print screen) button. Paste it into paint and crop out all of the borders and web adress stuff, etc. Then save it as a .jpg. Then put it in google earth, resize and drag and drop into the Custom Maps folder on the GPS. I'm not sure if it only works for Garmin or not. Then you can create a route to follow on the GPS, though, in this spot, it really wasn't even necessary. I can keep doing this process with several zoomed in images side by side to do the whole marsh if I want to. Then I get free topo lines for the GPS from
http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/. They show up right on top of the custom map image I've put on there. While not necessary for marsh hunting, they do help a lot for hill country. Beats buying Garmin's topo chip for like $100 or whatever it is.
