The Hunting Beast

Kind of a weird question but has anyone incountered other hunters in the marsh that you think must have seen the dvd? Last season on a morning hunt I cut through a small thicket near a trail just to speed check for big tracks on my way back to the truck. I found a pretty decent buck bed that someone was "trying" to hunt but clearly had no clue. They cut shooting lanes and sawed all the limbs off a poplar tree about 25 feet up for a climber. It was kind of funny because I just felt like someone watched about 10 minutes of the video and went out to kill the swamp monster.

While out post season scouting I found other human tracks in a few spots that I scouted which had me wondering the same thing.

Hunting in my home town marsh completely changed after releasing the marsh bucks DVD... A bunch of local businesses sold the DVD's to all the hunters that visited... The spot I scouted at the begining of the DVD where I showed finding and setting up on a bed, there must be about 15 people each spring since the DVD release that scout and hunt that spot... Used to have it all to my self. The islands are getting a ton more pressure too...

I See the sequel to this coming.





Hunting Pressured Marsh Bucks.

Dan has dealt with a lot of marsh pressure already, but when someone recognizes a spot on a dvd- hang on! That can't be a good thing.

I do believe that the DVD has exposed some folks to the swamps/marshes that otherwise wouldn't have gone there. I also believe that due to higher numbers of hunters in the woods, they are naturally creeping out into the swamps to avoid other hunters. I routinely see hunters there now - I used to be by myself in the marshes years ago.

Remember that marsh sign is typically concentrated on the islands of higher ground, so it will naturally concentrate hunters to those areas. Most hunters feel the need to climb trees and then gravitate to the islands due to the larger trees there. The key details most tend to miss in the Marsh Bucks video is that you may need to hunt three-feet off the ground in a tiny tree or on the ground behind a deadfall. 90% of the hunters look for the forty-foot tall tree with the most canopy and end up there - very predictable. The bucks that make it a few seasons are adapting and learning to avoid those trees.....follow suit for increased opportunity.

PLH

Good point PLH

Another thing i think is missed in the video as that you should be hunting in a different spot almost every time in most situations. Too many people see a hot little island and keep doing back to it time after time after time. And i believe if you can figure out how the deer are avoiding these hunters, you can kill them, because the deer itself almost makes its own pattern to scent check the island or avoid the hunter.
my 2cents

tHOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NOT SEEN THE dvd... I am selling it at huntingBEAST for $12.95 and will have them at the Madison deer classic..

dan, you should hurry up and make those videos on how to hunt big woods and farmlands just to even out the hunter concentrations again