Today was going to be a tall order, as I was going in to an area that gets pounded with pressure- and I mean pounded. There are so many roads on the public land here that there is nowhere the bucks can go to leave most hunters behind. Despite this, some decent bucks make it through every year- but finding one of them is a real chore. By the way, my definition of decent is likely a lot different from yours- a buck that makes it to its third birthday here is something to really get excited about. A three year old here will score about 106” to 115” at best!!I hit some classic Beast spots, off of points and hidden high ground out in the swamps/marshes. But I only managed to locate several beds of bucks that were yearlings last fall. It appeared that finding a two year old would be the best I could hope for today and the chances of that were diminishing by the hour. Finally I located a decent track or two, as well as a good rub on the transition line of a swamp. I followed the transition line of the swamp and high ground to where a point progressed into the swamp for a fair distance. I found a decent run with a small rub (two year old) going into the swamp. After searching for a half hour I located several buck beds about a hundred yards into the marsh on little dry humps of land, maybe five feet across. Each bed had a small rub or three near it.
Having spent a lot of time in heavy pressure public land in Michigan, I noted one run that hooked away from the subordinate buck beds and angled back toward the point but would remain well away from the high ground. I have found this a number of times while snow tracking bucks and it will occasionally pay off to follow it… always check them out anyway. There would be no snow to track in today. After covering about a hundred yards of marsh I located a large buck bed surrounded by muck, water, tagalders and nastiness. There were a couple of good sized rubs near the bed from a couple of years ago, and one good rub in a nearby staging area sixty yards from the big bed itself.
This buck, at least a three year old last fall, has done what a number of other bucks I have scouted over the years like to do. It simply isn’t enough for him to go out in the super dense cover, water and muck to bed and rely on noise to protect him. He walks predators tracking his ground scent through a subordinate buck’s bedding area to have them get blown out first and give him advance warning. And despite bedding in a secure, very thick on all sides, tiny dry hump he prefers to bed on the prevailing downwind side of the mainland point.
Go to bed in a super dense, wet and mucky swamp… walk ground tracking predators (coyotes and tons of wild dogs here) through subordinate buck bedding areas first… bed often where a prevailing wind will give warning of mainland predator activity… these bucks are amazing in the survival skills they have learned in super heavy pressure areas. They "sometimes" will stage no more than 40 – 60 yards, at best, here before dark… even during the rut periods. They can be pretty tough to hunt!
