Short scouting window this year..

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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby dan » Tue Mar 05, 2013 11:02 am

During the rut I would hunt the side hills at the same elevation inbetween bedding areas... The rest of the year I prefer to hunt the side hill adjacent or above, but really the buck decides where I hunt because I am not going to set up in a direction he is not traveling.


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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby bigbob » Tue Mar 05, 2013 12:57 pm

Good thread dan, I've been getting a little worried about this myself because the three areas I would say are my best for numbers of big bucks are a couple hours away and will really require a good weekend trip to get a handful of spots picked and trimmed. So I'm starting to work on a good strategy/gameplan so that when the time come I can be as productive as possible in only a few days.

1. Cyber scouting-Because of limited time I was thinking it would be best to first narrow areas down to which would be accessible without detection and not spending much time looking at areas I wouldn't be able to cleanly hunt. Next I would look for good bedding point and cuts/headers, etc. on the ridgelines on the leeward side of the ridge of course.

2. Scouting- I was hoping that by severely cutting down my spots to only those huntable and having specific areas selected within those spots I would be able to find a decent number of spots within my short scouting window. There are also a few areas I already have a bit of history with that would just need some checking and new tree selection possibly.

3. Goals- My goals of this plan is to be able weed out vast portions of land immediately and find maybe 4-5 really good looking spots with great entry and exits in a long weekend. Since they are are of town I will not be able to hunt all the time and would mostly be late oct/nov rut period type hunts, which I know is not really "beast style".

In hill country buck hunting spots blind was mentioned and I was wondering if you could expand a little more on that. Is this similar to the approaches took when you hunt a spot blind? Once I have located a few areas on maps that I think will be good and go walk them will I be looking for areas with lots of buck sign around the thermal tunnel area, or what should I be looking for in an area If I'm unable to really locate specific bucks/beds? Sorry, a lot of jabber and questions guys.
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby Buckfever » Tue Mar 05, 2013 1:55 pm

I have to say that after the 6th ravine on the second property yesterday, I was wondering how I was going to get out of there. I should have taken pics, some of these spots in the midwest can be insane.
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby Jackson Marsh » Tue Mar 05, 2013 2:09 pm

Buckfever wrote:I have to say that after the 6th ravine on the second property yesterday, I was wondering how I was going to get out of there. I should have taken pics, some of these spots in the midwest can be insane.



:lol:
I've been there too. Last spring and summer I walked over twenty miles in the hills of NE Iowa................and then didn't draw a tag :lol:

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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby Buckfever » Tue Mar 05, 2013 4:47 pm

Jackson Marsh wrote:
Buckfever wrote:I have to say that after the 6th ravine on the second property yesterday, I was wondering how I was going to get out of there. I should have taken pics, some of these spots in the midwest can be insane.



:lol:
I've been there too. Last spring and summer I walked over twenty miles in the hills of NE Iowa................and then didn't draw a tag :lol:

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Really? Too funny, I'm drawing points there too. Great minds....
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby hoot » Thu Mar 07, 2013 1:25 pm

Buckfever wrote:
Jackson Marsh wrote:
Buckfever wrote:I have to say that after the 6th ravine on the second property yesterday, I was wondering how I was going to get out of there. I should have taken pics, some of these spots in the midwest can be insane.



:lol:
I've been there too. Last spring and summer I walked over twenty miles in the hills of NE Iowa................and then didn't draw a tag :lol:

[ Post made via Android ] Image


Really? Too funny, I'm drawing points there too. Great minds....


it better warm up some and melt this snow. hoping to get there for 1st scouting trip during spring break in week and half.
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby Buckfever » Thu Mar 07, 2013 2:58 pm

hoot wrote:
Buckfever wrote:
Jackson Marsh wrote:
Buckfever wrote:I have to say that after the 6th ravine on the second property yesterday, I was wondering how I was going to get out of there. I should have taken pics, some of these spots in the midwest can be insane.



:lol:
I've been there too. Last spring and summer I walked over twenty miles in the hills of NE Iowa................and then didn't draw a tag :lol:

[ Post made via Android ] Image


Really? Too funny, I'm drawing points there too. Great minds....


it better warm up some and melt this snow. hoping to get there for 1st scouting trip during spring break in week and half.


The Beast invade Iowa.
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby dan » Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:32 pm

I should draw N.E. Iowa this year too..
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby JoeRE » Mon Mar 11, 2013 10:53 am

I am getting Sick of the snow sticking around that is for sure. We had around 2' on the ground many places until the rain started yesterday anyway. I should have done more scouting, and shed hunting, when I had the chance and the open ground back in January.

Dan, Buckfever, Jackson...if you guys do end up hunting northeast Iowa this fall, drop me a line if you are looking for info on anything. I have hunted NE Iowa since I was 12 and lived there most of my life to boot. I like how guys on the beast roll.
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby Jackson Marsh » Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:55 pm

JoeRE wrote:I am getting Sick of the snow sticking around that is for sure. We had around 2' on the ground many places until the rain started yesterday anyway. I should have done more scouting, and shed hunting, when I had the chance and the open ground back in January.

[glow=red]Dan, Buckfever, Jackson...if you guys do end up hunting northeast Iowa[/glow] this fall, drop me a line if you are looking for info on anything. I have hunted NE Iowa since I was 12 and lived there most of my life to boot. I like how guys on the beast roll.



I'd just as soon not end up in the same county as Dan :lol: :lol: :lol: He'd be in all the good spots!
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby JoeRE » Thu Mar 14, 2013 11:48 pm

Jackson Marsh wrote:
I'd just as soon not end up in the same county as Dan :lol: :lol: :lol: He'd be in all the good spots!


Ha - thankfully there are about 3 really good bucks in all of northeast Iowa, after he shoots the biggest one that leaves two for me to chase around all season :lol:
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby MN Legacy » Sun Mar 17, 2013 4:21 am

I was hoping to be able to do alittle scouting in late March, but I don't know now with all this snow we are getting. So it might not be untile April and hopefully maybe Easter weekend we'll see.
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby JJWI » Wed Mar 20, 2013 8:09 am

I have a Black Spruce/Conifer swamp that I want to really dive in to this year. I have mainly rifle hunted it with good success, but would like to have some spots scouted out for this year. Would you walk the transition lines and focus on the higher spots for buck bedding? It is a big swamp and narrowing down areas would help.
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby dan » Wed Mar 20, 2013 9:58 am

JJWI wrote:I have a Black Spruce/Conifer swamp that I want to really dive in to this year. I have mainly rifle hunted it with good success, but would like to have some spots scouted out for this year. Would you walk the transition lines and focus on the higher spots for buck bedding? It is a big swamp and narrowing down areas would help.

There are a few things to look for:
Remote hard transitions, where high grass/dogwood/or cattails meet.

Transitions with fingers...

Interior transition lines ( where two different years growth, or species of trees meet.

The highest spots. Sometimes topos will identify slight high spots. There are likely to be beds there.

if your looking at an ocean of spruce and see one or two trees of a different species... Look there.
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Re: Short scouting window this year..

Unread postby PK_ » Wed Mar 20, 2013 3:06 pm

Stupid question from a kid who can count on one hand the amount of times he has seen snow...


Why does it become so difficult to scout after green up? Mainly talking about hillcountry, looking for beds on points, obviously.

I want to do an early season archery out of state hunt, but I don't think I can make it up to scout before green up... I have already mapped out best potential bedding according to topo. Would a scouting trip in late May really be that much less productive than say, April...???

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