After walking the transition line of the marsh and checking out little micro-islands and points off of the mainland, I finally found a big bed next to a white pine on the west side of the marsh.
There were no rubs in the bed, but as I mentioned it was extra large with 3/4" average length droppings in it.. which along with the hair showed some recent use. There were no other obvious beds nearby so I walked the transition lines looking for more buck sign... and finally a found a lone rub from last season about 70 yards off of the bed. I don't get concerned with a lack of rubs, as older bucks in my area tend to leave less sign as they age.
After wrapping up scouting the immediate high ground area, I moved east into the marsh toward a little micro-island- a lot of times I will find a buck bed on this type of terrain, but to my surprise I found an exceptional scrape for the heavy pressure public land- It was about 12 feet long and three feet wide and showed signs of recent pawing as well as licking branch use. This scrape has over a dozen licking branches over the scrape itself and there were hundreds of deer droppings in it of various sizes and age:
But after getting home and reviewing my notes, I took a look at the satellite picture one more time... something bothered me about it. Earlier in the day, Standing on the edge of the marsh and looking East, I could see no real tree's or high ground with the exception of the island with the big scrape... and yet just off of the buck bed I could see a "wagon wheel" of runways in the cattails going in multiple directions- like the spokes on a wheel while I examined the aerial photo. Based on past experience, this screamped "high probability buck bed!" But I remained perplexed as I had walked nearly on top of it without noticing anything earlier. Nontheless a return visit was in order and bingo- a good bed up against a small wall of brush just up onto a small knob that stood above water level. The "wagon-wheel" effect paid off. This pic shows both beds as well as the "spokes on a wheel" series of runways in the cattails from the marsh bed:
Here's a pic while kneeling in the marsh bed and looking toward the large bed under the white pine- it won't be long before the cattails block this view:
