So I got out to do some scouting Saturday and the conditions are nearly perfect. about 3" of snow on the ground for the past month. It is quickly melting though and probably all gone by now.
I started on google earth, Caltopo, etc and marked a ton of potential beds and uploaded to my gps prior to the trip. I started walking...
A quarter mile from the parking spot I got to my first mark. Well, what do you know... there might be something to this crazy idea of being able to predict where the beds are after all. I was standing in a bed 3 yards from the mark on my gps. I was excited. There was no rub near it, but it had all the makings of a buck bed.
I spent some time in his bed thinking about what I've learned over the past few weeks and trying to think like a deer. I found a tree which will work for hanging a stand. It's only 68 yards from him but it is heavy brush. between him and the tree so there's a chance it's ok. I believe it would be about the edge of his "safe zone" as the woods thins out after that. This spot is right on top of a property corner, literally 3 yards from an old fencepost and faded no tresspassing sign so I am limited on when and how I'm going to be able to hunt it and may only get one chance. I'm considering asking permission to cross the private property to access the spot which will give me a much better approach. Either way, I'm excited to have made it this far.
I walked 8 miles Saturday and found beds very close to many of the spots I had picked out using online tools. Now that I have confirmed locations of many of these beds, I need to do some more scouting at each site to put a plan of attack together for each. We have a couple weeks of archery season left but I'm sacrificiing the rest of the season in favor of learning as much as I can prior to next year.
Here is one bed which I know is a mature buck. The tree is about 4" in diameter. There were two beds, one that looks like a scrape in the picture, and I'm essentially standing in the other one taking this pic. As you can see, he is right on the edge of a standing corn field. Let's just say the edge of the corn runs E-W (might not be exact). To the north of the tree (at my back) is about a 3' high ridge running parallel to the field and behind that it drops off into a ravine. The ridge is fairly heavy brush, nothing is sneaking up on him from either direction. and I think he can look north into the ravine with only his head being exposed. I think the corn to the south offers him fairly decent cover as well. It's really a pretty brilliant spot for him.
North is up in the Topo below
North is down in the Bing maps view.
In this situation how do you hunt this deer? There isn't obviously a way to get between him and the corn. Maybe I hunt the south side of the corn across the field? That is maybe 75 yards away. Do I try to get some variation of north of him in hopes he doesn't go into the corn when he gets up? Maybe he goes down looking for water? Or do you just write it off as an unhuntable spot? I fully understand that next year this field will quite possibly be beans and the bed may not be used without the cover of the standing corn, but the following year will be corn again then and I'll be back in the same situation.
One thing I haven't figured out his when he uses this bed and how he uses the wind and thermals. I won't have the Hill Country dvd until after christmas, after which I hope to have a better understanding of how to put the puzzle together.
Thanks for any insights. I am honestly having more fun learning this stuff and figuring it out than I would sitting in a tree right now.
