Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Discuss the science of figuring out our prey through good detective work.
trapper57
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby trapper57 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:32 am

BassBoysLLP wrote:Looks like a RIM WRP project. Are they active in your marsh?

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I've seen that in waterfowl production areas also

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Dewey
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby Dewey » Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:13 pm

trapper57 wrote:
BassBoysLLP wrote:Looks like a RIM WRP project. Are they active in your marsh?

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X2
I've seen that in waterfowl production areas also

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Yup. Looks like something created for waterfowl and nesting.

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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:46 pm

So, here's today's update. Walked a total of 6 miles. Marked 29 waypoints on the GPS. Counted 20 beds. Found 2 remote, tiny islands with white oak trees on them (one had 2!!). I also found two nice points that lead to willow brush bedding. One of them had a couple big gnarly white oaks too, roughly 80 yards from the bedding. Talk about a find! Well, maybe they're bur oaks. I can't tell the difference. All I know is that they had round lobed leaves and Justin says deer prefer them over red oaks, too.

I've got to say, I'm REALLY surprised at the lack of buck sign. I probably saw 6 or so rubs today. Six... and none were huge. Most of the beds were small and often in groups of two or three. Part of it may be that the limited doe tags available channeled more of hunters tags to bucks. There were a couple spots where I was just in shock that there wasn't a buck bed in, because they had all the classic signs and even a nice little round opening where a deer could lie down. One thing's for sure, I'll probably spend some time on those little middle of the marsh hub islands during the rut. With the doe sign in the area, you gotta imagine bucks will be cruising through there.
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby Dewey » Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:30 pm

Don't get discouraged by lack of sign. I looked at a topo and aerial of that marsh and I guarantee there are some slobs living there, it has all of the ingredients for them to reach maturity. The hardest part is finding them but that's where the fun part starts. Being that the marsh is so large it really can be a challenge especially when you add in hunting pressure but those bucks know where they won't be bothered. I believe many die of old age deep in these large marshes because they rarely leave the security of the super remote islands.

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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:52 pm

Oh for sure there's got to be slobs in there. It's one of those "lifer" marshes. You spend an entire lifetime hunting there and learn something new every year. I don't even think it's possible to scout the entire thing each winter. You have to almost scout the entire thing over the series of maybe 2 or 3 seasons, and then use the post season every year to spot check your couple dozen best spots.
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby Mike » Tue Feb 17, 2015 3:13 pm

I swear MN bucks don't like to rub and scrape...it has been a challenge for me to find much sign on the public lands I have scouted here. The sign I did find in my limited marsh scouting this year was mainly rubs on red brush, easy to miss.
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby pitz0022 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 3:17 pm

Sign has been fairly limited in the marsh I've been scouting too. I think I mentioned to you where I've been scouting a few weeks ago. The nice thing is that old rubs still show and I've even been marking "Potential" buck beds. Meaning they look like buck beds, but there is no fresh sign in them. I figure I can go check again in the spring, or next year post season to see what they look like before I discount them altogether.
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Sun Feb 22, 2015 2:31 pm

Found one legitimate buck bed today. Followed a winding trail through the cattails to a small island surrounded by brush. Found three beds with a bunch of rubs. I think it was the same deer. No trees along the trail, so I'd have to sit in the brush alongside the trail.

Explored some really remote islands and found nothing but coyote tracks. The islands were really open with no brush. Checked some more islands surrounded by red brush on one side and cattails on the other. Actually found a scent wick. This was maybe 3 miles from the lot. It was in a pretty good spot with lots of sign. Could have been a really hard core firearms hunter. No climbable trees around it.

Overall, not as many beds found as the last trip, but I was pressed for time and couldn't grid search all the red brush before dark. Got some spots that are a little more "buck spots" than last time. Plus, no way I'd want to drag anything out of that mess unless it was huge. Had to bike for 5 minutes, then walk through hardwoods, tamarack swamp, more marsh, and then red brush to get to the hot islands.

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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby hunter_mike » Sun Feb 22, 2015 2:49 pm

Nice work bowhunter15. I remember Dan saying that a lot of areas if there is not as much competition for turf, theres not going to be as much rubs.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=24454&hilit=beds+rubs&start=15

In a huge area like that, i am sure theres got to be plenty of bedding options especially with low deer #'s
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Sun Feb 22, 2015 4:37 pm

That does make a lot of sense for this area.

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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby mheichelbech » Mon Feb 23, 2015 8:34 am

Mike wrote:I swear MN bucks don't like to rub and scrape...it has been a challenge for me to find much sign on the public lands I have scouted here. The sign I did find in my limited marsh scouting this year was mainly rubs on red brush, easy to miss.

2 areas that I hunt that I know for a fact have mature bucks living there do not have much buck sign at all, you'd never know a large buck lived there except for the tracks.

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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby ihookem » Mon Feb 23, 2015 2:33 pm

Those bucks are getting darn smart. Now the biguns know enough not to rub their home turf.... They go rub up some little guys home turf to fool us hunters...As for those ponds several posts back.. I always thought those were made to rais cranberries. They can lower or raise the water level to their desire. . . . . .. . least that's what I always thought.. As for not seeing much buck rubs, I have seen the same darn thing. I was way up north and thought for sure this little higher ground peninsula going into a grass marsh would hold some briuser rubs. Not a single rub was there, not even a old one. Three miles round trip... Oh well.
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby stash59 » Tue Feb 24, 2015 6:02 am

[quote="bowhunter15"]Anyone know what these are? Obviously man made. The first one is really close to a road. The second picture has a canal in the upper right, but what is that straight line going vertical? I walked along it yesterday. Its' like a little strip of dry ground with tiny ditches on each side. I could hop over the ditches.

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Was the area logged in the past? Around the turn of the century? If so it could be an old railroad grade. Thanks the updates.
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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Sun Mar 01, 2015 3:51 pm

Went back out again today for a couple hours. This trip was very different from the last few in terms of terrain and sign. There were no cattails... all marsh grass. Also, much of the area that looked thick on the map was actually quite open. I think it must have had a recent prescribed burn. Once I got to the hardwoods from the road, I immediately saw something I hadn't seen a whole lot of this point: RUBS. There were three baseball bat diameter rubs from last fall within about 40 yards of one another. In fact, in only a couple hours I probably saw well over a dozen rubs in this area. That's more than I saw in the previous 3 days combined. I also kicked up a group of around 6 deer that were browsing in the hardwoods. I couldn't tell bucks or does, but some were noticeably larger than others. There were lots of tracks here, and the land overall appeared higher, and the transition line was more compact.

What does that mean? Well, instead of hardwoods fading into marsh grass and brush fading into cattails over a long span, it was more like the hardwood transition turned to marsh grass... and most of the bedding cover was 50 yards or closer. There were also a lot more poplar trees on the transition. It was harder to find beds with most of the snow gone, but I did find a few spots of mashed down marsh grass in brush off of the hardwoods. I'm definitely keeping some of the spots I found today in my hip pocket for this season. Especially during the rut. Man I found a good rut spot!

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Re: Scouting Monstrous Marsh this Weekend

Unread postby Swampthing » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:57 pm

Mike wrote:I swear MN bucks don't like to rub and scrape...it has been a challenge for me to find much sign on the public lands I have scouted here. The sign I did find in my limited marsh scouting this year was mainly rubs on red brush, easy to miss.

Its a similar scenario with western MN. The amount of good bucks are definitely way down. Last year i found zero big rubs. 5 years ago, i found 50 +.

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