New Year's Day scout

Discuss the science of figuring out our prey through good detective work.
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Wlog
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New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Wlog » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:37 am

Headed out yesterday to some public land right by my house. Marylands late muzzleloader season just ended Saturday and there was no hunting on Sunday. I'm pretty familiar with the property but haven't hunted a lot because it gets pounded usually. I found four really good looking buck bedding areas and picked out trees for some am and pm hunts.

The second bed I found was the most worn down bed I've found there. Here's a picture.

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I started looking at the trails coming and going and they were very faint with only a hand full of rubs but I stumbled onto this guy about 30 yards away in another bed.

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The property is pretty flat with just some minor elevation changes. These beds were just below the top of about a 10' elevation change. Just up behind them on top of the hill is an old wooden fence and a pasture on the bordering private property. There was one spot where the fence had fallen in and a trail came into the bedding. Right at that fence crossing was a waist high rub on a tree the size of my thigh.

The next bedding I hit was in some phragmites up against a river. I found this guy laying there.

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The pic don't really do him justice he had some pretty good mass around the bases. After finding this buck I searched the rest of that patch of phragmites and found multiple trails in and out littered with rubs but when I started to plan a setup I found climber marks on a tree right where I thought the stand should be. I have to think that's the guy who shot the buck. Just guessing but he was only about 75 yards away if that far.


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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Edcyclopedia » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:41 am

Great looking bucks, too bad you can't get a crack @ them...

Maybe some Intel for next year.
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Outdoor814 » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:46 am

Its crazy that people just give up looking for there deer like that. I haven't been out scouting the public land I usually hunt yet because late archery is still in. I ocasonally find a dead doe here and there but not usually any bucks. I think if I had shot either of those deer I would have searched until I physically couldn't anymore.

Its a shame when it happens, but in a sense at least the people that usually find them have an appreciation for them.

Did you take them out with you?
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Wlog » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:53 am

I didn't take them. I've got a pile of dead heads I've picked up over the years. Plus I knew my wife was coming to pick me up and she wouldn't appreciate them in her car. :lol:
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Outdoor814 » Tue Jan 03, 2017 5:12 am

Makes sense.
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Bigburner » Wed Jan 04, 2017 3:56 am

That's one worn out bed for our area. What was he looking at besides you coming at him 200 yards away. :lol:
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Wlog » Thu Jan 05, 2017 2:45 pm

Bigburner wrote:That's one worn out bed for our area. What was he looking at besides you coming at him 200 yards away. :lol:



Scouted your neck of the woods the following day and found two more dead. I only took a picture of one.

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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Wlog » Thu Jan 05, 2017 2:46 pm

Again they were both right in the bedding area.
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Bigburner » Fri Jan 06, 2017 1:07 am

I found two so that makes 4 that aren't getting anywhere next year. Bummer. Yoou find some good stuff down my way?
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby tgreeno » Fri Jan 06, 2017 1:30 am

Is that from EHD? Otherwise it would seem strange to find only nice bucks dead.
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Wlog » Fri Jan 06, 2017 2:12 am

Bigburner wrote:I found two so that makes 4 that aren't getting anywhere next year. Bummer. Yoou find some good stuff down my way?



Yep. Found some good stuff but I didn't start finding it until it was almost time for me to leave. Also found tons of tree stands and Hunter sign.
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Wlog » Fri Jan 06, 2017 2:18 am

tgreeno wrote:Is that from EHD? Otherwise it would seem strange to find only nice bucks dead.



I don't think it's EHD. In the past when I've found bucks dead from EHD, even though the velvet was gone you could tell they were still in velvet when they died because the racks were really white and the little pearling nubs around the bases of their antlers were pointy like that hadn't started rubbing yet. I could be totally off on those assumptions but that's what I concluded at the time. Also they didn't look to me like they had been dead more than a month or so.
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Bigburner » Fri Jan 06, 2017 8:42 am

Its guys putting bad shots on them during the shotgun season. Either guts or liver and pushing them too quick. pretty common find after the first gun seasons on the public in our neck off the woods. Wes how where the bedding areas. pretty defined or hard to figure if it was bedding or not other than the dead buck laying in it. I saw a bunch of green briar in that picture so I assume it was a tangle.
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby hunter_mike » Fri Jan 06, 2017 10:05 am

Wow thats a lot of dead bucks. Nice work scoutin
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Re: New Year's Day scout

Unread postby Wlog » Fri Jan 06, 2017 11:33 am

Bigburner wrote:Its guys putting bad shots on them during the shotgun season. Either guts or liver and pushing them too quick. pretty common find after the first gun seasons on the public in our neck off the woods. Wes how where the bedding areas. pretty defined or hard to figure if it was bedding or not other than the dead buck laying in it. I saw a bunch of green briar in that picture so I assume it was a tangle.


There was a mixture of greenbrier and other thick vegetation on the edge where pines met hardwoods. But there was better bedding just inside the pines within 5-10 yards looking out towards the hardwoods. The were also a bunch of beds another 5 yards in with their back to the hardwoods. My thought is when the winds blowing from the pine thicket into the hardwoods they're bedding close to the edge where they can see out to the more open hardwoods. When it's blowing from hardwoods to pines they're in a little farther smelling the hardwoods.

99.9 percent of hunters would walk right past this because sign was almost non existent out in the hardwoods only a couple rubs here and there and a little poop. Cut over into the pine thicket 10 yards and there was a heavy trail with a rub every 10 feet and lots of big beds full of poop. You would know better than me how to age those thickets but the pines were probably around 12-15 ft tall. That rub line inside that edge went on for about 100 yards. Wish I didn't have to leave when I did. Had time to check another side of that pine thicket but there wasn't nearly as much sign.

I left with the impression that was definitely a primary buck bedding area for that section of that tract.

Sorry for the long winded answer. :D
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