Little exercise/help

Post topo’s and Aerial photos for free advice. Food plotting, land manipulation, water holes, ect.
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Justin85
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Little exercise/help

Unread postby Justin85 » Sat Aug 09, 2014 5:09 pm

Ok, so just trying to put some places together. If you've ready anything I've posted since I joined, I'm new to Minnesota and new to hunting "Beast" style. Just a southern boy used to setting up on a trail to some akerns (acorns ;) )

So, I'll put a couple photos up, and let you guys tell me what you see. I'm just trying to make a couple starting points to check out once season opens and possibly 'light' scout them before, just to maybe ground truth or get an idea of accessibility without going in and bumping critters.

Let me preface this by I've never hunted land this flat, never hunted wet areas or marshes, and have ordered Marsh Bucks, but it hasn't arrived yet. I'm flying blind.

I started this search by looking for the typical points and such in the marshes and swamps. I'm probably being too picky, but Ive skipped a TON of areas just because it looks like a lot of people frequent, or locals ride 4wheelers on it.

Be gentle, I'm used to big briar thickets and cutovers being the bedding area...Was just about to mark this one off the list and move on until I zoomed in on this area. Is this a bed by the red circle? If so, my logic is he/it/they move east up onto the ridge, which doesnt show on topo, but is obviously there via vegetation difference. Im thinking they stage in the trees and then move north, crossing the 2 track, and into the ag field to feed....or feed in the timber (oaks?). I know it's not remote, but maybe it's over looked? Maybe I'm looking at it wrong. I definitely need some more time in the field to truth or debunk what I see.

Image

Followed up by an over view of this particular area, yellow circle is the "bed" and yellow area is the huntable area.

If this is the case, some sort of East wind might be best, fine tuning stand location for exact direction?

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Zoomed in
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dan
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Re: Little exercise/help

Unread postby dan » Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:26 am

In your photo, that might be a bed.... My only comment would be don't let those trails make you assume the buck only travels East. It looks to me like the only reason you don't see trails heading West is because of a change in vegetation is keeping them from showing up well on the image. Also, bucks will and can live right on top of heavy pressure, if they find a spot where people don't go within that area... You don't have to be super remote. I don't think an East wind is needed here either.. Of coarse I would have to look at the bed to know that for certain, but it looks like an any wind situation to me.
Justin85
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Re: Little exercise/help

Unread postby Justin85 » Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:41 am

Think its worth checking out?

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dan
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Re: Little exercise/help

Unread postby dan » Sun Aug 10, 2014 5:20 am

Justin85 wrote:Think its worth checking out?

[ Post made via Android ] Image

yES. Let us know what you find.
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Re: Little exercise/help

Unread postby Justin85 » Sun Aug 10, 2014 5:25 am

dan wrote:
Justin85 wrote:Think its worth checking out?

[ Post made via Android ] Image

yES. Let us know what you find.



Heading out in a few minutes to just give it a once over. I don't really want to push too hard this close to season. It's 65mi away so I don't want to bank on it come season only to find it not worth going to. Got a couple other areas I want to check access to.


Thank you for all the you do on here Dan as well as many others. While I havent sat a hunt yet west of North Carolina, what scouting I have done has been based on info I've found here and a smidge of conventional wisdom. So far I've seen big buck evidence, and accidentally bumped one by looking too close, in the areas I have checked.
Justin85
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Re: Little exercise/help

Unread postby Justin85 » Sun Aug 10, 2014 4:08 pm

So here's what we know. I didn't get to spend as much time here as I'd hoped. I got hung up at another WMA spending a little too much time "speed scouting". I think I'm onto "deer" but I'm not so confident about a mature buck. It'll come with hunts, experience, and time crossing places off and learning how to find them up here.

Ok so here we go with this particular property. I was running out of light, forgot to spray down with bug spray and my pants were too thin. Light weight, breathable and comfy is not always a plus when walking through ACRES of stinging nettle. Never seen it that bad as up here in this particular WMA...just blanketed the upland areas. My knees were on fire, but the good news is, I went numb after about 5min of full assault.

So the one particular tree in the previous post, out in the marsh, had me curious. Made me drive 65mi to this WMA. It's nothing. Current trails aren't even noteworthy there. First, the imagery says it's 2014. The area in red denoted as bedding is more open than what it appears. There are stumps from trees that were removed there longer ago than 2014, even if it was early in January. The deer seem to like it and take refuge there. I'd also guess the bedding somewhat extends further north east and north west off of what I have depicted as well, just realized I didnt show it all. It goes almost to the access road which is along the northern property line. Parking is at the end at the gray star. The white polygon depicts where I didn't have time to look. I spent so much time trying to dissect the northern area that I just ran out of time, and blood to donate to the skeeters and biting flies. So the best I could tell, the nothing less than horse path of a trail (obviously not a mature buck trail) comes off that slightly higher bit of ground where the red bedding is, across the bottle neck in the marsh/willows where the red line starts, and back up the "hill" to some mixed hardwoods, with the circled area being primarily oaks. The entirety of that mixed hardwoods was slam full of stinging nettle too, with the exception of where they have it beat down to nothing under the oak dropping acorns. The blue line depicts a slight trail heading back to the north, crossing a man made dyke of sorts near the northern boundary, covered in tracks, before coming out at the access road, at the Southwest corner of the corn field to the north. The red stars indicate areas I'd like to take a look at in particular. I'm thinking of setting up near where the trails cross the marsh in the bottle neck of the marsh, along the red line and seeing what happens.

I know the chances of seeing a mature deer there are slim, I may still have the advantage of early season/feeding patterns enough to get one out in daylight far enough from where ever he's bedding, to kill him. There's a good deer there, I cut his track, but the ground is so dry and hard, even in the marsh in most places, I couldn't follow it to learn anything.

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Stanley
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Re: Little exercise/help

Unread postby Stanley » Sun Aug 10, 2014 4:31 pm

Thanks for the update.
You can fool some of the bucks, all of the time, and fool all of the bucks, some of the time, however you certainly can't fool all of the bucks, all of the time.
Justin85
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Re: Little exercise/help

Unread postby Justin85 » Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:38 pm

It's trivial, but posting it here gives me a chance to kind of review and notice things I didn't before.

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