WHAT WOULD DAN DO?!

[rfickes87]

Hello Dan and all others. I'm new to this site, thought I'd give it a try and leave this open for discussion. Hunting public land, typically a W wind. So I tried to hunt the leeward slopes.
Green in the south is where I hunted last year for a 2 long weekends in November of 2015. Only saw small bucks. This is a new spot for me. Trying to figure out how to approach it this fall. Yellow cone is where I had my camera place last year. Red trials are fellow hunters I've notice. They seem to travel deeper into the property using the fields like I do. Brown is where I saw some monster rubs on trees, surprisingly only a 100-200 yards from the western parking lot. lots of scrapes along the leeward hillsides along old overgrown logging roads running parallel to the slopes. I want to try a new spot (the green to the north) I think most people are over looking this where there is no parking spaces. Do you agree this could be a good spot? am I overlooking any good spots? Attached are also 2 buck pictures from where that yellow cone is on the map. Where might they have been bedded last year? The first one was a regular all summer long.

[justdirtyfun]

I have two thoughts.
Prior rubs are possibly related to the two long valleys joining at the parking lot. It reduces the use of that area but activity still will go on there. During peak rut maybe stay near the parking going into the left Valley at the 1/3 elevation.
The morning buck picture is giving good information. He was going to bed soon. Others have researched wind direction for trail cam pictures, weather underground I believe. By later in season he probably has moved to a more secure bed with the same wind.
Have you considered parking north lot and skirting property line around to hunt leeward on the far right Valley? It seems the southeast corner of the field might produce. Inside corner and along a cruising hillside.

[ Post made via Android ]

[dan]

Like J.D.F. SUGGESTED, THE AREA NEAR the parking spot thats rubbed up might be getting cruised peak rut on the 1/3 elevation if everyone is walking past... I marked 3 spots I would likely hit if I were hunting that property in rut.

[rfickes87]

J.D.F.,

I hadn't really thought about that far east valley much. Having gathered those pictures last summer on the leeward slope of the central valley, I was really excited and wanted to hunt it. But obviously with the hunting pressure they were probably pushed to being nocturnal and/or moved their location to avoid the pressure. It makes perfect sense as you said to hunt that far right valley. Looking at the satellite view there is a lot of private ag fields along that road running N/S to the East and a stream to the south. Makes a lot of sense that a mature buck would be running N/S along that far east valley. Thank you for your insight!

Dan,

Also thanks to you for marking those 3 locations. I see we agree on the spot to the north that I had also marked. I started to look at that spot after watching a YouTube video of yours on wind direction and leeward hill hunting. I also thought since there are no parking lots in the vicinity that it could be getting overlooked by other hunters. It looks like I was overlooking that far south east valley that you and JDF both mentioned. Thanks for your help guys!

[rfickes87]

Guys,

I posted a few more pictures of this buck from last summer. With the camera point north as shown in my diagram above, you can see this buck seems to walk from the east where the field is and heads North or Northeast. And back again from the same direction.







This makes me think he was visiting the big field to the east at night and his bed is somewhere north of my camera. Do you guys agree? If this property wasn't several hours away from home I would have scouted for beds in the winter. I'm sadly regretting not doing that but where do you guys suggest he might have been bedding? I feel with his direction he looks to be headed to that large point directly south of the northern parking lot. or he is headed just east of the western parking lot. I have walked that area east of the western parking lot and it is so thick you need to swim thru it and there are some large buck rubs as I pointed out earlier. Do you guys agree that these are possible bedding areas?

[dan]

The pic's were taken at midnight... He could of came from miles away... He could be bedding on any leeward ridge, especially the thicker ones.