A second pair of eyes

[jasper1321]

This is some public land that i have been hunting for the past 3 seasons. It was clear cut 3 years ago so where it looks like fields it is mostly 3 foot high wild grass and pines now. Let me know if you have any questions and tanks for looking.

[Wrinkleneck]

Wish I was better at reading these topo's, but I'm NOT the one to ask. I'm curious myself to see what others have to say. One of the hillside edges to the North over looking that parking lot would give any deer a good vision of whats going on when the wind allows for it(I may be way off)

[BigHunt]

what do you want with the map/ do you want to know were the bedding areas are or what ?????????

[jasper1321]

I will take anything you can tell me. Good set up spots. Bedding areas. The more the better.

Thanks for looking

[jasper1321]

any ideas?

Thanks

[Indianahunter]

I assume you have the whole property shown that you can hunt? I see several good things. Narrow connecting strips of wood which I assume some are fence rows are typically great funnels. I see inside corners. Transitional cover. Some good looking spots that could potentially be bedding on some of the ridges, you won't know until after season when you can really go in on foot. The areas that come from the creek bottom and lead to the points out in the filed are good. I see what appears to be isolated cover that is really good to check out in farm country for mature buck bedding. Send me the coordinates and I will take a look at it in a little more detail. Looks like a good piece of property though. What about crops? What is in those fields this year?

[jasper1321]

All except where i marked off with the lines. It is public land.
The narrow strips are where they left trees after the clear cut it for erosion.
There are no real crops since this is not farm country. It used to be but urban sprawl has popped up all around this area.
The fields are wild grass (weeds) and the start of pines. The average height of the pines/weeds is 3 to 4 feet.
I will pm you the coordinates.

Thanks again

[Indianahunter]

All except where i marked off with the lines. It is public land.
The narrow strips are where they left trees after the clear cut it for erosion.
There are no real crops since this is not farm country. It used to be but urban sprawl has popped up all around this area.
The fields are wild grass (weeds) and the start of pines. The average height of the pines/weeds is 3 to 4 feet.
I will pm you the coordinates.

Thanks again

Huh....That definitely makes it trickier....I am not the best here, but I will certainly do my best to help you.

[Indianahunter]

I have to leave for the afternoon, but I will post what I have for you and hopefully it will be helpful. Like I said I am not necessarily the best guy this is simply how I start with an aerial photo to narrow down where I am going to scout. This is my system I call Compounding Elements. Each color represents a different feature and then when I am done adding elements (or features) then I look at the areas that have the most features I believe will put me in front of deer. Unfortunately if yo are not used to my madness it can seem convoluted. I will try and pick this up later this week and add more, but this will help get you started or at least give you a different perspective when looking at aerials.

Step 1: I outline all transitional cover. This can seem obvious where there are pasture or field edges but if you look you will see where I have drawn lines in that are wooded. However if you look closely at the photo you can see that it looks like a transition between mature and immature timber. Deer love to travel on the edges of cover. These are highlighted in yellow as I am very visual and it helps me to start to see other elements.



Step 2: I identify fence rows or narrow strips of timber or any place that looks as though it could funnel deer to a small area. These are highlighted in orange.



Step 3: Identify Points which are known for deer travel. These will be circled in green. Then I identify inside corners....these could be fields or areas of transitional cover. These are done with purple.



Like I said I will post more elements including possible bedding when I get a chance. Basically I find all the obvious elements...Then I look for possible bedding which could be a terrain feature or an isolated pocket of cover which might hold a mature buck. You know one of those little spots that no one goes to. Then I look at the proximity of the possible bedding and the other funnels and narrow my scouting down that way. On small properties I cover the whole thing and search every elements. On large areas like this one especially if time is limited I will do this to save some time. Nothing beats shoe leather on the ground though and until you confirm your suspicions it is hard to know. I hunt farm country so I am always aware of available crops in addition to natural forage so this is a little out of my element. More to come. Please feel free to ask question about anything I have posted.

[jasper1321]

This was some great info. Thanks man

[Indianahunter]

Here is a topo. This is where I would start looking for bedding. If I am being honest this is the area that I need the most help. However between the previous aerial posts and locating funnels...marking spots on a topo for potential bedding, I usually end up locating buck bedding in the general area. I wish I had the skills of Dan and some others who can positively identify bedding areas with topo only. So if you guys chime in please teach me as well.
Using Acme Mapper 2.0 I will get the gps coordinates for some of the potential bedding that I locate close to the other elements with the highest concentrated amount of sign and I just go in. This late in the game you might have to bounce around blind checking each spot and consider it scout hunting. You can learn a lot and eliminate dead zones. I hope this helps and look forward to hearing if you had any luck using any of these methods. I hope that others can chime in and offer you even better advice.

[BigHunt]

indhunter your perty much right on im not an exprt but i am perty good at reading maps expecly topos. youve pick out grate spots to look but noticed that some of them are perty low on the elevation lines, not that its a bad thing because deer bed were ever the wind tunnel is. low elevation reacts differnt then lets say an elevation of 1300 feet. i would look at the 300 elevation line and the 250 because i think thats were the wind tunnels will be . i would walk the hole trastion around the proprty im sure theres point that arnt shown on the map, ive personaly found that deer will bed in the most uncpected spots like a litttle suddle point off the the side

[Indianahunter]

Thanks Big Hunt for the valid input. See this is my struggle, Of course these aren't super steep hills so when I was looking at it I was wondering if I should look more at lee side with steeper terrain just below the bed making it slighly harder for approaching danger assuming travel would be more in the thermal tunnel. I have found beds that way in our mostly gentle rolling hills. I have also found bedding in bends along creek bottoms which I didn't even mark on this map because I couldn't beneficially explain why they bed in these places sometimes for Jasper, so really when I mark a map for bedding it is a starting reference for me and then I count on my time in the field to reveal the reality. So what you are saying is that the bedding should always be at the elevation that provides the thermal tunnel? I just struggle with this like I said we don't really have large amounts of hill country where I hunt, but there is some in the state especially on public land in the Southern counties. I need to spend more time walking these properties just to learn I guess.
The other thing that makes this property a struggle for me much the same way Big Woods properties would be is that I have always had the advantage where I hunt to consider agriculture as an element. So for me in the types of terrain I hunt after I mark up my maps I consider the better bedding to occur where I have the most dense amount of funneling elements in conjunction with the most dense resource elements provided for the deer..OR the most limited resource element be it water or food source. One day I will get a solid grasp on this

[DEERSLAYER]

Quick tip: I haven't looked at the topo yet, BUT as far as mature bucks go "mostly" the higher beds are used during the day and the lower beds at night.

[jasper1321]

Thanks guys. This info is great. Alot more info then i can by just looking at a map.