Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

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P&YBuck1
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Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby P&YBuck1 » Sat Aug 25, 2012 4:07 pm

I hunt a place where we have a sizable tamarack swamp. It has some open areas consisting of blueberry bog brush but it also has some vast tamarack chunks which are impossible to penetrate without everything in the area knowing your there. Some of the swamps border nice food fields but to penetrate this quietly is a chore. Any tips on how others are breaking down this type of terrain to hunt is successfully?

Thanks in advance for your tips! :)


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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby dan » Sat Aug 25, 2012 11:56 pm

When most guys look at a tammerack swamp they are intimidated by its size and everything looking the same... What I look for is subtle changes. Its no different than hunting a cattail marsh, only in a marsh everything is very visible. In a tammerack swamp the subtle changes are hidden by trees. You need to find the slight changes in elevation, and vegetation. A difference of a foot or two can make a big difference. Expect target bucks to prefer bedding in two locals. The highest spots in the swamp, and the lowest that are not quite under water.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby headgear » Sun Aug 26, 2012 10:34 am

I hunt a few tamarack swamps, they are some of my best public ground, you can't be affair to dive in there but do it slow. Give yourself a lot of extra time and you can sneak in without much noise. You also have to know the swamp well so you know where to setup. Like Dan said there will be transitions and areas the buck prefer to bed. I find a lot of beds in the roots of larger trees. There will also be plenty of other deer in there to mess up your approach but sometimes that is a game you have to play, keep the wind in your favor and move ultra slow. Sometimes they will blow and mess the whole works up but other times you can bump them and they aren't sure what you are and move off without alerting all the other deer.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby KLEMZ » Sun Aug 26, 2012 12:10 pm

P&YBuck1, I see you're from SE Wisconsin. many of the tamarack swamps in this area have man made drainage ditches dug through them. You can easily spot them on an aerial photo. (Although sometimes they appear only as a subtle straight line). On the side of the ditch where the dirt was dumped there is a high and dry line of vegetation that typically (in my experience) will have buck bedding somewhere on it. especially where it meets a transition such as open marsh, different vegetation type, or a 90 degree turn in the ditch. Drainage ditch corners are a hot spot for swamp bedding in my opinion.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby P&YBuck1 » Tue Aug 28, 2012 3:41 pm

Thank you to all for your great information.
I know the tamaracks hold big bucks so now it is time to enter this territory and get a killer setup.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby Brad » Thu Aug 30, 2012 11:14 am

This is going to sound dumb but what exactly is a tamarack swamp? Is it river bottoms where its open in areas and thick and nasty in others, or is it small aspen type shoots that are really thick, or is it something else? Is a Tamarack a type of tree or a term to describe what is is? I keep hearing the term but never really learned what one is, any pictures would be helpful too.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby magicman54494 » Thu Aug 30, 2012 11:45 am

Brad Lamont wrote:This is going to sound dumb but what exactly is a tamarack swamp? Is it river bottoms where its open in areas and thick and nasty in others, or is it small aspen type shoots that are really thick, or is it something else? Is a Tamarack a type of tree or a term to describe what is is? I keep hearing the term but never really learned what one is, any pictures would be helpful too.


A Tamarack is a type of tree. It's a conifer that drops it's needles each fall so at that time of year they are really easy to identify from a distance. Google "tamarack tree" to see pics. I built a ladder to access a loft in a log home from tamarack because it gets real hard when it drys out.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby dan » Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:12 pm

Tamarack trees grow only in low lying wet areas. Concentrations of them are usually only in swamps.

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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby headgear » Thu Aug 30, 2012 1:44 pm

Like all wetlands tamaracks swamps come in all shapes, sizes and thickness. The deer of course prefer the thicker ones, they can get downright nasty with tamarack trees, grass, cattails, and brush making visibility near zero. I have also hunted fairly open swamps with tall grass that was good bedding too. Another very similar swamp is a black spruce bog, these things are huge in my area and can stretch on for many miles.

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Some black spruce.

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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby PLB » Thu Aug 30, 2012 1:50 pm

I believe Tamarack needles turn yellow later in the fall so they are more easily identifiable. I believe Andreas big cage from Marsh Bucks was bedding in a nasty Tamarack swamp..

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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby Brad » Thu Aug 30, 2012 2:16 pm

I got lost a few years ago in Adams county ( I think it was still Adams), headed up to Omro, and there were deer everywhere in there, and a lot of it was public from what I remember. It looked a lot like the photo's posted, might call for some investigation.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby bowhunter15 » Thu Aug 30, 2012 3:32 pm

For what its worth, there's a giant tamarack swamp on the public I hunted growing up. It was bordered by cattail marsh. I found that early season the deer bedded near the border of cattails and hardwoods, and if I walked way back to the tamaracks I wasted my time because I walked right past all the deer.

However, gradual bow pressure pushed them back, and by gun season deer started bedding on the edge of the cattails and tamarack swamp. This trend continued to late season. I've heard they retain heat longer. However, be careful because I've fallen through the ice of a tamarack swamp in january even when the lakes have a foot of ice. A lot of times those tiny elevation changes are too suttle to be seen on topos, which means more on foot scouting. I've also noticed deer like areas where the tamaracks made a point out into the cattails, or where 3 or more types of cover congerged (like tamarack, cattails, and thick brush).

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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby Mountain Man » Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:57 am

Public Land Beast wrote:I believe Tamarack needles turn yellow later in the fall so they are more easily identifiable. I believe Andreas big cage from Marsh Bucks was bedding in a nasty Tamarack swamp..

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That's right, they turn yellow in fall (they look like a yellow pine tree is the way I can best describe it) so it's real easy to identify them even at a great distance. Once you know what they look like in the yellow phase it becomes easy to identify them when they turn green again even at a distance.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby Jonny » Thu Apr 26, 2018 2:37 am

KLEMZ wrote:P&YBuck1, I see you're from SE Wisconsin. many of the tamarack swamps in this area have man made drainage ditches dug through them. You can easily spot them on an aerial photo. (Although sometimes they appear only as a subtle straight line). On the side of the ditch where the dirt was dumped there is a high and dry line of vegetation that typically (in my experience) will have buck bedding somewhere on it. especially where it meets a transition such as open marsh, different vegetation type, or a 90 degree turn in the ditch. Drainage ditch corners are a hot spot for swamp bedding in my opinion.


Bumping this thread cause there is some good info here.

KLEMZ, you mention drainage ditches having a higher strip of ground. I attached a picture of one I am looking at, and there are a couple hardwood trees along the ditch. If this ditch has a long straight run, would you ever expect travel along it? Especially to say, scent check for does or avoid traveling through the tamaracks? This is substantially less pressure than SE wisconsin as well.

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Might be crazy, but a wind from the left would blow anything out on the right side, but if a buck cruises along the ditch scent checking the left side, that might work out pretty good for me? Hard part is access.
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Re: Tips for Hunting a Tamarack Swamp

Unread postby Strenke629 » Thu Apr 26, 2018 1:49 pm

Now that this thread has rekindled I have a couple questions to throw out there regarding tamarack swamps.

Can you pretty much assume that bucks will bed on or near the islands in the middle of the swamp? I ask because I just scouted one last weekend and visited each island and didn't see much for bedding sign.. There was snow though, so my guess is that there's bedding sign underneath still. I know Dan has mentioned that deer in other types of swamps clear out when the swamp freezes up. Does that still hold true with tamarack? There's buck sign in the timber and on a larger sized island so I know buck's are in there at some point and the best bedding I would think would be on the islands. So it's just not adding up in my head..


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