First Scouting Trip on New Land
Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 3:03 pm
This is a 45 acre parcel I'm hunting this year. It is in an area of agriculture and clear cuts with some residences.
I spent about 4 hours perusing the forum and watched a couple of Dan's videos before going up this past weekend to scout some and get a feel for the land. A couple guys had hunted it a little last year and some info slipped out around the camp fire. The wetland head at the southwestern end had larger bucks - they would come uphill and eat corn in a firebreak, then head right back in downhill. The deer were hitting corn between the two centrally located "Cluster"s with the 42" between them.
My scouting covered most of the property and did find a few small beds, but mostly I found clusters of rubs. One spot has 15+ in an area the size of a car, behind a blow down on the edge of a field. The other spots had 7-10 rubs. One centrally located rub was a good 42 inches high and had tine poke marks above the rubbing.
This is a small parcel without a lot of room to spread out, and 3 neighboring stands - 2 to N and 1 to S. The red circle is where I'm thinking of planting a food plot.
What I found real interesting is how the rubs clusters and northern neighborly stands line up with the topography...
That long topo finger is a small creek. Has a road on either side of the topo lines. The eastern line has more tracks.
My gut is telling me to put in a food plot and hunt it from the stand located central west, on the edge of a tree line. The ground slopes to the west here, so thermals would be that way. Would have up to a 200 yard shot.
The stand spot to the northeast was put there by another - the deer cross at the red line, approx 150 yards. They saw up to 15-20 does per sit.
No-one can give me a trending wind direction - that bothers me but will do some historical weather research and see if there is a reason to hunt somewhere other than the stand on the west. If there is a west wind, I have an agricultural parcel that hunts best on a west wind.
Does anyone have any comments or concerns with my ideas? I can shoot does but have yet to intentionally shoot a mature buck.
I spent about 4 hours perusing the forum and watched a couple of Dan's videos before going up this past weekend to scout some and get a feel for the land. A couple guys had hunted it a little last year and some info slipped out around the camp fire. The wetland head at the southwestern end had larger bucks - they would come uphill and eat corn in a firebreak, then head right back in downhill. The deer were hitting corn between the two centrally located "Cluster"s with the 42" between them.
My scouting covered most of the property and did find a few small beds, but mostly I found clusters of rubs. One spot has 15+ in an area the size of a car, behind a blow down on the edge of a field. The other spots had 7-10 rubs. One centrally located rub was a good 42 inches high and had tine poke marks above the rubbing.
This is a small parcel without a lot of room to spread out, and 3 neighboring stands - 2 to N and 1 to S. The red circle is where I'm thinking of planting a food plot.
What I found real interesting is how the rubs clusters and northern neighborly stands line up with the topography...
That long topo finger is a small creek. Has a road on either side of the topo lines. The eastern line has more tracks.
My gut is telling me to put in a food plot and hunt it from the stand located central west, on the edge of a tree line. The ground slopes to the west here, so thermals would be that way. Would have up to a 200 yard shot.
The stand spot to the northeast was put there by another - the deer cross at the red line, approx 150 yards. They saw up to 15-20 does per sit.
No-one can give me a trending wind direction - that bothers me but will do some historical weather research and see if there is a reason to hunt somewhere other than the stand on the west. If there is a west wind, I have an agricultural parcel that hunts best on a west wind.
Does anyone have any comments or concerns with my ideas? I can shoot does but have yet to intentionally shoot a mature buck.