I am going to attach a picture, and I'd like some tips on how to hunt my land. This is the first time we've ever really managed it, so I would like some input. This picture isn't the greatest, its from bing, and paint.... Only things I had available at the time. White outline is my land border. Red dots are stand locations(if anyone has any new ideas for locations I'm open to that). The yellow lines are all swampy areas/open water potholes, The white lines are swamp grass, and the blue line is a slough that feeds the swamp from the main slough. Our point of entry has been by boat, coming past that grassy island and I walk in along the slough with the blue line representing it. The wind is generally coming out of the W/NW. The green lines indicate a tree line in with the grass. If you guys need better maps and stuff, I'll have to wait until I get home. I would just like to know where to put stands, and where bedding areas are, where we could put a food plot or 2, and just a relative overview of how you guys would approach it. Edited to include topo, and a bigger original picture. Red solid lines on the topo are the land borders approximately. Let me know if you guys need anything else from me, I'm VERY new to the mapping thing, but I've heard its a really useful tool for scouting deer, so I'd like some input. I know boots to the ground is the best way, but my land is 2 hrs away, so I don't have a ton of time for that.
Wow, that image is way small. I will try to edit the post when I get home, and on a more capable computer.
Walk it and look for tracks. Put a few game cameras up in different areas and monitor them in the off season. After you have found the high traffic areas you can put your stands in those spots. Moist (not saturated or swampy) areas will grow food plots if they are able to get 8-10 hrs of sun daily. Good luck!!
Swamps are awesome, deer love them. I am with Dwight, I would look for old sign, and try and find high traffic areas where you know they are moving. Look for possible food sources to and from bedding areas, you can set up in between!
You could also try setting up a mineral site to help get the deer moving, and if it is legal in your state you could set up a stand over it and see what happens. I think you are going to learn the most by watching the deer on your land. Deer do everything for a reason, don't skip over and details that you see. Analyze every move they make and where they come from and you will learn a lot about your herd.
Unfortunately, in WI, we can't do mineral sites outside of the season. We have done trail cameras and stuff like that, and we have some bruisers on the property, but I guess I just don't know enough to be able to tell where the bedding is, etc.
Set at least one stand for a south wind. I've made the mistake before of setting everything for N or NW and it seemed like last year 1/3 of time it was from the south.
the main waterways are backwaters of the mississippi river... they're probably on average 40 feet across and approximately 1-10 feet deep, averaging 3 I would say. During drought years, they can dry up enough to become more of a marsh with all of the rice and stuff growing tall, but that has only happened once that I know of.
I circled some areas of interest to me. I would look into the areas as pinch points for the deer to travel out of the water. Flat land is tough to hunt off a map because there is no terrain features to funnel them through. I would start in the areas I circled and work out from there.
