90% of my hunting spots look like the pic below. I have been scouring maps and scouting like crazy to find terrain features that funnel deer movement in the places I hunt, but it is hard because there are NO crop fields or cover strips that connect large tracts of timber to another...just seemingly endless woods that flow up and down. If any of you do hunt terrain like this below, could you give me some tips on how you try to pinpoint deer movement...thanks all. I posted a topo map a few posts down.
You need to be looking at a topo map rather than just an aerial. I hunt some big woods areas down south with no fields as well. Aerial maps really don't help at all in that environment.
buckeye, I look at topo maps...I was just putting that map out there to show how there are hardly any "cover" type funnels to squeeze deer. Now there are terrain features that push them, but not having crop fields and cover strips seems to make getting onto deer regularly very difficult.
Here is a topo of one of the areas I hunt. Jeff, Gri22ly has helped me mark up some spots on this place, just wanted some different perspectives....he has helped me tremendously. Any thoughts? Everything to the left of the lake is able to be hunted.
That looks identical to a certain piece of land I have hunted many times. I try to look for saddles in ridges, pinch points on ridge tops (looks like grizz has one marked) and breaks in cover such as oaks to pines and such.
"breaks in cover such as oaks to pines and such."---That has been my bread and butter when it gets tough finding deer. Hunt those cover breaks with the right wind and hope they come by.....I have gotten into hunting saddles the past couple of years, and this year was a big succes hunting deer woods saddles. I had a lot of deer at specific times come by over and over.
I hunt an area like that and yeah it sucks at time. Deer can eat, poop, and bed wherever they want. As far as your map goes, I like the saddle that's formed where the two draws come up to each other with hills on either side. It's west of the main creek and north of the branch.
Seems very similar to what I'm hunting up here. Big woods with only water or swamp to break it up. I'd be curious of the area immediately East and South of the word "Branch". There seems to be a more gentile slope to the creek on the north side. I'd bet there are some great crossings in there. I'd also check out the northern most point of the lake (right where the creek feeds in, maybe 50 to 100 yards back off the lake), probably a good East to West funnel there.
Two questions: 1) Can you paddle a canoe down the creek to access the area? 2) Is that the Quanico Base?
Fitz, yes I can paddle a canoe down the creek and yes it is Quantico Marine Base. The creek however fizzles out and one cannot use a canoe down it too far from the lake. Thank Fitz. And Fitz, the first buck I ever arrowed was right around the "n" in the word "Branch" on the map ..good eye.
Very similar to what I hunt. We own 265 acres with approx. 5 acres in fields and 10-15 acres in unhuntable, steep STEEP ridge lines.