Today I took a few days of vacation to get some hunting in. I decided to hunt public land during the week as most people would be at work so I wouldn't be too concerned about running into other hunters. Now, last night I spent about 3 hours doing map recon of the terrain and trying to find an area in which I would start at. I had located a creek that ran through a saddle that I thought would be an ideal starting spot I identified a few alternate locations that would be possibilities due to wind changes etc. So this morning I got boots on the ground. Once I reached the initial area I had planned on scouting I walked around and didn't see not one sign of deer presence at all. I walked around about 300 yards and came across a place to cross the creek and bam. I started seeing tracks and trails with intersecting trails. So I followed one (merged into a horse trail) but it went cold. I checked my topo map and decided to check out draw that ran into what was suppose to be a clearing. I decided to check the clearing for any trails that would lead to some type of traffic. Upon getting to the clearing, it actually wasn't a clearing. It was the most ideal bedding area deer. Then out of no where I ran across a deer interstate. There were tons of tracks weaving in and out of the brushy areas and were very fresh so I kept following the trail and it led to another clearing through a bunch of brush and crossing another creel which was a grassy area between two corn fields both of which are within the boundries of where I can hunt. So being that I had decided to stray from my original scouting plan, I stumbled up on what could be a very promising area. question is where should I place my stand? should I try to intercept the deer enroute to the feeding area or place it where I can nabem when they step out to eat?
I would hit where you have good natural shooting lanes to those active areas and see what happens when you are up in stand. Good luck. I am on leave until the 12th so lots of time for hunting!!!!
