Alright, here's the deal. I've been hunting this place for a few years, but I've never killed anything big here. I know there are some big deer here, I see tracks and when I hunted it a little bit more, I saw a couple of deer in the 130's and 140's. This property faces some interesting challenges and I need a little outside help looking at it. All the land between the yellow line and the lake is public. That doesn't bother me much, but there is a 4-Wheeler trail that goes through pretty much all of it. Until this year you could circle the whole lake on that trail, fortunately for me the ice storm made the bedding area on the SE side pretty much inpenetrable. Also, when duck season opens (this weekend) the lake gets hunted pretty hard because the lake holds lots of waterfowl. The public land is open to all deer hunting as well. The photo is pretty self-explanatory and the reason the stuff all the way to the East is unmarked, is because I just acquired permission to hunt it today. Previously my boundaries stopped at my Eastern most stand. The deer hit the wheat fields to the west pretty hard (specifically the one where I've killed two deer) but I think they show up after dark until it gets pretty cold. Anyone have any insight to stand locations or strategies I might use here?
Put a stand in the N end in that draw, and another in the SE draw. I'm assuming the top of the page is N.
WOW, that's kindof a tuff property to get a feel for. Doesn't look like much cover. The only thing I see(at least I think I see) is it looks like a couple of small ponds in the middle of the picture. If there is a lot of duck hunters on the big lake. The deer might use that as a water source. Or maybe even bed in the cover there.
Looks pretty cool. What are the prevailing winds in this area? Are there any scrapes or rubs especially around the impenetrable bedding area that you mentioned? It looks like your existing stand sites are in pretty good locations right now. What kind of movement have you seen the deer take especially in getting to the big wheat field on the west end of the property?
Prevailing winds are North in the mid-late season and south in the early season. When the deer are hitting the wheat in the daylight, I see them come from all directions except the North. The majority of the deer come to the small south field and the big field from the West or Southwest. I've not hunted the northwest field much, but it does have good sign on it. In some years, I've seen deer come from the big bedding area to the east all the way across to the wheat field (this generally occurs in late season). there is a rub line that has been used in at least the last 4 years directly to the west of the inpenetrable bedding area right where the persimmon patch sits, unfortunatley it hasn't been worked this year. I'm going to try and get out today to do a little more scouting.
