I’m not very good at reading maps for likely deer movement, bedding, etc. I’d love to hear some opinions / evaluations on what you map guys think. This first one is my place. The blue is the area I can hunt. Red is the main county road. Purple x is where I currently have a stand. The aqua x is a water tank fed from a year round spring. It is 106 acres. Below the water tank it drops down into a canyon with a year round creek. Steep and lots of thick spots. It is very rare to get any mature buck pics until the rut.
This next property is across the road from mine. It is owned by a couple Aunts and Uncles, 300 acres. Red is the main county road, blue is area that can be hunted, Aqua is a pond (near cabin) and two creeks, and orange is an area that my cousin gun hunts during the rut and I stay out of to not interfere. He sits in a ground blind (the orange x) during the chase phase on what we call the “back ridge”. Beyond that on the left side of the pic it drops down into another fairly deep canyon to a decent creek.
The elevation at the bottom of your image must represent something else? The property is at 4350' elevation.
Assuming I got the spots right on the tppos... Here's my cut and thinking : Yellow travel, purple possible bedding. This is why I like tile like OnX, Basemap, etc. Flipping back and forth from topo to Ariels. For whitetails, they seem to like cover a bit more than muleys, but both like: some level of visibility (esp when bedding), a spot to allow scent checking, safety, water and escape. On your side of the road, appears to be a steep ravine. I'd think travel up they would like the easier path on the north side, over that cut in the ESE. They like that military crest as it gives cover and there is a bit of a shelf on your side of the street also nice on those flats for bedding (if there is cover). If they are hitting your drinker that's good, but they may head down the ridge or across the street to that pond...wherever they feel safest. Across the street, may see more quantity, of they arent pressured (a bit easier travel and water sources). Not sure what they'd be eating in that area though...
So wl... On my side you marked three possible bedding spots. The upper most one and the lowest one on your topo map are both actually on my neighbors. The middle one however is right on the border of mine and the north neighbor. I just moved my ladder stand into that general area, but it isn't back in some thicker stuff like the area you marked, it is on the edge of an opening that gives me a good view for cruising bucks during the rut. I know the area you marked is pretty thick and I normally don't go into that spot or hang a camera in there. This Saturday I decided to slip in there and look at it closer. There is an old, old skid road just under the area you marked that runs to the fence line, I have hung a camera in the past on it but not clear out at the end of it. I call this skid trail "cougar road", as I get quite a few cat pics in that spot (at night of course). I found some pretty well established trails clear out at the fenceline, one coming from my place and going right on through onto the neighbors across the barbed wire fence. There is also an established trail coming out of the canyon, following the fence line up to the top. This made the "crossroad" spot of the trails a likely spot for a camera, which I hung. About 60 yards before the fence line there was another decent trail coming out of the thicker stuff from the bottom and joining onto "cougar road" too. With all the thick brush/trees, it is exactly the kind of travel route I'd imagine a mature secretive buck would want to use. I didn't walk anymore of the area to see if it might actually be bedding, I didn't want to intrude on a bedding area this close to season. I thought about it more when I got home. It might possibly be a spot that would offer me a chance at seeing a mature buck before the actual rut. So Sunday I went back up with a saw and my new climber. I located the best tree I could, which was about 35 yards from the fence line junction and about 28 from the junction on the other end. It is now limbed and ready for our opener next Sunday. It's not perfectly ideal. A buck traveling up/down the fence line will be at the max range I care to take at a whitetail (35 yards) with a smallish window to stop them in, and if they walk the trail my stand is actually on I would be taking an extreme angle shot of about 3 yards to shoot them right in front of my stand. But I could let them walk past a ways and then hope I could stop them and get a better quartering away angle. No issues at all if I happen to be holding my muzzleloader though. Sorry such a long read, but wanted to give you kudos to helping me to find another pretty good stand location for my place.
I should also add that the spot has good potential for a bear or cougar to walk by as well. Both are open and the sportsman's package I buy every year has tags for them too.
