What are the main things you look for to determine where you will focus your scouting? For me its finding those pinch points. What are yalls thoughts?
It would take a chapter or two to cover this topic. essentially your looking for various different things based upon stage of the rut, food, water sources, hunting pressure, type of terrain, state..... Pinch points/funnels are great starting points when your hunting the cruising and chasing stage of the rut but not so productive in the early season.
I am wanting to print out or have printed out a large topo map so that I can hang it on my wall and plot where my stands are, food plots, bedding areas and plot deer movement . I want to do this so that I can pick the stand I need to hunt based on the wind and time of day I will be hunting. The only problem is I don't know where to get a recent topo map and I really can't afford to pay someone to take areal pictures of our 200+ acre property. Any suggestions where I can get one??
What type of land do you hunt? Saddles, pinch points, elevation change quick, points, and MANY more things play factors.... If you want you can download a pic of your topo/areial and go to the hunting beast website and Dan Infalt will tell you everything you need to know about your land without stepping foot on it. Or post it here and im sure there is enough of us that can help you. Dif types of terrain get hunted and approached dif so a little more detail would help...
I have several 3' laminated maps in my collection. If memory serves me correctly I paid $45 each delivered to the door. Please feel free to visit (acme mapper 2.0) and look at all the features they have. I love the terrain feature but you can toggle back and forth between aerial/terrain/topo/map/hybrid and zoom in or out as closely as you want. I think I purchased my maps from topozone? You post your map or e mail me I'll take a look at it and make some recommendations if your interested.
I look for the pinch points also, along with hubs that connect multiple tracks and herds. Water holes, hunter access, entrance exit routs....but the one thing I focus on the most when looking over maps are areas where mature bucks would bed.....based on the time of year and factors stated above.
I used to print out the Google Earth page and tape and tape and tape them all together... Man, that was a long and painful way of doing it.. Now, I have the HUGE color laminated waterproof print of our land and it is 4 feet by 6 feet.. It is AWSOME !!! Now, I can tape stand locations and move them and mark on it with black marker and then erase when they change as well... One time purchase and you will not be sorry !!
The clarity is AWSOME !!!!! You can easily see vehicles in the driveway of the farmers house.. Actually you can tell that it is to short to be a 2 door car !!! I will get the name of the company I called. They asked questions online and asked you to "frame" your hunting area and then hit the "OK" button.. It was $45 for color, $55 for laminated, and $65 for Waterproof Laminated.. It is absolutely the best investment I have made !! I will post a picture when I get home today. I always made my own off of Google, and these are so much better and well worth it !! Change stand locations in a second and never fade or get wet.. I get home at 5, so I will post right after that..
Hey guys, I may get myself in trouble for this, but I had to jump in here. My company offers an online, web-based hunting journal called the Non-Typical Whitetail Journal. We have an awesome mapping feature that can be used for treestands, trail cams and other things. The mapping features are a by-product of the journal itself, but are a very popular part. It is cheaper than buying an aerial and it can be updated whenever you change something. Check it out, I think you will be surprised at what you are able to do. Thanks Dan Ketchum Step Ahead Outdoor Solutions, LLC
simplest terms is- picture a big track of timber narrowing down to a bottle neck, then gets big again. It doesn't always have to be timber, it may be tall grass between a river and steep revein if you get my drift. The deer have to pass through these areas where they are filtered through. We call these spots ambush points, awesome setups especially for the rut!
One of my favorite setups is an inside corner of a crop field, with timber surrounding me. In the right location and you will encounter multiple big boys passing through!
Couldn't someone just save free topos and aerial maps on a disk, then take it to Walmart and get a color print for under $10?
Hoyt 'N' it, Thats exactly what I have going on at two of my stand sights. One is at the back corner of a corn field. The field kind of bends around in almost a semi circle back into the corner. i have my stand about 15yd off a trail about 75yd in. I have my mineral station about 20yd past my stand. I feel it is a killer set up. No pun intended. My second is on a wooded ridge line sort of and it medium to heavily wooded. The ridge runs along side a cow pasture about 30yd in from the barbed wire fence. It runs parallel with the fence. On the other side is a steep hill. It is really wide at one end and narrows down to around 10yd-15yd, turns away from the pasture and down a hill. My stand will be set up off the intersection of 3 trails that merge together. I guess these would be a pinch points. Last year I had no idea what to look for so I put my stands up randomly in the woods and moved them around every couple weeks. It was a nightmare. I honestly have no idea how I harvested 2 last year other than the place is crawling with deer.
