I have decided to head about an hour north of me and hunt on my wife's grandparents land this weekend. I've hunted here before, so I'm fairly familiar with the lay of the land, but I haven't scouted it at all this year and haven't hunted it about 4 years and really only hunted during the rifle season anyway. My plan is to head up Thursday as soon as I get off work, do a little scouting and hang my stand for the next morning. My thoughts are to hunt on the south end of the property on the west side in the large timber. From years past I have found some good sign in that area, including a ridge on the side of the ditch that had a bedding area that was just littered with huge rubs. That's been several years ago, but I'm guessing it's still going to be an active area. Looking for any advice you have. I think I have a pretty good idea, but there are plenty of folks on here that are WAY better than I am at understanding how terrain affect deer movement and would love to hear from you. Here's the whole property I have access to. Here's a more zoomed in area I plan on targeting. Here's a link to the Acme Mapper for this property. This should give you the topo for the area. ACME Mapper 2.0
Looks like a great bedding area looking at the map. I wouldnt go in there too much to spook them but I would head it with a climber the day you plan to hunt and get setup real early and see whats going on when and where
Thanks for the advice Slugger. I'd really like to hear what other people would do if they were hunting this property. Even if your not a Topo guy, lets hear what your plan would be.
Marker I is along a treeline in a saddle which is a good crossing point. Also Marker J along the pond is a good place to intercept deer coming out for a drink.
I'm pretty much going to have to come in within the property lines. If I'm going all the way south, I can drive down the road about halfway to the gate, then I have to go to the east side and cross a bid ditch to get to the furthest south area. The property is just short of a1.5 miles long.
I like location d from ur choices natural funnel, skirts bedding, and bean field i think i see to the west, not to mention the water source... great during the rut. I also see this as a great decoy location! personally i stay away from hunting directly on field edges. I like to stay a good 20 - 40 yds inside the woods to hopefully get my shots while deer are staging while i still have good light if at all possible i think id sneak in from 287.
The markers on the Acme map are just to give you an idea of the property lines, not stand choices. Am I correct? Also what crops are planted around your property. What's planted to the west of the big wood lot? Also, is there anything planted in the fields to the east?
Im just going to guess you don't know what's planted since you haven't been there. Spot circled around marker D looks like a good funnel due to a small strip of woods surrounded by field. The will work their way through this to avoid being seen. It doesn't look that wide either so you should be able to cover a good portion of it. Marker F might be a good spot to check out. This is a iffy area that could be a good spot or not at all. This is also a nice little funnel. They will work their way up the river bottom to stay out of open field, and if there's a good food source in that direction it will increase the probability. The long line is where Id be checking first. This looks like THE spot to be. The deer could be bedding on these points which will make a funnel between the field edge and the tops of the ravines. You should be able to set up within this area, possibly seeing a buck running that line checking doe bedding areas. Just make sure to hunt the wind correctly. Also, I don't know how you feel about hunting close to property lines, this is just a couple areas to look around.
Well I ended up seeing up on a saddle with a lot of fresh scrapes in the area. There's an old logging road just to the west of my stand and a nice cedar rub with a scrape under it too. Here's where I ended up, my Stan is the green marker. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk