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cyber scouting

Robert loper

Robert loper

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2017
Messages
1,772
Location
NJ
hey guys
couple questions note i live and hunt in a flat ground area topos do not really help me too much
im brand new to cyber scouting and dont really know what to look for on maps in farm land and big woods
is there someone who can show me on a map what a interior swamp looks like on a map or areas that mature bucks would gravitate too in farm country and a little bit of big woods
in big woods cyber scouting is like *** am i looking at? big green blur any advice on what kind of transitions the big boys like in big woods and what does it look like on a map and what does swamp areas look like on a aerial map marshes are simple its points and bowls they bed on
i hunt a farm and it has cut corn in fields (rotated with beans and corn every year)and the woods is a loblolly pine tree farm that has loblolly pines that are about 25 30 foot tall at the most there are big mature bucks in here and wanna figure out where to start i hunt with tripod stands and ground blinds (i hate ground blinds though) couple portables and a ladder on the edges of the mature woods along the 2 track lanes killed couple does this year in them
the edge of this property is surrounded by mature hardwoods loaded with hollies and different oaks so i know the bucks have to be bedding on my piece in the pines cause its thinned every 5or 6 years so there is alot of browse
there is a two track separating the mature hardwoods and pines also so entry is not an issue i can access piece with all winds considered
anyway pretty much i need somebody to show me what certain terrains look like on a map swamps thickets hardwoods etc and where the mature bucks tend to bed on these 2 different terrains send pics please of examples with notes
thanks guys any help would be awesome and much appreciated
sorry so much but i wanted to try to explain the areas in detail
 
Have you looked into the hunting beast videos? I think they might be exactly what you are looking for. I bought the swamp and hill country videos and have been very impressed.

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I gottem they are awesome but doesnt cover farms and big woods. These 2 are puzzling me. Thnks though


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The videos are great but like you said big woods is a different animal from hills/marsh. What I have found works the best for cyber scouting is to find areal images taken in winter when vegetation is minimal. It’s hard to pick out transitions besides distinctive species of trees/grasses when looking at a full canopy. Winter images will better show the density of growth and possibly some lower lying ground even a topo may not show. If you can spot some difference in vegetation or transitions lines from a winter image this is where I would start. Go out and scout and follow any runways to check where the deer are moving and why (destinations) and look at all the thickest areas on the property for buck sign in and around them, and bedding areas of does. If you can find a rub or scrape line you have a better idea of where a buck is traveling. Rubs can at least show you which direction the buck is headed. If it’s in the direction of a food source (rubs facing away from food) you can bet it is being used in the evening. If it headed away from preferred food source it’s likely it’s headed towards bedding. If you find this same type of sign set back from food with less cover it may be a staging area. It’s a lot harder to understand how and why the deer are using a area of big woods than it is in a marsh or hills where bedding and trails stand out better and the bedding is more predictable. Hope this helps some.


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In deep woods it is hard to find the cover changes. I tend to look for changes in color of the canopy to show transitions. Often times the tree species change when you get above the swamp/flood zone and you can see it as a line of slightly different green


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Agree with what has been said here - find aerial photos taken at different times of year, particularly when the leaves are off the trees or at least are different colors. Google Earth has a timeline feature that sometimes helps with this. Otherwise check all the known sites and apps for pics taken at different times - google maps, caltopo, onX, bing, yahoo maps, state/county/city GIS viewers, gaia, GPS kit, huntstand, you name it... there are a lot of different ones out there, just gotta hope and pray you find good pics for your area. Foliage colors, patterns, shadows cast on the forest floor all can help in figuring out what type of cover you are looking at and then determining transitions.


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Chistavocat said:
The videos are great but like you said big woods is a different animal from hills/marsh. What I have found works the best for cyber scouting is to find areal images taken in winter when vegetation is minimal. It’s hard to pick out transitions besides distinctive species of trees/grasses when looking at a full canopy. Winter images will better show the density of growth and possibly some lower lying ground even a topo may not show. If you can spot some difference in vegetation or transitions lines from a winter image this is where I would start. Go out and scout and follow any runways to check where the deer are moving and why (destinations) and look at all the thickest areas on the property for buck sign in and around them, and bedding areas of does. If you can find a rub or scrape line you have a better idea of where a buck is traveling. Rubs can at least show you which direction the buck is headed. If it’s in the direction of a food source (rubs facing away from food) you can bet it is being used in the evening. If it headed away from preferred food source it’s likely it’s headed towards bedding. If you find this same type of sign set back from food with less cover it may be a staging area. It’s a lot harder to understand how and why the deer are using a area of big woods than it is in a marsh or hills where bedding and trails stand out better and the bedding is more predictable. Hope this helps some.


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Click to expand...

It does alot thnks brotha


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I have alot of good pics from google earth and you can tell oaks and thinned pines and thick pines. Thin pines you can usually see some of the forest floor
Thick pines you cant see anything. Oaks and hardwoods you can see the floor clearly. Also. In my areas i hunt i have lots of holly’s. I now know what they look for too. They almost look like fuzzy green
But some areas ive looked at have black ground color. Is this water or swamp? Its black color that is definitely defined with a transition line to. Im guessing water or swamp.


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In my experience black is usually water which creates another edge or transition, even if it isn’t a creek/river/pond/etc. standing water in timber, even just a slight low spot that a topo map doesn’t show usually has a trail along its edge. With what drew13 posted, use all of the available area image sources to help narrow down the best places to scout. If you are seeing the forest floor on certain images it can also help distinguish what areas are thick and help you see how the deer could potentially use the areas cover for travel. Like you said, some images look like a green blob and some images can look like a road map. More often than not the road map images can show how the deer use the area without ever stepping foot on the property. This greatly reduces the blind wondering while scouting and makes you way more efficient.


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Agree on the HB videos. You have to take the concepts and apply to your terrain. Old Mature bucks don't really vary much except whether they are being pressured or not. In big woods, South, cattle country there are edges. they are different then in the HB woods, but they are there. I don't have large cattail marshes - but I do have large weed/CRP fields that deer will use basically the same.

Nothing will replace boots on the ground in flat country as you just cannot see all the nuisances and terrain features on an aerial photo. When I walk a new property the first thing I try to remind myself is where do the normal doe/young bucks move (think ease of travel) and where will a mature buck travel - they are totally different in most cases. I eliminate any area with openness for the most part if the bucks are pressured. They just wont travel through them during daylight. I look for out of the way hidden areas that I would not normally check (or used to not check). That can be a lone tree in an open crp field, it can be a blackberry tangle that you would think a buck couldn't travel through, it can be anything.

I also look for a micro area that contains what I label the big 3 (Natural browse/food, water and cover) think about escape routes because big bucks certainly do. I also look for areas where winds tend to swirl because I have found that mature bucks like getting random winds that alert them from many directions.

Add all this together and you are on a big bucks preferred core areas. Most of the time, in most of the areas I hunt, you CANNOT get close to their bedding without wind, noise or visual clues alerting them. So I tend to focus on entry and exit routes or, if I am lucky to find them, staging areas immediately adjacent to their bedding.

Bottom line - ask yourself if you was a large buck and everything in the woods was trying to eat you where would you HIDE out? But keep in mind we humans rely on sight and sound, most bucks, with the exception of open land/prairie bucks, rely most on the sense of smell, then sight/hearing..... this will mean they would select areas normally we would NOT unless we think about their defense assets. Normally I find mature bucks bed in places with wind/sight advantage or in the thickest nastiest crap that usually takes a machete to explore.
 
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DaveT1963's response sounds like florida where you cannot walk through gallberry patches or palmettos very easily without cutting a trail.
Deer hide in this stuff and you never know they are there until they bust out.
 
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