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G2 Hunting Journal

That's good insight. There are a lot of acorns and plenty of browse on this island. I don't really know what type of browse the deer here prefer. I need to get more time in the woods (this is my first season in Savannah).

For you regular swamp hunters - is there a good way to locate feeding areas when there's very little dry land? I found it difficult to even locate many tracks or trails.

@John Eberhart am I right in thinking the only way to effectively hunt this area is to hunt the edges (no more than 50 yards from the river)? I can't imagine I could go deeper without alerting everything to my presence. I could hunt it on a windy/rainy day. That would mask my sound.

This off season I play to prep 2 trees on the opposite ends of the island. Any other advice from you seasoned swamp donkey killers?
 
When hunting within the bedding area outside the rut, yes, stay as close to the edge as possible and limit your hunts, and only hunt mornings. It's been my experience on heavily pressured public land that entries on evening hunts within bedding areas either spooks deer ,or the ones bedding close enough to hear you, either move in a different direction when they get up, or remain bedded until after dark. Also outside the rut phases if a mature buck does move before dark he typically doesn't cover much ground before it's totally dark.

On mornings they typically move into the bedding area a bit before dawn and may loiter and browse around a bit before actually bedding.

During the rut phases you should only commit to all day hunts with 1 1/2 to 2 hour prior to daybreak entries and after dark exits and at that time since you'd be going in before them and leaving after them, how deep into the bedding area you hunt is irrelevant.

I would also suggest after season to walk the islands perimeter and look for runways and especially any with rub lines along them that may lead out of it and set up a location where the most convergence of runways are or on a singular runway with a notable rub line. During regular season (prior to rut phases) those would be hunting locations.

Then I would comb the interior of the island, or whatever other area looks to be a large difficult to access bedding area, looking for the best convergence point of runways or sign. These will typically be small dry openings and these would be places to set up all day sit, rut phase locations.

Also keep the preferred browse in the back of your mind as all buck movements revolve around food. Bucks eat and browse during early season and pursue does during the rut and the areas where does feed during the rut phases will be frequented by the bucks.

Food and sex, that's it!
 
Great!

I setup 2 spots on the perimeter of two separate islands today at mid-day. Both spots are approximately 25 yards from the river bank. I'll post more detailed info and my plan for hunting them when I get a chance.
 
Today was a good day.

Full story coming.

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I went to one of my river spots this morning. It was raining pretty hard so I decided to sit at the launch and wait for it to stop since it was forecast to quit at any moment.

Bad idea.

When I got to my spot (right after first light) and secured my kayak, I bumped several deer about 40 yards in the wood line right in front of my tree. My tree is only 15ish yards from the river's edge.

After they ran off through the swamp making all kinds of racket, several more spooked from 40 or so yards to my left.

I don't know how many there were, but I counted at least 7 or 8 tails. Which means there was probably 10 or 12. Ugh!
 
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Also, I got to my spot and realized I left my platform on the boat launch.

Of course this is the only time I'd seen another hunter (duck hunter) using this launch. He rode past my setup around 9 headed back to the launch. I just knew my platform would be gone when I got back. I was so pissed!

At 12 I landed at the launch and my platform was leaned neatly against a tree out of the way of the ramp. There are some good people out there!
 
g2outdoors said:
Also, I got to my spot and realized I left my platform on the boat launch.

Of course this is the only time I'd seen another hunter (duck hunter) using this launch. He rode past my setup around 9 headed back to the launch. I just knew my platform would be gone when I got back. I was so pissed!

At 12 I landed at the launch and my platform was leaned neatly against a tree out of the way of the ramp. There are some good people out there!
Click to expand...

He probably looked the platform over and decided there was no way he was gonna hang that contraption from a tree to stand on. Lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
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