Cbigbear said:
I'd like to see a walk thru of your mineral site setup. Where, why, & how you set your cams on them.
Also if you could show anything relate to your pre-boots on the ground work. What are you looking for when doing your map work?
OK I am actually going to set up two mineral licks so I will try to remember to take video of them and give explanation for why I picked that spot.
As far as map work I will see what I can do but I am usually very leery of posting actual aerial photos and maps as last year it cost me a couple spots. I frequent another site and keep an on-line journal. I had posted some maps and photos and last year two places were over run with "new" hunters there. These were areas I have hunted for several years and never saw anyone in before.
For the most part what I do when I want to hunt a new WMA - is google earth it to get an aerial photo. Then here is specifically what I mark on my map/photos
1. Access points.
2. Water (creeks, rivers, lakes, etc)
3. I mark all edges and funnels
4. I then zoom out and locate all neighboring PRIVATE land crops, water and farm roads)
5. I look for hardwoods
6. Large weed fields with points/isolate trees
Once I do this initial marking, I then look for and eliminate most of the easy to get to and obvious sites. I also look for unique ways to enter - kayak, drop off on Highway (I never park where I hunt I will have the little lady drop me off on major highways/county roads as I don't want people seeing my truck - yes she has gotten up at 4:00 AM to do this for me). I then look for potential food sources (I focus in on acorns, browse, plum thickets, etc.).
Then I make two scouting trips. The first one I go light and cover everything - at this point I have no plan on setting anything up as to many times in the past I settled for first good spot and not the best spot. I look for rubs, scrapes, funnels, elevation changes, water sources, and travel corridors. I am also looking for confirmed bedding spots (I try to identify them as doe or buck bedding), entry/exit trails (especially faint downwind/J Hooking trails), I confirm food sources (especially natural browse) I look for other tree stands, and finally I am looking for good entry and exit routes. Overall I am looking for those areas near buck/doe bedding, and then natural travel corridors and then isolate where terrain or cover will make them most vulnerable. I pass up a lot of good spots if they don't tip the odds in my favor. One other thing I pay attention to is the way the weeds are laying over as this will give some indication of the most common winds in that particular spot (over winds are not always the best indicator as terrain can do some wild things to cause winds to shift direction)
In between the first and second trip I pour over my notes and maps/photos and decide the best locations for ambush sites, mineral sites, and best camera spots. The second trip I pretty much know the best areas I have found and I go in and set up trees and put in any cameras and minerals I determined to do.
There is so much that I think about in between the first and second trip. One final thought, I don't set up my tree if I am wondering did I pick the right spot. I would rather wait until I have a pretty confident gut feeling that I did enough ground work and thinking to where I feel like I have the best ambush spot. If I can't get there I rely on camera and observation stands to get me dialed in.
I will see if I can get some videos and pics together for this but it will probably be May after I get all my initial scouting done. I will try to focus some videos more on why I am looking at a spot in the mean time.
