I was out scouting last night and again today as well. And I am also overestimating how much snow has disappeared! On the southern faces of all of the hills all of the snow has melted,
but everywhere else it is still anywhere from 4-10 inches deep. When I look at it from my truck I say I'll be alright without the snowshoes and then I get on the top of the mountain and I wish I had my snowshoes lol.
I did 4.5 miles last night, but most of that was hiking to and from a point that I knew held deer to try to find a buck bed, particularly a bed of 1 of the bucks I know hangs out up there. I found a doe bedding area, and what I'm pretty sure is a buck bed. There were a couple rubs about 150 yards away on the trail to the bed, but no rubs around the bed. It was a big lone bed in a thick spot overlooking the valley where I would expect to find a buck bed based off of the others that I have found so far. The best part is that there is a big rocky point jutting out about 100 yards from the bed, so I should be able to sneak in pretty close. I plan on having a tree set up with screw in steps for the saddle this spring so it will be ready to go for the fall. I also found 1 other spot that is kinda like a funnel along the side of the ridge that I will mix into my rotation.
Today I did 7.5 miles. I was just trying to explore a wma that I'm not very familiar with to get a lay of the land and along the way I was hitting up likely bedding spots. Most of my trip I went without finding any good obvious bedding, but I did find 2 different spots where deer activity was funneled through and the deer were clearing using it a lot. It was up high so i'm sure it is getting use in the daylight. On my way back to the truck I came upon a small cattail marsh, maybe 50-100 acres. From the ridge I could see a few trees sticking up in the middle but one tree was bigger and really stood out so I figured I would check that one out. Well on my way out I went slipping through the snow, crashed on my butt and went up to my knees in ice cold water. I figured what the heck I'm on my way back to the truck anyways. There was nothing around the tree but as I got into the smaller brush and bushes not too far from it I a 15 square yard section that had about 7 or 8 rubs in it. There weren't very many tracks in the snow and no beds but there was one fairly recent track that was pretty big. There was definitely a buck bedding here at some point in the season. I will be returning soon to try to figure it out a little better and set up a tree.
All in all a productive weekend! It was a cold walk back to the truck, but worth it!