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Favorite terrain feature for bucks

Not so much where I think they travel the most, but in the past few years I’m starting to really value the river that runs through the property I hunt. To some degree I always overlooked it because it’s big enough to feel ‘open’, and kind of feels like you’re hunting next to the road. Plus we get a decent number of fisherman that walk up it… but I’ve been posting the property more trying to reduce the fishing traffic. Maybe the deer were always doing this, but I’m finding they work along the river a lot, they cross it a lot, and it’s a fantastic way to access and then often times set up with my back to the river. I’m cutting my ground scent drastically on the property. My scent is often times pulling to the river behind me, and last season I had many encounters, one of them so close to launching an arrow at my target buck. Looking ahead, I plan to keep focusing a lotta hunts along the river.
Bodies of water whether lake, stream or river always are travel corridors, at least in my experience. But I grew up hunting big river bottoms with lots of ditches and oxbow lakes. I can tell you that I have done a really poor job of hunting them based on some things I have learned this year from time spent scouting in the mountains. I have killed a lot of deer around water but it wasnt because I was hunting it the smartest way. I would encourage you to keep refining that area and how you hunt it.
 
Bodies of water whether lake, stream or river always are travel corridors, at least in my experience. But I grew up hunting big river bottoms with lots of ditches and oxbow lakes. I can tell you that I have done a really poor job of hunting them based on some things I have learned this year from time spent scouting in the mountains. I have killed a lot of deer around water but it wasnt because I was hunting it the smartest way. I would encourage you to keep refining that area and how you hunt it.
Agree, for example I can’t sit downstream of a lobe of woods once the suns out, because the wind will start thermalling upstream into that timber. Early morning and early evening to dark are best, or being upstream side midday where the thermals are pushing out of the timber Im targeting. Going up the river is a pain but it’s fun figuring out the tricks.
 
The last couple years I’ve really enjoyed hunting against a lake on public ground, and using the creeks off of them for hanging near major crossings. Did a lot of on the fly scouting following larger tracks and killed a buck in a spot against a lake and lots of habitat converging together. (Cedar thicket, CRP type habitat, open woods). And I was also in between a couple major doe group bedding areas I found in the off-season. This was also peak rut around mid November. I like how my scent can also be heading out to the lake on the right wind or even an off wind up the bank.
 
I look for low pressure funnels, transition areas near bedding or super thick stuff, and really like to access public land by boat.
 
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