I felt that way too before I started running cams on public out here in the mountain area. The only cam I have lost out there in the past 2 season was in an obvious saddle but not really close to the road at all. It was the best hidden of the cams I hung and it still got snagged. 3 cams were in just as glaringly obvious spots and WAY close to the road and werent bothered. One cam had one guy walk by once all season. The other two cams didnt get a person all season. No idea why cause there is a good bit of pressure on the place. Nothing like what yall have to deal with pressure wise but still a fair bit.
Interesting. Sounds like water is a limiting factor in your area. I note where water sources are but seldom pay much attention to them as far as scouting goes because the one thing we have is plenty of water.
Curious what kind of ground your are hunting, flat, rolling or mountains? Mixed ag or large tracts of timber? Or doesnt matter?
Are you focusing more on hard edges or soft edges?
The timber cut tool can be super helpful, esp when combined with historical aerial photos.
Until recently that is how I have always approached new ground too. It is still a significant piece of the puzzle but I have been shifting away from it being my starting point. My shift is more a result of the last two years letting cams soak in spots, most of which are not standard spots most people talk about. My cam results support the idea that, at least in this particular area, bucks of all age classes are following 2 patterns. Pre-season they are holding to a fairly small core area and show on cams pretty regular but then shift into a travelling pattern as they shift into and through the rut, including late rut. That has led me to starting the map scouting process using lidar with the shaded relief and the sun/shade tool. I am starting with a much broader look at an area to try to decipher what I think are the most likely long range travel lines as it relates to topography. Then I am switching to aerials to see how land cover may or may not associate with the topography as I am seeing it. I initially drop pins on lidar and then may adjust them based on aerial. Then I try to go get boots on the areas around pins to see how it all ties together in person. This area is not a high density area for deer at least not like the other areas of the state I am used to hunting. The more time I spend map scouting and then in person scouting it the more this strategy of trying to find those not obvious spots that other miss or overlook entirely makes sense to me. The flip side is trying to hunt a deer where he may only show in daylight once or twice over a few day period the entire season has been and is a mental hurdle.
Spartan Forge shows cuts on forest service ground.
You need to find his core area, assuming you’ve located or have picture evidence of one, super mature dominant buck, now you need to expand your search from the high count, more probable, multiple deer encounter locations to that bucks one “special spot”, the older, more dominant of a buck, the more predictable he will be, just like us as we get older, he will move less, and always with more security cover, but with more thought behind it, his routine is more set in stone, it’s worked for years and they hate change. Here’s one I’m betting most have not experienced, but I have, and only on the biggest of bucks I have killed or chased during a season, and I‘ve had it happen multiple times, once I have located what I assume is my target bucks core area, and if there is any cell service at all I’m looking for a good cam spot, high in a tree to not spook him or other game.. I can’t tell you the times I’ve gotten that buck the first night on camera.. if not the first night usually by the second, almost like they are pissed off and wondering what the heck I’m doing in their spot, I’m about positive I had one buck follow my tracks out one night after I hung 3 or 4 cams in and near his core area, he tripped half my cameras the first night, then he laid low for a week and settled back in to his normal routine after that. When I have a big mature buck on camera doing stuff like that, and can monitor him with cell cams and get real time intel on what he’s doing a couple times a week, that deer will have all he can do to stay alive because my degree of confidence in killing him will be off the charts and I will not stop until I do, that is how you get over the mental hurdle of grinding for one buck, after you’ve had it happen just once it gets easier the more times you do it, and becomes addicting, yes I will hammer a worthy volunteer as well if one happens to show unexpectedly, but the mental battle of locating, pursuing, and getting inside the head of just one beast of the woods buck and going after him is a rush like nothing else, and it also involves lots of dry hunts, nothing burgers are the norm, but it only takes about one minute for all that to change and have success happen, when it does it makes all the dry hunts worth it. The year I killed my personal best on public land, I had just over one year of trail cam pics of him, I spent half that season not aggressively hunting any other areas and basically just scouting when I did go into the woods, waiting for just him and staying out of there (core area) until I thought he was ready to be hunted, I seen just one buck that entire season, him, and maybe 3 or 4 other deer all season in total, that’s it. I did 4 all day saddle hunts (same tree) from dark to dark during a 5 day period just waiting for that one buck and only caught the glimpse of one deer the entire 4 days in a tree. Knowing the deer you are after, with lots of pre and post season scouting, gives you the confidence to endure the small odds of having it actually work, fresh, real time intel, cell cams, make all the difference!
On the WMA I am referring too, maybe 20% of the cam locations the last 2 years have cell signal. I dont have any cell cams because of that. That's also a big part of the reason that I am focusing more on finding isolated pinch points or funnels within their rut travel loops. That I have seen in person and from cams, the doe groups are small (2-5) and spread out. The older a buck gets the better he is going to know when these different doe groups are going to be ready and he will be in those doe areas for a short window at that time. What I am trying to do is build as much inventory of data for as many of those type spots as possible so in time I can hopefully build up enough of those spots that every week of the entire rut period (pre-late) I will have a different locations with high odds of a mature deer showing. But I am also very much paying attention for when a cam lands in a bucks core area. This past year I had a cam in a bucks bedroom for the pre-season up to the rut. Pre-season and early season he was really regular but he got hard bumped by a thinning crew literally the morning of the first day I had the right conditions to hunt him. Went in at noon and found out the crew of 7 guys had spent the whole morning in his core bedding area running chainsaws. He did finally come back but it was a few weeks later and he was nowhere near as regular because I think he was making his rut travel loops. In essence, I am looking for those opportunities to do just what you are talking about and focus on one particular deer but I am also trying to use my cams to help me build historical data that I can hopefully use to be more efficient with my hunting time by hunting locations in the timeframes where historical data shows a mature buck is present.
