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Post season scouting

I did get a little scouting in today during that poor excuse for turkey hunting I endured, lol. I checked out several very subtle draws where the vegetation thickened up compared to the rest of the pines. I jumped 2 bedded doe out of a greenbriar patch and then later jumped another deer, I'm assuming a doe, out of a sawbriar thicket amongst some volunteer pines. I'm getting a handle on where these deer like to bed up out there and it is sort of interesting. The club has a lane cut around the perimeter for the members to ride around. Then it is crisscrossed with 2 track lanes making it sort of look like a waffle pattern if viewed from above. Some of these tracks are planted as green lanes. Most of the pines are mature, and the understory is about 4 feet tall sawbriars and greenbriar and bushes in between the tracks. It's thick at ground level, the trees are tall, bare pines until about 45 to 50 feet up.

From what I am seeing, the deer seem to be bedding in the thickest areas within the ground cover between the tracks in certain areas and their trails parallel the tracks, and occasionally cross them. It kind of a hard terrain to hunt elevated. There aren't many trees with any cover.
 
Couple of thoughts - I’ve seen duck and small game hunters have minimal effect on deer in other places - assuming because of deer densities. The reference place in LA, the deer seemed to be effected a good bit by any pressure but the density is pretty low.

Southern deer are smaller, which I’m guessing leads to their skiddish nature. We also have loonnggg seasons, dog hunting, and a general nature to kill all - brown is down is way more prevalent in the south. Mid west and north also has less cover so they seem to be more tolerant with encounters in the cover - guess they feel safer there even with hunters than running into open fields.
 
mschultz373 said:
@Cbigbear if you don't stop you're gonna get me in trouble with the wife when there's $600 missing and I'm driving to MS to hunt....
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It’s the same just different, too much sign & big sign to weed thru vs no sign. Still end up scratching my head looking for mature deer. There is alot of eye candy up there!!! If you want to fling some arrow at does it’s definitely worth it.
 

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Today was a good session. I focused on a 14acre bit I isolated from the map and it seems promising: high concentration of blackberry thickets, water oak flats and rubs. There was some trash but no obvious hunter sign save an old skull of a deer or pig… I found an old logging road that dumps out almost right to it, ending at a creek that is often impassable due to high water. This area was on the opposite bank from the logging trail. It may get pounded during the rifle split - I don’t know. I didn’t see the typical give aways: flagging tape, tarps, coolers, old seats…

I staged a new-to-me pirogue in some thick brush back on the creek for crossing in cases when water is high.

I ran into the officer at my car. He said there were reports of someone possibly scouting for turkey, which has been closed every year I’ve been hunting. He seemed surprised that I was scouting for deer and offered that boating/kayaking from the launch down the river would open up good areas. I don’t know why I’ve not yet done so, but I may try it on a final scout if the cooler weather hangs around.
 
mschultz373 said:
Today was a good session. I focused on a 14acre bit I isolated from the map and it seems promising: high concentration of blackberry thickets, water oak flats and rubs. There was some trash but no obvious hunter sign save an old skull of a deer or pig… I found an old logging road that dumps out almost right to it, ending at a creek that is often impassable due to high water. This area was on the opposite bank from the logging trail. It may get pounded during the rifle split - I don’t know. I didn’t see the typical give aways: flagging tape, tarps, coolers, old seats…

I staged a new-to-me pirogue in some thick brush back on the creek for crossing in cases when water is high.

I ran into the officer at my car. He said there were reports of someone possibly scouting for turkey, which has been closed every year I’ve been hunting. He seemed surprised that I was scouting for deer and offered that boating/kayaking from the launch down the river would open up good areas. I don’t know why I’ve not yet done so, but I may try it on a final scout if the cooler weather hangs around.
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Sounds like a good day! I've also found conservation officers helpful and have gotten some good tips from them.
 
mschultz373 said:
always be on their good side and get their number! very helpful to have in cases when you come across a corn pile or hear rifle shots during archery...
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Yes, getting their number is a good idea. I met a young hunter, a college student, a couple of years ago on the WMA. It was his first season hunting the WMA, and he wasn't from here and didn't really know anyone. We exchanged numbers. One evening I got a text from him asking it I was on the WMA. I was not. He told me he got his truck stuck. Since it was a 45 minute drive for me, I asked him if he would mind me contacting a game warden I knew and see if he was close and could help. The young man said he would appreciate it. So, I contacted the warden, who was close, got the two of them in contact and the warden was able to drive over and pull him out.
 
dalton916 said:
I spend a LOT of time looking for areas to go and scout. After the season (now) I go in and match real sign with expected sign. If it’s what I want to see then I’ll put cameras in there late June to early July to verify what’s there. With what I’m looking for I expect deer to be there more than just during the rut so I put them in early and leave them throughout the season to pick up bucks that may not “live” there, but that come for a visit during the season as the rut progresses.

There’s usually a community scrape involved with what I’m looking for and if I choose to leave a camera on a particular area for a second season that’s where it will be. I tend to start with two cameras minimum in a new area. One on the community scrape and one on what I feel is the most likely buck travel route. If I didn’t find what I feel was the predominant access trail I may move the second camera to a new trail for the following year if there’s enough buck activity to keep me coming back to hunt.

That’s pretty much the cycle of my scouting, Identify on maps, ground truth, camera truth, rinse and repeat. I always have spots in one of those phases. My only regret is keeping spots in my head instead of documenting on quad sheets back before we had all the tech that’s available nowadays to catalog what we find.
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This is a great straight forward strategy!!
 
So, after the turkey hunt this morning I went over to a spot I discovered the other day out on the club. I went in to prep the spot for a saddle setup for the fall. I used spikes (got to love private land where the owner replies "I don't care as long as its not a pine" when asked about screw ins and spikes) to set the tree up. It's what I would call a trash tree anyway, a gnarly sycamore on the boundary between a thick new growth pine stand and some mature pines with a lot of thick understory. From my scout the other day I could tell the deer were coming out of that pine stand and heading to the green fields, most likely in the evening. If this spot plays out like I think it will, the deer will use the trail (which I widened into the pines) in the evening to stage up to go to the green field in the dark. The trail is now wide enough for a buck to travel and still be in thick cover.

From the sycamore I can shoot the far lane, at about 18 yards and I can cover the trail out of the pines to the green field at about 7 yards, both with a strong side shot.
 

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NMSbowhunter said:
So, after the turkey hunt this morning I went over to a spot I discovered the other day out on the club. I went in to prep the spot for a saddle setup for the fall. I used spikes (got to love private land where the owner replies "I don't care as long as its not a pine" when asked about screw ins and spikes) to set the tree up. It's what I would call a trash tree anyway, a gnarly sycamore on the boundary between a thick new growth pine stand and some mature pines with a lot of thick understory. From my scout the other day I could tell the deer were coming out of that pine stand and heading to the green fields, most likely in the evening. If this spot plays out like I think it will, the deer will use the trail (which I widened into the pines) in the evening to stage up to go to the green field in the dark. The trail is now wide enough for a buck to travel and still be in thick cover.

From the sycamore I can shoot the far lane, at about 18 yards and I can cover the trail out of the pines to the green field at about 7 yards, both with a strong side shot.
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Nice setup. You'll have to be quick draw McGraw with that near trail. Looks pretty thick in there already.
 
NMSbowhunter said:
So, after the turkey hunt this morning I went over to a spot I discovered the other day out on the club. I went in to prep the spot for a saddle setup for the fall. I used spikes (got to love private land where the owner replies "I don't care as long as its not a pine" when asked about screw ins and spikes) to set the tree up. It's what I would call a trash tree anyway, a gnarly sycamore on the boundary between a thick new growth pine stand and some mature pines with a lot of thick understory. From my scout the other day I could tell the deer were coming out of that pine stand and heading to the green fields, most likely in the evening. If this spot plays out like I think it will, the deer will use the trail (which I widened into the pines) in the evening to stage up to go to the green field in the dark. The trail is now wide enough for a buck to travel and still be in thick cover.

From the sycamore I can shoot the far lane, at about 18 yards and I can cover the trail out of the pines to the green field at about 7 yards, both with a strong side shot.
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I can’t believe how greened up you guys are already!!! Wow. Just starting to get buds now here.
 
DroptineKrazy said:
Nice setup. You'll have to be quick draw McGraw with that near trail. Looks pretty thick in there already.
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Thanks. Hopefully I can hear them coming though those young pines and get ready. A lot of times, when they emerge from a thicket like that into a relatively open lane they will pause and have a look and listen, and not just dart out. But yes, it will be close quarters.
 
This is the ground level view of that set up, the close trail. I cleaned out a nice trail for them to access that green plot, which is maybe 80 to 100 yards North. I used to chop these sorts of lanes all the time out on the old club I was in. I'd get tired chopping one day, go back a couple of days later to finish and there would often be tracks and poo on the new trail. As you can see we have greened up and this is only the early part. It will be a jungle in there soon.
 

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NMSbowhunter said:
This is the ground level view of that set up, the close trail. I cleaned out a nice trail for them to access that green plot, which is maybe 80 to 100 yards North. I used to chop these sorts of lanes all the time out on the old club I was in. I'd get tied chopping one day, go back a couple of days later to finish and there would often be tracks and poo on the new trail. As you can see we have greened up and this is only the early part. It will be a jungle in there soon.
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That used to happen a lot to me when I'd clear access trails. Deer read the script and said, "Oh look, a new trail to use". lol.
 
woodsdog2 said:
I can’t believe how greened up you guys are already!!! Wow. Just starting to get buds now here.
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DroptineKrazy said:
Lol. I just showed the pic to my wife and said the same.
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NMSbowhunter said:
Oh, yes. We started greening up a couple of weeks ago. It's getting thick fast.
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We're green and growing prolly not much farther north, at least a week ahead of usual. Had a very warm March except for a few freak cold nights. Usually this week's a little too early to have good tree cover to sneak into roost areas tight, but not this year. Decent cover now, but it will be awesome soon.

Dogwoods haven't bloomed yet, but that's coming. That's the "signal" around here that folks divine to know that all the turkey hunting, bass fishing and perch-jerking is going to be fantastic, LOL I think it works on bass and crappie; sometimes turkeys don't stick to the program. :)
 
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