I scouted it as I would the mountains at home, but its more hill country. Steep hills, but shorter elevation than I’m used to. And there are way more suitable points and converging ridges than I’m used to seeing. It seems like the deer have endless options to bed and travel. I’m used to seeing fewer, bigger points and fewer long running ridges – more solitary mountains.
I map scouted this area hard. I had tons of places marked going into it and checked my top spots while I was there.
I thought going into it that focusing around cutovers would be the best option. Good cover seems to be the limiting factor near me(most of our woods are mature and basically useless for a deer unless there is a bumper acorn crop). However, on this new spot, it is covered in green briars. I’ve never experienced anything like it(I bled a lot on this trip). So deer have cover everywhere. And near the cutovers is almost impenetrable and very little or no sign.
I didn’t find much that I had hoped to find. I did find deer and sign in areas on the leeward side of a ridge with a cutover on the lee side(they tend to only timber on one side of a ridge for some reason – bottom to top). This was especially true if there was a bench along the leeward side. I found travel and buck sign on the leeward side and doe bedding on surrounding edges. I found one nice buck bed tucked in behind a big dead tree on a leeward bench about 5 yards uphill of a well used trail. I feel like it’s a rut bed because I don’t see much advantage to bedding there outside of checking does that pass by. These spots are few and far between, I only found one this weekend.
After realizing that there wasn’t much sign directly near or in the cutovers I checked some areas with no cutovers. Looking along the leeward third and checking the ideal points and hubs. I found very little. Just green briars everywhere. Hardly saw tracks, no old rubs, no old scrapes, no beds. I assume there must be deer in that area because I found a camera and mineral lick that was well used. I didn’t get in front of the cam to check for tracks.
Knowing that the only sign I had found was in areas with cutovers but not really near the cutover itself, I checked out another spot with some long running ridges with cutover on each end. The cuts are probably almost a mile apart. All the ridges come together in one hub. To my surprise, I found very little on this walk. I found a hub scrape along the creek I walked up for access but once I got up on the ridges and checking the leeward third and the points I found little sign. Once I got in near the converging hub, I found some old rubs but nothing large and not many. They might have been last years but I am guessing two years old. I actually was running through in my head how I must just be in the wrong place or just not know what I’m doing when I almost stepped on the biggest 8pt shed I’ve ever found.
The shed gave me a boost, but I still don’t know how to hunt it. Most of this public is far enough away from ag fields that the fields aren’t a food source. I think its mostly down to browse from cutovers, green briar, and acorns. I found very few acorn caps from last year and very few acorns in trees. Only a handful of red oaks had a crop, white oaks and others had nothing to speak of.
The green briar makes navigating difficult. You can't just go up a creek and cut up a draw or a point. You might find yourself trapped in the middle of a briar jungle -
seriously. A couple times this weekend I did just that and had to take a break standing there wrapped up in thorns wondering how the heck I was gonna get out. And from what I can tell, you cant see it on an aerial.
At this point, if I decide to hunt it, I think I would plant myself on the leeward third of a long running ridge, at one of the converging hubs, or along a leeward bench. Despite the lack of sign, I feel that’s my best chance. Based on sign alone, I probably wouldn’t hunt it this year, I’d wait until I could scout it again this winter. But that big shed is tempting me into making the trip again this fall. I’m probably better off spending more time on my local spots that I have scouted and have confidence going into.
I’m not really looking for an answer to anything here, I guess I don’t have a specific question. Just posting my experience for a read I suppose. If you have something to add, go for it, I’m always willing to listen.