dan wrote:Basically, I looked at the topo's Hodag supplied and looked for structure that should be good for buck bedding. Some spots, like the 1st one we went to, I was right on... Some spots the bedding was a little off, but still findable.
The bucks on this property seemed to bed in the typical elevation spots of the hills as described in my Hill country bucks DVD, however, they needed a lot of cover or a thick escape like most flat land or farmland bucks... This was probably due to the hills being more rolling and lower elevations than that of the ones in the hill country DVD...
The hardest part about scouting out here was to get all the way back in a mile or so to find out the cover was not thick enough or that it had just been logged.
I can see where scouting from a plane for one day to see where there is thick cover on east or south facing slopes ( assuming West / North winds ) and then later walking those areas would be a GREAT tactic...
If a guy were to scout that vast of a territory without maps and without knowledge of terrain based bedding, he probably would not find much big buck sign, and likely would not be to successful.
I feel like this short paragraph helped to shorten my learning curve a little better yet thanks dan! I wish I had the abilities you have! Neat scouting day guys and I sure hope this pans out for Hodag this fall. Any idea the age class of the bucks that left the sign or if they are still alive? I know you said you were surprised by the amount of deer sign but would it match up to the quality of a buck you are after? It seems that the northwoods deer do get big in some instances but the lack of doe tags and amount of meat hunters really put a damper on the ability of a buck to get to any real size in the big woods. I won't even mention the predators