2020 Scouting Reports

[austin1990]

Yesterday I spent 4 and half hours fighting with a Turkey in a block of big pines and briars. Ended up finding a small plateau, 8-10 ft higher than the rest of the area and found this and a handful others and a bed on the point over looking where 2 creeks converge. I was trying to kill that turkey and didnt have time to take pics of anything else. Going back in there tomorrow after that Turkey and maybe I can get him kilt early and finish scouting the place out.

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[greenhorndave]

Had a slow-ish late winter start due to a bunch of scheduling conflicts. But it ain’t fully greened up yet, so the march goes on.

Finally hit a spot I've been meaning to for more than a year, only it's mostly been flooded for probably the last couple. The only high spots were big timber.

But it looked better yesterday when I pulled up so I hit the areas I've been thinking about since I first saw the place. Found this...

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Then I kept going. Found lots of good historical rubs.

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But I didn't get on bedding yet.

Kept going and something looked promising. Bam! Still had hair in it, although not recent.

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It's a great isolated spot with a natural spring on it.

Leads to a few isolated oaks. Picked out a kill tree and I hope they start using it again if it stays dry enough. Not an easy place to reach, but no human sign on the oak area. Fingers crossed.

[Sadams719]

I finally had some time off and able to get away from the house, took my teenage son and his friend to do some scouting last weekend. I hunt on a 400 acre lease in south GA and the other 4 guys seldom leave their box blinds or property line roads. We are surrounded on 3 sides by planted pine of varying ages and no one hunts the woods to the north.

I have jumped a large bodied buck off the seasonal creek, near where a drainage dumps in, twice, once last spring and once at the beginning of last season. I have to believe he’s the dominant buck in the area due to the difficulty in accessing/hunting his bedroom. So I spent most of my time scouting near this area. I’m fairly new to beast style hunting and find that locating specific beds is difficult in these thick woods. I did however find 3 nearby staging areas loaded with about a dozen rubs in each. So I prepped several trees, cleared some shooting lanes and hung cameras. I’m excited for next season.

If any of you beasts out there have some tips for me to find more specific bedding areas in words that are very sick with relatively few openings, ample water supply and no agriculture nearby. I’d love to get some input. Thanks

[Sadams719]

I finally had some time off and able to get away from the house, took my teenage son and his friend to do some scouting last weekend. I hunt on a 400 acre lease in south GA and the other 4 guys seldom leave their box blinds or property line roads. We are surrounded on 3 sides by planted pine of varying ages and no one hunts the woods to the north.

I have jumped a large bodied buck off the seasonal creek, near where a drainage dumps in, twice, once last spring and once at the beginning of last season. I have to believe he’s the dominant buck in the area due to the difficulty in accessing/hunting his bedroom. So I spent most of my time scouting near this area. I’m fairly new to beast style hunting and find that locating specific beds is difficult in these thick woods. I did however find 3 nearby staging areas loaded with about a dozen rubs in each. So I prepped several trees, cleared some shooting lanes and hung cameras. I’m excited for next season.

If any of you beasts out there have some tips for me to find more specific bedding areas in words that are very sick with relatively few openings, ample water supply and no agriculture nearby. I’d love to get some input. Thanks

[Wingnut289]

I have found two climbers, unlocked, sitting at base of tree. Season's been over for a month. What the crap is wrong with people these days. The law clearly states all stands must be removed after the hunt. I can't even say how many ladder stands I've found. SMH at the utter laziness of folks these days.

I run into that a lot in Michigan. People will leave stands up all year round. After a certain point in the year they are deemed "abandoned." I thought about just taking them down after a while because the trees just grow around them or die.

[Littleviking88]

Was out doing some scouting after a turkey hunt and found this area that was just littered with rubs. You could see this is a place where there have been multiple bucks or perhaps even one buck that year after year have tore this place up. What are your thoughts on hunting these areas? It lines right up to some private where it's ridiculously thick and I am wondering if that's where the buck(s) beds and then just marks up his bedroom when going to and from. Hopefully he's still alive because I'd assume based on the height of last falls rubs that he'd be a pretty mature buck.

[greenhorndave]

Top of this thing is chest high...

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[justdirtyfun]

Little viking, he might be able to watch people approach and bail out backside. Your going to need some intel for details of when or if that is happening.
And the rubs, day or night sign is the big question.

My scout last night was a little disappointing. Weather conditions had me out checking road crossings to locate BIG tracks. None found.

But not a wasted Friday night. Some open fields are being killed off so the patterns and traditional bedding will probably change a lot by season. Resulting in more deer over on public.

[Hawthorne]

Top of this thing is chest high...

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Good find! There is one shooter around if he survived

[Littleviking88]

Little viking, he might be able to watch people approach and bail out backside. Your going to need some intel for details of when or if that is happening.
And the rubs, day or night sign is the big question.

My scout last night was a little disappointing. Weather conditions had me out checking road crossings to locate BIG tracks. None found.

But not a wasted Friday night. Some open fields are being killed off so the patterns and traditional bedding will probably change a lot by season. Resulting in more deer over on public.

Im

I'm hoping to get a camera set up for some Intel. Too bad you didn't find the sign you were looking for, but like you said, not a wasted night! I was hoping to go out and set up a camera this afternoon and test my saddle but my daughter learned to crawl out of her crib and my wife is due any day now so with all that commotion it through a wrench into my plans lol.

[Motivated]

Kiddos had fun creek stomping and I did find some good information for this fall.

[vtbuck]

Boots on the ground yesterday.
Almost 6 miles.
Found a couple beds, some old rubs, but nothing that made me think I needed to hunt that spot.
Trying to focus on 2 huge chunks of public for this upcoming season. Feel like I’m starting to get closer to figuring them out, kinda.

[PackMule]

I had an interesting scouting trip this weekend. Hiked into cedar swamp with 2 distinct islands that could be seen on a map. 2 Miles from the truck and you better have hip boots. Never stops amazing me how far some people will hump in a ladder stand.. It didn't take long to find that it gets hunted yearly, likely during rifle. Not wanting to waste our trip we strayed away from the obvious features seen from a Topo and started to find what we were looking for. We did find a bed on the island, my Dad had spotted a rub up high on a steep face overlooking the swamp, hair in the dirt and couple rubs gave this one away. It appeared he was watching a doe bedding area off the tip of the island and able to hear anyone approaching the ladder stand or catch their wind as they crest the spine.

All in all not a wasted trip, starting to find we need to focus on the small detail seen from the ground and not so much the obvious terrain features seen on the map as those are a magnet...

[greenhorndave]

Pack Mule, great point about things not seen on an aerial. One awesome bedding area I found a couple weeks ago just looks like a discolored smudge from satellite images, but it's completely different when you see it with your eyeballs. Makes you wonder why it didn't show up because there's some substance to it, but you're thankful for it didn't show up at the same time.

[justdirtyfun]

Almost everyday I get something in, related to deer hunting.
Today I noticed another public property to examine. LIKE I NEED MORE?????

This one will not have too many guys looking at it since its under 200 and 2000 is average around here. But. It has potential for a beast home.
Certain wind, certain terrain, access would be predictable and IMPORTANTLY observable for the deer. Thermals would pull down to the bed/staging to create security.

Sure is a shame that we are so far past green up cause I would love to get in there. At least my first drive past was done in company truck