2022 scouting thread

[WisBowhunter]

Great looking start to that buck Stingray. Hopefully you can get a few more as he develops to post here. And hopefully
a final one of you holding his horns for a hero shot to post!!!

[Stingray713]

Great looking start to that buck Stingray. Hopefully you can get a few more as he develops to post here. And hopefully
a final one of you holding his horns for a hero shot to post!!!

That’s the plan! Gotta keep working though, need lots of baskets for my eggs!

[Stingray713]

Hard not to notice that moon straight up in the sky this evening and the fields packed with deer.

Could be all the fresh beans coming up. Could be lactating does need good food. Could be the cool evening. Probably all of the above. However, I ride and look for deer a lot, and they were out about an hour earlier this evening than most.

[justdirtyfun]

Dropped off a cam on some national forest. Had a plan for trying a new cell cam but memory card was back at home.
And if I didn't have emergency zip ties in my tool kit, both cameras would have been useless. Took about 5 mini ties and was still circling around to find a skinny tree.
Propped up some deadfall for a small funnel effect which should help a little.

[Hookslinger]

Got two cams up today on private. I put them on travel corridors going between bedding and food. Easy spots to access for me, intrusion should be minimal. I'll get mostly night time pics I'm sure, but I'm just taking inventory and direction of travel to get some intel.

The terrain funnels deer movement pretty good in these two spots, but there are a couple ways bucks could skirt the cams, so I made mock scrapes for more attraction. Felt good to be in the woods.

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[Hookslinger]

Double post.

[Hookslinger]

Did a little scout on two different chunks of public today that I plan to hunt in the fall. I put up a couple cams. This will be my first time running cams on public. Plan is to run them until late September/early October then pull them out before guys start to get out there and notice them, the last thing I want is one stolen or someone take my card and get all my intel. Saw some deer and kicked up a fawn too. Found some nice sized tracks also. It was worth the sweat.

[Hookslinger]

Scouting isn't over yet! I just got permission to hunt some private that I shot a nice buck on about a decade ago. I'm not gonna lie, I shot it over a bait pile (back then it was legal here in MI), and I had no clue what I was doing hunting wise. Now that my style has changed I'm excited to give this property another go. It's not much, only 20 acres or so, and after the owners house, barns, pastures and so on there isn't a lot of huntable ground. But towards the back there is a big cattail marsh, and a creek that runs through with some oxbows and what should be good bedding cover. This area is known for some good bucks too. I'm gonna go over there next chance I get to do a quick scout. Pretty much gonna get eyes on it (I'm sure the landscape has changed a bit over 10 years) and pick out a couple set ups on expected bedding. One more spot to hunt just stacks the odds in my favor a little bit more, that's how I see it.

[Hookslinger]

Guess I'm the only one left contributing to this topic in June

I got out today to scout the new piece I mentioned previously. Turned out to be a 3 hour chore in the heat. I scouted the oxbows of the river, and all the areas I assumed would have bedding. I found some beds and kicked out some deer in a couple areas. Nothing really looked like a true buck bedding area, but it's hard to tell with all the growth right now and I could be reading it wrong. Definitely lots of doe bedding though, which is good.

I prepped 3 different trees to hunt from, should cover the area pretty good. The area looks great honestly, but I have a feeling the buck bedding might be just off on the neighboring properties. It's basically a large cattail marsh with a river winding through it. Clumps of brush and trees here and there and some really thick areas. My gut feeling says my best shot at a big boy here will be pre rut / rut time frame, because I didn't necessarily see sign that would tell me big bucks live right there but without a doubt probably pass through and will definitely be coming in for the doe groups that do live there. The kicker is there really is no way to hunt it with the predominant West wind. A North wind would be perfect though, so I'm thinking cold front late October or early November and go in for the kill. I really need to go out one last time with a pole saw to put the finishing touches on a couple stand locations. Like I said this area is known for big deer, so I am excited to say the least. I'm glad I reached out to ask for permission. Noone has hunted here for years as far as I know.

[Stingray713]

You da man Hookslinger! Stay on em!

[Hookslinger]

You da man Hookslinger! Stay on em!

I'm just a student of the game, a pure amateur at this point! I'll be grabbing the antlers of a big buck some day though!

[Hawthorne]

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Was out hanging cams today. Took this shot thru my binos. Not bad growth for June he should be good in a month

[Jackson Marsh]

Good looking buck Hawthorne. I need to get my cameras out, probably in a couple of weeks.

Nice work Hookslinger.

[Pancake]

I scouted some hill country yesterday in the heat. Trail cameras from last year have told me that there are some pretty good bucks in the area, so I was exciting to get out and poke around some more and drop cams again. Last year I found a giant primary scrape on this piece - I'd had a trail camera on it and had daylight photos even during the chaotic, pressure-packed weekends of gun season. I put a camera back there again yesterday, and then I found a parallel trail about 20 yards downhill of it so I set a cam there too. Interested to see what activity that secondary trail gets and if deer are maybe "checking" the scrape from a distance with the downhill thermals in the evening.

I found a couple more bedding areas, figured out what's growing on the nearby private fields, and even ran into the CO on the way out (who gave me some thoughts on other potential properties to scout). Great day in the hills.

[Hookslinger]

Good stuff Hawthorne!