For most of us, sometime in our lives we will have to move to another town or another state. When this happens, like it recently did to me, you also move from your favorite hunting grounds, leaving behind those primo stands that months and years of work and fine tuning got you. You arrive at your new area searching for a new stand where that monster buck will hopefully walk by.
It’s early July and you see what has the potential to be a dandy buck eating in a bean field along a river with tall oak tree’s lining it. You find out whose land this deer is on and get permission to bow hunt there. Hopefully this happens and if it does there are some ideas that I have to hopefully tag that buck. First, talk to the landowner and get a feel for how the deer move on this particular piece of ground. Obviously he has probably lived there his whole life, and even if he doesn’t hunt he should have some idea of where most of the deer are and when they move. Start with scouting the edge cover; look for big tracks, trails, and old rubs. This way you decrease the potential of jumping in and spooking that big buck in to the next county. Once you find some decent signs, place a trail camera up where you found it. Trail cameras allow you to get the most valuable scouting information, seeing deer, if you cannot be there or it is tough to access. Trail cameras range in price and quality, from digital to 35mm. I personally own a 35mm model but after a lot of film, and $5-$7 per roll for processing, the digital trail camera looks like a better option, even after the initial price shock of double the price of the 35mm cameras. Another option of the digital camera for me is I can be a little impatient and want to see those pictures right now, not after I drive to town and wait to get them developed. Use the information you gather from the camera to strategically place your observation stands.
Look for a place to hang an observation stand where you can get into and out of this area without spooking the deer. Observation stands are critical when you can’t scout and a good idea even when you can. During the first part of the season use these stands more as a means of getting information and secondly as the ability to harvest a deer. As the hours you sit in these stands increase, so will the amount of information you will gather about the area. Use this information to move into the trees a little farther, from here you can see a little deeper into the woods and are also increasing your odds of finding the trail to the hot spot. As the season progresses use what you have learned to move farther into the woods closer to the “hot spot”
Hopefully with this information, both you and I can get back into that primo stand location and have a great season.
