#1733689 - 01/19/10 07:56 AM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: scn]
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BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical
Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59668
Loc: Nashville, TN
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To save yourself a bunch of scouting time, go to Amazon.com and get you a copy of "Mapping Trophy Bucks" by Brad Herndon. It is hands down the best book I've found on hunting terrain features. After digesting his book it will be much easier to look at the maps and know where to start your scouting.
What scn said. Very good book.
_________________________
"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan
"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." --Clive James
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#1733705 - 01/19/10 08:05 AM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: Winchester]
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Setterman
8 Point
Registered: 12/31/09
Posts: 1783
Loc: Knoxville, TN
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My entire hunting philosophy revolves around food and how deer move between where they bed and where they eat. I rarely hunt food sources, but do position myself on likely travel corridors between food sources and bedding areas. These are usually benches, tops of hollows (not ridge tops), logging decks, old strip mines, logging roads, and finger ridge intersections. Many of these can easily be found on aerial photos, like MSN maps or google earth.
Hunting food is fine and does work, but many times the deer are there when you get there at daylight, and don't show up until you leave in the evening.
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#1734322 - 01/19/10 01:42 PM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: Setterman]
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Longhunter
10 Point
Registered: 09/03/08
Posts: 3788
Loc: Brewstertown in Morgan County...
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Dead end ridges, gaps in strip mine high walls, heads of deep hollows, junctions of several hollows, hubs of finger ridges, beaver pond dams, edges created by logging or natural edges of thickets.
Now is the time to be scouting your hunting areas.
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#1734570 - 01/19/10 03:53 PM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: Winchester]
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tickweed
10 Point
Registered: 11/25/09
Posts: 3595
Loc: medon,Tn.
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I like funnels,pinch points,but my favorite is figure out the bedding areas,hunt him in the evening.If you can ever pinpoint his bedding area,and you hunt the routes he enters and leaves by,and hunt wisely,you are way ahead in the game on a mature deer.
_________________________
The hardest thing about Bowhunting Turkeys is leaving the gun at home!
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#1734707 - 01/19/10 05:09 PM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: scn]
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moondawg
16 Point
Registered: 06/19/02
Posts: 17812
Loc: Millington, TN
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To save yourself a bunch of scouting time, go to Amazon.com and get you a copy of "Mapping Trophy Bucks" by Brad Herndon. It is hands down the best book I've found on hunting terrain features. After digesting his book it will be much easier to look at the maps and know where to start your scouting.
I went and bought that book this past weekend! I plan on studying it during the next few months.
_________________________
Don't look down, BE down!--Turkeyburd (Prevous 2012)
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#1734714 - 01/19/10 05:18 PM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: moondawg]
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Double-D-Team
10 Point
Registered: 12/18/02
Posts: 3483
Loc: God's Country
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scn,
Thanks for the info...Will get the book...
Thanks Again.
_________________________
Don and Dee (DOUBLE-D-TEAM)
THE RICHEST VALUES OF WILDERNESS LIE NOT IN THE DAYS OF DANIEL BOONE NOR EVEN IN THE PRESENT. BUT IN THE FUTURE--LEOPOLD
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#1735234 - 01/19/10 08:27 PM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: Double-D-Team]
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earlytime
4 Point
Registered: 10/25/09
Posts: 129
Loc: TN
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Thanks for all the good information. I have been scouting and it's hard to find bedding areas in the big woods and the food is every where. I just got the book and we read. Thank Mike
_________________________
Enjoy the time you have with your childern, before you know it they have all grown up.
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#1735425 - 01/19/10 09:21 PM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: Double-D-Team]
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scn
12 Point
Registered: 02/05/03
Posts: 7088
Loc: Brentwood, TN US
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scn,
Thanks for the info...Will get the book...
Thanks Again.
I think it will be a book you will find yourself reading more than once. There is so much info packed in this book that it's almost impossible to digest in one reading. But, the beauty of it is that it will allow you to look at topo and arial maps and head directly to where you will be seeing "sign" and greatly cut down on your scouting time. It certainly doesn't replace scouting, but does make it much more efficient. After a while you can ALMOST put a dot on a map on where your stand will end up before you set foot on the property.
In addition to unlocking the keys of terrain features and deer travel, he has the best chapter I've seen on how terrain influences wind currents. For a serious deer hunter this comes as close to a "must read book" that I've found.
And, btw, I don't know Mr. Herndon and have no reason to push his book. And, I can't compare it against our bowriter's book as I don't have it and it is out of print.
Edited by scn (01/19/10 09:21 PM)
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#1735991 - 01/20/10 08:06 AM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: earlytime]
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BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical
Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59668
Loc: Nashville, TN
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Thanks for all the good information. I have been scouting and it's hard to find bedding areas in the big woods and the food is every where. I just got the book and we read. Thank Mike
Earlytime,
When dealing with "big woods" deer, I believe it is highly suspect supposition to define "bedding and feeding areas" and travel patterns in between the two. In that habitat there really are no bedding and feeding areas, especially in a good acorn year. Having looked at detailed GPS-collar data from deer "doing their normal thing" over long periods of time in this habitat, it is obvious deer are not bedding or feeding in any highly defined pattern. They bed and feed anywhere and everywhere, and their movements are far more random than we hunters believe or hope.
I've given up attempting to interpret why deer use the terrain they way they do (where they are coming from and going to) and just accept that certain terrain features are preferred by deer during their travels across a given area.
_________________________
"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan
"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." --Clive James
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#1736009 - 01/20/10 08:14 AM
Re: Hunting terrain
[Re: scn]
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BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical
Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59668
Loc: Nashville, TN
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But, the beauty of it is that it will allow you to look at topo and arial maps and head directly to where you will be seeing "sign" and greatly cut down on your scouting time. It certainly doesn't replace scouting, but does make it much more efficient. After a while you can ALMOST put a dot on a map on where your stand will end up before you set foot on the property.
I just want reiterate what scn is saying. Once the terrain features deer prefer to use in their travels is understood, it can greatly increase the effeciency of scouting. Now not every "favorable" terrain feature will see equal use, nor will every favorable terrain feature be used by deer the same way each year. But once you have a list of these favorable terrain features you can assess potential hot spots on a property from a topo map and then quickly scout each location for sign that year. A particular terrain feature may be hot one year and dead cold the next. But knowing "where to look" for deer concentration points before you hit the woods greatly increases the efficiency of in-the-field scouting time.
_________________________
"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan
"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." --Clive James
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