mauser06

alot of you guys do some scouting by looking at topos.

dad taught me how to read a topo before i could read a book. heck..3 of my college classes covered it for a while.

also been reading "mapping trophy bucks"

kinda working out alright...i dont have the time to drive and walk around aimlessly through 30k acres of gamelands and state parks...but i have the time to pull up the topos and look at them..then when i get the time i can go check out my key spots.

been keying in on saddles lately...got 2 marked on a gamelands not far from here...and got a double inside corner marked, and i know holds deer, just never hunted it because i couldnt figure out how on another gamelands...

but my question is, for you guys that do some scouting like that, what terrain features seem best to you? exspecially mid afternoon till dark hunts? here at school i will be on stand by 1-2pm after lunch and a shower till dark. just wondering what areas i should key in on and go walk around hopefully next week...my areas are pretty hilly...steep hills and kinda close together...

any insight to help me key in just from my topos?? i know i still gotta do the leg work..but it will definently save me time walking around aimlessly...

nodog

Some land I hunt for years without ever stepping a foot on it. I don't concider any time walking around on it ever aimless. It's all benificial. Some of my off land scouting includes getting as much info on the place as possible. For instance a place I'll behunting in 2 years I just learn of an area between 2 rivers. Narrows down the over 50,000 arce rough terain quit a bit.

A place that looks like a hand with fingers coming off of it ispopular.

mauser06

thanx nodog...i will look for hands with fingers coming off on my map guessing the "fingers" to be ravines or points?

i know walking around isnt aimless...but when you got over 30,000 acres of public land to hunt, well...you can walk around pretty aimlessly. heck, i fear getting lost sometimes

i know alot about typical public land hunters in PA though. they dont venture far from the roads and trails. so im trying to find funnels where deer are bound to come through just because thats where they come through.

upto 4 decint looking saddles in one area to check out. gotta get out there and see whats out there...that particular game lands has some super nasty area from old strip mines...but alot of it was nice hard woods etc..

now im going to move on to the state park and the other game lands. already got a double inside corned picked out on that gamelands. i know i wanna hunt there. always seen sign in there..just couldnt figure out how to hunt it...and had to wait till the forest got older to bowhunt it. should be good this year.

im excited to get out and do the leg work. with any luck, my spots will be good spots and it'll just be a matter of huntin season gettin here...

also got an edge over the typical PA public land hunter...i get to hunt during the week. not many others do...and i get to sneak in in the early afternoon and hunt till dark. i cant wait..im pumped...

i'll be honest...ive never done this much work for hunting...i got ole faithful spots and always hunt them..overhunt them...dont see a whole lot of nothin. i have a feeling this is gunna be a good year for me...and a turning point in my hunting "career"...just got that feeling. when i put time and effort into something it usually pays...not counting my chickens before they hatch....but thats why im finding as many areas as i can...then leg work will narrow things down. heck, i will only hunt from school at most 12-15 times...by the time i do my leg work next week i will have atleast that many spots picked out. definently hunting a different stand each week(2 hunting days a week..maybe 4 if im feelin good about spots here and dont go home to hunt)

Rick James

Great thread, I am anxious to see what a lot of our members have to say on this topic.

OGW

While on foot in hilly terrain I go straight up and down looking for trails. Ussually I find trails that are horizontal to the hillside and they eventually cross a Saddle. I also find another favorite spot of mine...asmall creek crossings along hillside trails where the ground is steep on both sides. Trailscoming off of or down fromFlat areas ussually go through Funnel areas. I look for areas where the trails turn abruptly downhill and also when those trails turn horizontal to the hillsideagain. Ussually these features are there because of terrain features such as a cliff face or the amount of cover decreases.
When on the ground I carry my GPS and map the trails I walk then when home I upload the data(tracks) to Mapquest "Terrain Navigator".
Then I can see how the "Actual Deer Sign" relates to the Topo Map.
I also use Google Earth to get a vague idea of the foliage and fields.
Sometimeson foot into an entirely new area I'llmake a track on a topo map and download that to my GPS...it makes my time on the ground more productive. I just follow the track to the spots I want to look at while looking for sign along the way. If I find anything along the way or when I get to the spots I mark them as waypoints.
Here's a track fromlast yearsspring turkey hunt where I was successful. I just turned it on and then marked where I first setup then finally took my Bird at...when I got home I uploaded the data, named the waypoints, changed the line to denote before and after kill(yes...I walked a road/trail back to the truck).


I can retrace my steps exactly just by uplaoding the track into my GPS.
While hunting these birds that had flown down on the other sideof the stream, then they went southeast,I was on game trails attempting to keep up with them. Notice how the trails I was onrun through the terrain(Trails are mostly Horizontal to hillsides, Funnels, and Saddles)

mauser06

interesting OGW.

i think i need to get me a GPS. actually, its on the list for next summers purchases. that will definently help me while hunting. and with software, you can do all kinds of amazing things...id imagine i could mark my spots to check out on my GPS from my computer with the right GPS and software. instead of driving around following my road map...then walking based on the directions i have hand written lol. i did good writting it all...used compass directions and everything...but a GPS would make life easy...and i will most likely use one daily in my career...so i plan to get one next summer.

and your right...trails do tend to follow the hillsides till they come to an obstical or funnel. those funnels are what im keying in on. just starting with saddles because i hear they make dandy spots to hunt...you might see a couple deer on the hillsides..but youll see alot more of them in the funnels...

IF i have time, i might document everything...pics, findings, sighting...the whole 9yds..and crop the maps and make a thread out of this...or get me one of them field journal things. i plan to document it all anyways...but dont know if/when i will have the time to turn it into a post or journal. between school, hunting and life, i dont have a whole lot of down time...but will make it happen sooner or later...be neat to see since im new at the game.

i really feel that im going to be a better hunter this year and see more deer. between learning from last years mistakes and learning to key in on better stand locations, i think im on my way to being a decint hunter. the good thing, come rifle season if im still hunting or playing guide, my funnels will STILL be hot areas....

bassman417

I have a question for ya. What do you do when topo maps are useless? Like for instance, hunting riverbottoms where the terrain is primarily flat.

mauser06

bassman...you ever been to western PA??

in all seriousness, i really havent the slightest clue as how to hunt flat land and bottom land. our bottom land here is usually generally small due to the steep hills. theres deer sign down there...but they all come off the hills to get down there. my areas arent "mountains" but a flatlander would definently call them mountains. to me, they are hills...but i still call them mountains because even compared to home, the short distance north i am here at school, puts me on bigger hills.

i just got done looking at topos for the state park. all i can say is boy oh boy i may have hit on somethin good. i found one saddle with 40 ft STEEP hillsides to the north and south and 20 footers east and west...its a tight deep saddle...and found 3 more in the same general area. the hikes in are gunna be hikes...but i have a feeling its gunna be worth it. so that puts me at 8 spots to check out....after seeing the state park area, the gamelands dont look so good

bassman...topos arent the answer to everything...and certainly dont cut out the leg work. in my case, im using them to narrow things down. find areas where deer are likely to pass through naturally, like saddles and other natural funnels caused by terrain...would deer rather climb up and over the 40ft steep hillsides or pass through the saddle thats the same elevation as the trails they use?? makes sense to pass through the saddle..thats why they should be hotspots...but i got a good day or 2 of leg work just to check out the 8 areas i have marked and find my way around, find bedding areas so i know where the wind cant be blowing etc...plus just make sure the areas hold deer and arent barren of habitat, or choked with impassible brush etc...

the best part is...both these areas are about 15 minutes drive from campus...perfect. now so long as they check out to be good spots, and i can manage to have hunts go undisturbed by other hunters, hikers etc, i may have a dandy season

now i wish i would logged the hours i studied the topos...i bet i got more hours studying topos than most guys spend scouting...and still gotta do the leg work

brucelanthier

I recently got permission to hunt some new land owned by a buddy of mine. He's not a hunter so he doesn't hunt it and he has only let one other guy hunt it a couple of times last year.

The first thing I did was get out the topo's and do some map scouting looking for likely deer trails/routes. I mainly look for likely bedding areas and then look for routes to the food sources. On the map you will see a long red line with shorter red lines off of it. That is where I thought I might find deer trails. The long red line is a creek bottom between 2 steep (80ft+) ridges. They are so steep in some spots as to be almost vertical. The short red lines are draws going up to the top of the ridges to very old oak and beech forest. Once I actually got there to scout around I found that the creek bottom was a virtual deer road. The deer walk on a trail they have made that is about 3 ft wide on avg. the little side trails going up the draws are not as wide but very well traveled also. The big green triangle is the supposed bedding area, a much wider creek bottom that will be very cool in the evenings. To the North towards that x is a big marshy area which they may also use. The little red triangle is a new growth area probably 10-15 yrs old but the deer are all around in there as you can see that is a saddle between 3 high points so they cruise through there from one oak ridge to the other.

This is how I approach new areas. Look at the topos, guess where there may be bedding areas (they seem to like the cooler marshy areas here as it was 70+ degrees last November), then guess where they may go to eat (oak ridges around here)and then guess the routes they may take to get there. Once I have done the map recon I go out on foot to see the terrain and then put them both together. While doing the foot recon I pay attention to the compass to see what favorable winds will be for different areas.

bassman417

I was just wondering. The land I hunt is mainly riverbottoms but I do travel about an hour away to a property that has some pretty steep ravines. Luckily for me Ive hunted these riverbottoms for the last 15 years and I know almost every deer trail and bedding area in the place. In the riverbottoms around here theres nothing really to direct your attention to, its all about persistance and luck. There are areas that the timber funnels but you cant rely on that either. Basically not only do I have to watch the deers movements, but also the river levels. Right now we are just now having flood waters recede, with it flooded the deer in the area had few options for cover and we were seeing them everywhere but now there moving back to the previously flooded timber and becoming more scattered. Like I said, I was just wondering your technique if you ever had this situation. Thanks.