Scout with me for a second please?

[Doc7]

Hello,

I am looking to become a better whitetail hunter and hunt some public land that instead of my typical private land food plot I sit and stare at for dozens and dozens of hours each season.

Last year on December 26th I encountered several rubs like this on a squirrel hunt with some friends along with scrapes in the area including a primary scrape with a licking branch. These findings were in the blue circled area in the attached aerial photo.

I’ve hunted that area several times and the blue area and similar looking trees are 40-60 feet tall and include hickories and oaks.

To the inmediate southwest of the aerial are 5-6, several hundred yard long bushhogged fields for rabbit and dove hunters. The parking area is approximately one mile away to the west of all the map. So I think this area is fairly accessible, a mile of woods stops a lot of weekend hunters but probably not the bushhogged fields. I’ve never been here during muzzleloader season (first two weeks of Nov) or the first couple weeks of rifle so I don’t know how busy it gets, but hear that it does.

The yellow spots are very thick, few to several year old cut overs. Like, you need to crawl in there. I think that is going to bebedding locations for the type of bucks making the sign in the blue circle.

Is the red circled strip a good spot to check out and sit in the rut all day? If I follow the green path to get there, that would be 2+ miles from the closest parking area. Anyone cutting to the blue circle would push deer my way I think.

To the east-northeast of the map is a river. So we are in hardwoods strip connecting two hardwoods areas that have bedding areas in the middle of them.

I think I need a wind blowing south to north, northwest for this to work and that’s definitely the hard part. Walking is not a problem. I am going to go this weekend and see if the green path is walkable, or 10 feet tall grass, or swamp.

 

[troy fairweather]

find the nearest water and food an bedding the rub is in the middle.

 

[FL-NC]

Don't know if this is going to help or not, but here goes- I think the more difficult an area is to access, the better chances for success (assuming deer are there in the first place), since most people are unwilling or unable to go into nasty terrain, or even walk more than a short distance in decent terrain. Also, I don't know the rut timing for your area, but MOST people hunt with modern firearms, which gives the archery and muzzle-loading crowd an extra "edge" since those seasons precede modern gun season everywhere (I think).

 

[Stew0576]

I hunt state land almost exclusively, after opening day all normal rules go out the window, find the thickest nasty crap you can then figure out how to get in it to ambush them when all the other hunters scare the crap out of them, that's my advice

 

[jmr40]

Public land is tough and when other hunters show up deer change their behavior. Most pre-season patterning no longer applies I'd look for trails leading from the area inside the blue circle leading into the thick brush in yellow and set up on those. Unless you can hunt from an elevated stand or hill overlooking the thick stuff you're probably wasting your time going in. You'll be spotted, and they will be long gone. I'd wait along the edges and try to catch one entering or leaving.

 

[Dibbs]

Does don't get as much pressure as bucks. They generally are less shy. Try to follow some fresh tracks, in order to attempt to establish new routes of movement, after
the onset of the season.
Bear in mind, during hunting season, (also, the rut) bucks are pursuing does.

 

[Doc7]

Public land is tough and when other hunters show up deer change their behavior. Most pre-season patterning no longer applies I'd look for trails leading from the area inside the blue circle leading into the thick brush in yellow and set up on those. Unless you can hunt from an elevated stand or hill overlooking the thick stuff you're probably wasting your time going in. You'll be spotted, and they will be long gone. I'd wait along the edges and try to catch one entering or leaving.

This is what I am going for by setting up on the back side in the red circle. Any other hunter coming in is going to bust deer out of that thickets and if they follow cover directly away from him towards the river they have to go through the red funnel.

I feel like the average hunter who is willing to walk a mile is coming for the blue circle area. That’s why I skipped over it.

 

[SoonerMedic]

My idea on this area is to locate natural food sources that bucks will travel for. Acorns are ALWAYS a good option for that. Finding oak trees is the easy part....finding oak trees that are dropping lots of acorns is a treasure. If you can find the trails they've been taking to and from that food source, you're likely to put yourself on a nice deer.
Like others have said, the further in you go to find these sources of food/water/shelter the better your odds.

 

[Axis II]

If you hunt the morning get in very early and don't walk through the food source and get in your stand where your wind is not blowing at the food source. Most public land deer will feed at night so ambush them coming from the oaks and hickories into the thickets to bed and hide for the day. In the evening do the opposite. Get in as early as possible and hide in the food source watching those thickets. I have the opportunity to hunt some pretty good properties and watch the deer a lot and what i do in the morning is slip in right between bedding which is 200yards to the west and food which is 200 yards to the east. Either time of day I wont spook them and can get them coming and going. When i hunted state and national forests i would sit between the bedding and the food 2hrs before the sun came up and be back that night around 1pm until dark.

If I'm reading your map right the top of the map is north, blue is food, yellow is bedding, that whiteish looking line is the river separating the woods? I would walk north, hit the river and head east along the bank and then south and sit between the yellow and blue as early in the morning as possible. This way things get calmed down and any deer that are pushed west will eventually make their way back east towards the yellow circles. From my experience on my private land spots and some public I've seen deer hit the same rub each year and the same scrape each year but keep in mind if you found this rub so did another hunter. If the rubs and scrapes are in blue he's not bedded far away, maybe 100-200yards and probably in the yellow. I would maybe even walk that river east and get between the two yellow circles and catch something coming and going. Go to Walmart and buy a $30 trail cam and paint it brown and black, grab a small stick and put it up high in the tree watching the rubs and scrapes and see when they are hit and try and get a direction of which way he is coming and setup accordingly.

 

[Doc7]

If you hunt the morning get in very early and don't walk through the food source and get in your stand where your wind is not blowing at the food source. Most public land deer will feed at night so ambush them coming from the oaks and hickories into the thickets to bed and hide for the day. In the evening do the opposite. Get in as early as possible and hide in the food source watching those thickets. I have the opportunity to hunt some pretty good properties and watch the deer a lot and what i do in the morning is slip in right between bedding which is 200yards to the west and food which is 200 yards to the east. Either time of day I wont spook them and can get them coming and going. When i hunted state and national forests i would sit between the bedding and the food 2hrs before the sun came up and be back that night around 1pm until dark.

If I'm reading your map right the top of the map is north, blue is food, yellow is bedding, that whiteish looking line is the river separating the woods? I would walk north, hit the river and head east along the bank and then south and sit between the yellow and blue as early in the morning as possible. This way things get calmed down and any deer that are pushed west will eventually make their way back east towards the yellow circles. From my experience on my private land spots and some public I've seen deer hit the same rub each year and the same scrape each year but keep in mind if you found this rub so did another hunter. If the rubs and scrapes are in blue he's not bedded far away, maybe 100-200yards and probably in the yellow. I would maybe even walk that river east and get between the two yellow circles and catch something coming and going. Go to Walmart and buy a $30 trail cam and paint it brown and black, grab a small stick and put it up high in the tree watching the rubs and scrapes and see when they are hit and try and get a direction of which way he is coming and setup accordingly.

The white line going east west across the woods is an old logging trail that Google Maps draws there. It’s grown over now. The only
River is in the very-very north east corner of the map.

 

[Axis II]

The white line going east west across the woods is an old logging trail that Google Maps draws there. It’s grown over now. The only
River is in the very-very north east corner of the map.

You maybe able to walk that over to your red circle if its not too thick and noisy and they may also run that scent checking for doe.