ORIGINAL: GMMAT
Troy:
When you are learning his "cycle"....are you actually trying to pinpoint him (to a degree)....or find the "common denominator" of his travel pattern?
If its the latter.....I see great promise in that. Would that not define a "core"?
I mean....he could use parts of many "areas" on any given "cycle".....but if there were a portion of these "areas" that overlapped.....bingo? Hang, there?
TRoy....here's a map a fellow HNI'er sent me where we were talking about this very thing. He knew the buc he was after could be in any of the outlying areas at any time....but he also knew he was using the smaller area a lot. Does my question make sense, now?
Thanks.
Yes Jeff exactly. The thingabout a bucks movements/cycle here is that it changessignificantly in his 3rd and 4th year..but then it really gets SET.From what I see/observe anyway. Much, much less daylight movement but the bucks after 3 almost always are still there, just harder to catch during daylight. I try to pinpoint 3-4 areas he is willing to move/frequent during daylight hours AT LEAST 2-3 times a week.......then I start looking for those overlapping travel paths....which is almost always steered by STRUCTUREand yes those are places I hang stands. The higher percentage pathways he is comfortable with that the terrain steers him through. (saddles, inside edges of different tree species, glades, draws, logging skid trails, clear cut edges, etc.) Anything that moves him naturally.
I am excluding all RUT behavior in this discussion of "cycle" of I am sure you assumed this all ready.
With this buck I need to find where he's feeding now, hopefully it will be somewhere I can observe himand I have a very good idea were to start. I put in a camera yesterday up on the mountain in a distinct timbered saddle that leads down to the water hole (400 yards up from it) I went in and backtracked the biggest set of tracks I found at the water hole and they took me back to the saddle. I had a good idea of where I thought he was coming from and the tracks I found indicated that. I believe that saddle and the inside edge of a timber butted up against the clearcut may steer his travel too, so i hung a camera in there too. I only have 1 piece of this puzzle right now so I have a lot more homework to do.
Once I get a few more pieces of his patterns down then I will hang a stand, plan an enterance/exit etc. Right now I have hunch, a very good one of where hes bedding.Findinghis favorable bedding areas isextremely important too. He wont move much during daylight right now so if i catch him moving to feed or waterIts going to give his BEDDING area away.The good thing is this buck lives were "stretch" did so I really know this ground and how to use the winds/thermals to my advantage in regards to scouting him and moving into the area to seek out stand sites.
I hope this makes sense. and yes your ? and map you shared makes all the sense in the world.. As a matter of fact when I first looked at it reminds me of my "war" room. I have topos and google printouts of all my whitetail areas that I map bucks out and and have been doing so for years. With google these days it really makes it easy map them out.