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Old 12-17-2008, 08:03 PM
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quiksilver
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Join Date: Feb 2003
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Default Hunting Mature Swamp Bucks

Swampmasters - I'm looking for a little input here.

I'm always a balls-to-the-wall style hunter - always public land - always on a shoestring budget and operatingwith razortight time constraints. I fill my tags by scouting my ass off, and getting the most mileage out of my available stand time. That means knowing where I'm going and getting on a deer fast. That means scouting in March for hunting in November. I don't have time to **** around in the woods on 11/1, with my thumb in my ass, wondering where all the deer are. I just don't have that option.

So - I need to learn how to hunt swamp deer. That's where you boys come in. You're going to teach me. Let me explain . . .

Over the past two years, I've expanded into Ohio, where the hunting is totally foreign to me. Ancient, overgrown coal strips and swamplands. Massive swamps, laden with beaver dams, cattails, mudholes, waterways, and briar patches. Hideous thickets. Giant fields of bushy greenery.

I've been successful out there on decent deer, but most of my success comes from finding isolated hardwood pockets in this maze of thicket and cattail swamp, and focusing my efforts there. I'd love to dabble in the swamplands, but my time constraints force my hand and dictate that I stay where I'm on deer. No time to experiment.

I'm guessing that hunting swamp deer is no different than anything else: pay attention to the food sources, play off of the geographics and read the sign. More than anything, I'm fishing for specific things to look for. Signs. Tips.

My '09 season scoutingwill be starting soon, and as usual, I'll be out there shed hunting my ass off - looking for where I'll kill my next buckeye buck. Instead of focusing on the hardwoods, I plan on painting with a bit broader brush. My springtime observations in the pastout there haveinvariably revealed the heaviest concentrations of thebiggest buck sign in the swamplands - far from the hardwood ridgeswhere I hunt. I know they're there. In addition to "big buck" sign, it appears that these swamps seem to be hosting pretty solid deer densities. I just need to come to grips with a way to hunt them. I've never hung a stand set over a cattail swamp. I just don't have the confidence in it. It's outside my comfort zone.

I'm 100 percent confident that if I'm ever going to drag a real pig out of there, he's coming out of some thick, swampy hell-on-earth. But if there's one thing I know is that a guy can piss away an entire season waiting in a remote thicket for a deer that never shows up - either sitting on stale sign or waiting in an area that he never uses. Those can be long, boring days. I don't want to be that guy.

So what I'm looking for is some input on how you hunt a muddy-ass swamp buck. Some reclusive son of a bitch that never wants to leave his island. You know the type.

Do you hunt right along the cattails? Do you look for "hourglasses" in the terrain? Hunt the first bench above it? Look for land bridges? Tree islands? Can you blaze trails through the cattails for the deer to adopt - channeling them into your sets? Any special early-season tips/tactics?









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