Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

I have posted pics here in the past of my family property but haven't gotten much feedback. This property has been in the family for almost 70 years however I have not hunted it until the 2005 season. Previous to that my father owned another farm a few towns away that we hunted hard so it wasn't necessary to hunt here. Just finishing up my second season on it, I have a good handle on the movement but still learn something new every time I hunt it.

Wind primarily blows towards the northeast. Sometimes in the evenings (rarely) it will blow towards the south/southwest. I do have 12 stands currently on the property but still haven't had time to hunt them all and there are lots of them that have only been hunted 1-2 times. Deer population is dense here, I personally know of about 7 antlered bucks that were seen here this year, as well as 7 different family groups of doe/fawns.

I can update pics later with the sign that has been seen on this property but am curious to see what others would focus on and why.

Green dots represents foodplots that are mixed between summer/fall/winter forage types, and red dots represent apples. The property was a 500+ acre orchard so there are lots of apples mixed in to the woods in various places that still drop occasional apples from year to year.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

To me, the topo here is not that helpful since the land has only gradual terrain changes and the food plot in the SE corner is on the flat top that I would have scouted for buck sign. Obviously, I would want to hunt around that because of the food plot, but even if it wasn't there it would have been a point of interest for me. I would first scout along that creekand try to find where they are crossing it. Even relatively small creeks can have some significant funnels on them that will cause deer to prefer crossing at certain places. They also seem to want to bed near creeks often enough. Also, the area north of the creek looks like it may be thick and brushy which would add to my desire to scout that creek. Honestly, that is a tough piece to tell by maps and a topo. It just doesn't seem to have any major, obvious funnels other than around the food plots. Sorry man, but I would have to walk that place to help you any more.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

I'd probably start in this area:

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

I too would focus on the water right away. For early and late seasons especially, the water will be key. If you can locate spots where they go to drink and cross, you can locate most other important areas from circling out from those points.

From there I would obviously look at the plots and apples. If you can find too and from routes between those areas and some of the denser thickets you can increase your chances at getting a shot at some deer. I think all of that goes without needing to jump deeper into it.

The last thing I would do is try to find a small clump of those scattered apples that have some real thick cover near it and prefferably close to the water. That area would be a spot I would keep an eye on all season, but no hunt. If the deer use the area occasionally, I would watch it for the late season/Last ditch hunts. That little low pressure, secluded spot could hold a ton of deer in the late season.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Huntingson... how can you say the topo is of little use and shows not much elevation changes. You being from flat Ohio and all. There is in fact an elevation change of 260 feet plus on this map. I'd call that some pretty good terrain changes.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

I was wondering the same thing David.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Not being able to tell the type of vegetation we're all sort of guessing. But to me it looks good in a lot of places. If you have that many stands up you've probably got it covered. I'd say all the pinch points and travel ways leading to the food plots and apples. One particularly interesting area would be south of that pond on the west. You got food sources in a couple directions and this appears to be the only way they have cover coming and going. Probably more a morning deal. Lots of places to look. Lots of water. Some terrain changes I'd pay particular attention to glassing the neighboring lands to see where the deer come out there from your area.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Good stuff so far guys, several places have been mentioned so far that deer have been killed and/or sighted in.

Keep in mind my property is in the orange border. I do have access to the property to the west and south but not to the east or north.

Keep em coming and later today I will post up a revised pic with current stand locations. The reason I am looking for feedback is because I know thereis more than one mature buck on this property but encounters with them during open season has been sporadic at best.

Buckeye? I would love to hear your feedback on this patch..........

I

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

My 2 cents........

Pink- Nice funnel and inside corner connecting your lot to the neighbors.

White- Looks like a classic chasing location, appears to be level ground along the creek that should get a fair share of traffic.

Purple- A perfect ridge top ambush. Between the white and purple you have your thermals covered for this setup.

Blue- Again another small funnel connecting your woods to the large hill to the SE.

Yellow- A nice water hole funnel that looks like where a lot of deer would cross the road to the north through this strip as well.

This place looks like it would be a lot of fun to hunt. Whats the quality of your bucks there? Good luck!

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

I'd throw in a suggestion if you could show any rubs and the side of the tree they're rubbed on. Maybe just some letters showing this? something like.. W, so the rub is on the west side.. E, rub is on the east side... etc.

I don't hunt rubs.. only use them as major pieces in picturing a bucks travel routine. (if you could call it this). Scrapes are helpful at times too.

Also curious to how far out can you hunt on the west and south sides of your property?

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Well I was working one up, but mine is real close to this scurvey buckeye's.

His white dot is real similar to one of my spots for chasing.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Maybe if you TOOK me there Matt I would be able to help you more.

Hint, hint hint.:D

Check that creek for crossings? That would be the first place I would start. There is most likely movment into that field to the north and east of the creek.

I am about to leave for lunch...so I will post more later.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

First of all you must become a guru at wind and direction. When the wind "blows towards the northeast" you have a SW wind. This is about the most common wind in my area. The other, "(rarely)... blowing towards the south/southwest" is a NNE wind and is the rarest wind for my area.

What I'm getting at, is when you once find a great location for a stand, make note of what wind direction it will be good for.Then try to find locations for the rest of the wind directions. If you call your stands by what wind direction that they're good for, you'll know immediatly which stands you can hunt when you check the wind. You know, its a NW wind today, I'll hunt my NW stand.

As for the maps, I'd start by observing from each end of the ridge that is on your property and from out in the fields in the evenings. You want to find where the does bed as well as the bucks. Then you play chess from there. I like to keep part of my properties as a sanctuary. A place where deer wil feel safe, then hunt the edges of it.

Good luck.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Man I could kick myself in the.... well I'm not going to go that far, but I can't believe I missed this spot!

The lime green....

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Thanks guys, the help is appreciated. Anyone else please feel free to continue providing feedback.

Let me do this with 2x photos in seperate posts that will let me show more detail.
[ul][*]Large pink dots are current stand locations[*]Large yellow dots are spots trimmed to put up a ground blind when the wind is right[*]Small red dots are apple trees[*]Green dots are foodplots that have different seed types and produce forage summer/fall/winter[*]Blue outlined areas are known bedding areas[*]Orange is property line[*]Light blue is an old logging/access road that runs the bottom of that sidehill[/ul]
Keep in mind the wind is almost always blowing towards northeast. It will occasionally in the evenings switch directions and blow south/southwest.

The two southernmost stand locations I put up with intentions of hunting only evenings during early season. We have glassed a LOT of big bucks during late summer including one real slammer I saw last year that would have gone 130 or so. The yellow ground blind location near them APAJaws and I had several encounters with a nice 110" 7 pointer during opening week this year. None of these deer were killed this year that I know of. They stop coming into this with frequency after the first 2x weeks or so but can almost always be spotted in there after dark with a spotlight. They bed VERY close to the field edge here and you have to be careful sneaking in there. Last year and this year we did see does that were being chased up into the open field by mature bucks on 3x occasions all between 11am and 2pm. I will probablydo a couple mid day hunts next year during the first full week in November out of the stand in the point just south of that foodplot on the southwest corner.

The two stands north of the foodplot on the northwest of this pic are fantastic doe killing evening stands all year round, but you can't hunt them much because the wind is rarely right there. During late season they bed right on the edge. I had an encounter there with a pair of very mature does this last weekend where they caught me facing the wrong way and unfortunately my stand is in a tree with no cover in late season, they milled around for about 1/2 an hour before one got downwind of me out in the foodplot and blew my set before I could get situated for a shot. That will get moved this next spring into a tree with better cover for sure. The bottom of that plot is turnips and they love them. The rest it MO Biologic Maximum and next year there will be a strip of clover for early season too. This northwest patch was never used much by deer until this year when we put in the foodplot, now there are 2x family groups of does that live in there consistently but we still have only seen a handful of yearling bucks in there and not much buck sign. Hopefully next year that will change with a second year of good foodplots in there.......if the does are there the bucks will be too. That spot that looks like a pond on the northwest side is actually a gravel pit, not a pond.

You can see 2x stands in the very northeast side of this pic. They are both some real producers for deer sightings. Deer bed on that sidehill in the blue outlined area and in a thicket of 25 year old swampy hemlocks that is just north of that logging road.There is LOTS of buck sign on the bottom in there north of the logging roadin that hemlock patch. You can clearly see the edge on the north side of that hemlock patch just south of the stand location that is furthest northeast here. Several pretty good 100" or so 2.5 year olds were sighted from both of the stands in the northeast cornerof the pic this year and last and there are rubs on trees that are honestly 12" in diameter in those hemlocks. I hunt the thick stuff hard in there but have yet to close the deal on something. Last year my father sighted a buck coming out of that access road crossing the main road on the very last day of late season that he claims was in excess of 140" as a 10 pointer. I believe him because of the sign in there.......tracks on that logging road are sometimes in reality over 4" in length and that logging road is polluted with scrapes.

On to the next pic in another post............feel free to comment on this guys on things you would change or do differently.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

One main thing that differs from our different styles is I will hardy ever hunt an agriculture or food plot edge. In my experiences I have saw MUCH more buck movement within the timber rather than field hunting.

To add I have never shot a buck in a field edge setup and most of my field setup sightings have been immature bucks. I can honestly sayI only recall seeing 3 mature bucks in a field while I was hunting. I like to get back and hunt the terrain.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

And man, if you have access to the land to the south you got a slight saddle with a creek below on the East Southeast side and the gradual finger in the big woods just across the property line that leads to the same drainage. Got to be deer coming through there.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Alright, another long winded post but bear with me.

Keep in mind I can use the property to the north of this for access to my hunting, but I can't hunt on it.

Alright, once again........
[ul][*]Large pink dots are current stand locations[*]Large yellow dots are spots trimmed to put up a ground blind when the wind is right[*]Small red dots are apple trees[*]Green dots are foodplots that have different seed types and produce forage summer/fall/winter[*]Blue outlined areas are known bedding areas[*]Orange is property line[*]Light blue is an old logging/access road that runs the bottom of that sidehill[/ul]


The two stands furthest southwest were already covered in my last post.....just as reference.

The stand furthest northwest is in an open patch of mature oaks that is right between a very thick 25 year old patch of hemlocks (west)and stream crossing (east). That patch of hemlocks is polluted with rubs of massive size that are seriously in excess of 10". Everytime I hunt that stand I get winded.....I want to move it to somewhere that won't happen. The wind usually blows towards the northeast there and they come from the east and wind me everytime headed in the direction of that bedding patch right next to the main road. I have not seen any big bucks there but the sign is there and I know I am not seeing them because the wind is wrong. Lots of sightings there but I know it can be hunted more effectively. I stopped hunting it 2nd week this year because I knew I was just educating them. I usually hunt it mornings. They are in those hemlocksEVERY time it rains or the weather is bad. Any thoughts on this patch would be appreciated.

The stand just east of the yellow blind location. This is VERY close to where Buckeye put his white dot for an area that bucks run does. He was spot on. I shot my 6 point this year there and while I was gutting him a HUGE chocolote horned 3.5 year old ran a doe within 30 yards of me.........[8D][:@]. There are scrapes in the VERY thick stuff there all over the place that appear in the same spots everyyear including one that remained open all winter/spring/summer/fall in 06 that was big as a car hood. I have only hunted this spot once because I try not to stir it up too much, but plan to save it for late Oct/early Nov next year.Ihaven't pressured this at all outside of the rut and only hunted it once this year. It is perfectly between the 2x most heavily used bedding areas on the property and there is a huge creek crossing there as well where they come from the north fields headed to bed in the mornings. IMHO one of the best rut stands on the property but time will have to prove that I guess.

The stand that is on the north side of the creek closest to thewhite spot Buckeye picked is a good condition wooden ladder stand that trespassers built before I posted it in 2005. I haven't hunted it but have found stands of theirs in other locations that were good producers. It is on a good crossing for the stream and I may hunt it as an evening stand in early season next year to see what happens there.

The stand furthest northeast on the property just inside the woods off the field has never been hunted and was hung in summer 06'. I have glassed several bachelor groups of bucks in that little piece of field we own including one that looked nice from about 800 yards away. Lots of rubs in there and a nice little draw coming up out of the creek that funnels them into a staging areathere just by the stand. Wind should usually be right, but I have to hunt it I guess and see what happens there. Lots of oaks there too.

The stand furthest east on the south side of the creek has been called "the sweet spot". There is a major crossing there that looks like a cowpath plus it is VERY close to a bedding area that is polluted with lots of rubs that is so thick you can't see more than 10 yards unless you are on your hands and knees. It is young hemlocks. I only hunted this 2x including 1x evening sit on opening day in the evening back in 05' where I saw about 15 deer including a 2.5 year old buck. The second time I hunted it was a morningsit andI saw nothing.

The two stands in the furthest southeast corner of theproperty justnorth and south of the foodplot are awesome stands for killing does and I bet will produce a good buck someday. The one just north of the foodplot has produced tons of sightings 1.5-2.5 year old bucks and all sorts of doe family groups. APAJaws killed 2x does there this year and one morning had 4x different bucks (all 1.5-2.5) chasing does in front of him like something out of a movie. The deer move through this spot leaving the neighbors plots to the east on their way to the bedding area just to the west of the stand. This is an awesome producer, and an area Davidmil highlighted as well. During normal wind conditions it blows wind right off the side of the sidehill so they never pick you off or wind you there. This spot has been hunted quite a bit but no one has ever been winded or picked off there that we know. The other stand just south of this is coined the "Taj Mahal" where we have a permanent stand built in and where most of my game cam pics have been taken. They use this as staging to go into the neighbors field before dark as it is an oak flat there. They move through there all day long and this produces more deer sightings than any other stand on the property. No big buck sightings but a great doe killing stand and out of 30+ sits in the last 2x years someone has seen an antlered deer every time except for 2. This is my dads favorite napping spot and he hunts it hard so I dont sit there often at all.

I actually screwed up and didn't cut that patch out of the property line, the neighbor actually owns that andkilled a nontypical 17 point buck that grossed in the 160's back in 2003 right there with a rifle.

It is fun to hunt but we are still figuring it out and I don't have the time to put in to really learn it as fast as I want because it is a 4 hour road trip and you can't hunt Sundays. This is good because everything (except my dads Taj Mahal stand) is unpressured when I get there, but bad because I still don't have the bigger buckspatterned 100% even after 2x years. The neighbors w/ plots to the east practice QDMA and have produced 2x bucks of P&Y class in the last 5 years during rifle season, and I haveglassed deer during off season that are 120" and better. I have had a handful of encounters with good bucks too but haven't closed the deal yet. In reality I should have passed the 6 I shot this year but decided to take him because of how the hunt unfolded and how perfect the scenario was.

Any other thoughts are great........I appreciate the help.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Yeah, I know this and really want to hunt the terrain stuff more. I do hunt the plot/field edges sometimes but I know when doing this I am primarily hunting does. Early and late season I hunt this stuff. I have learned the movement in those areas pretty well as of now, it is the terrain/land features in the timber that I am looking for advice on.

Thanks for the advice keep it coming!!

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

RickJames I understand why you hunt the field edges, here is why I do not unless....


I have2 field edge spot I hunt during the early season, but I climb up the river bank and into the tree. Both these spots are back from the bedding areas a bit. I have better spots for early season, but I do not want to tip a mature buck off that I am hunting him. If your goal is to shoot some doe's and do not care about shooting a mature buck then great.

If you want shoot a mature buck staying out of these spots and hunting observation stands can really help IMO come time of the rut. The buck will feel "safe" in your hunting area. Now once the rut starts all best are off, I hunt near my field edges, but like buckeye I like to be back in the woods a bit.

Just some food for thought

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

That is unfortunately a spot I can't hunt. I can't hunt the east, southeast, or north. I can use the North to access my patch though. I canwatch that saddle though from my Taj Mahal stand and see deer every time in it however no big bucks. They leave the neighbors plots and go through that spot on the way to my sidehill to bed every morning. I catch them at the stand just north of my foodplot after they go through that saddle.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

David, I guess I didn't explain myself very well. I was trying to say that the only area that the topo would help me find would be where the SE food plot is. I don't generally hunt hillsides for a number of reasons but instead ridgetops, and the only one there is where the food plot is. Sorry for the confusion.

However, I would argue with you that Ohio is flat. Have you been to eastern and/or SE Ohio? Very hilly. Makes that property look flat. Plus, only the SE corner of the property has any significant elevation change. Significant being in MY hunting sense.The layout of the vegetation would have much more impact here (I think) than the elevation changes.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Well at least it all shows you can do some serious scouting with the right maps before you ever set foot on a piece of property.

Huntingson, even in the flatter parts of this property, with a topoyou can see the streams and drainages that deer will travel through. Topos show greenery and vegetation, although not what type. The only problem with that is some topos(most I guess) are dated. Even so, and area that used to be an opening in big timber will be white. If the topo is old those areas may very well have grown over a bit, but it'll be brushy browse stuff where deer will still like to travel forsecurity reasons. YUP, I know all about Eastern Ohio, but I also have hunted the flat lands of which most of Ohio is famous for.[8D]

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Good point David, the fact that the topo showed vegetation had actually slipped my mind. I mainly use them to find saddles in ridges and flats on ridge tops. small drainages and minor depressions, at least where I hunt don't seem to cause major travel routes unless they are steep, but I certainly have not hunted everywhere. Other than the major things like mentioned above I rely mostly on my feet. I scout mostly by covering a lot, LOT,of ground. That IMO is the only true way to scout. The topos and maps just give you a place to start. Again, just my opinion.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Me too. It doesn't mean a thing until you walk it. The topos can give you starting points and if you're on a short time frame maybe weed out some unproductive time consuming stuff.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

So I thought I would bump this up a bit. I got some really good info that I valued from members here the last time......

The neighbor to the west of us gave me exclusive permission for this year. I don't know the exact amount of property there, but I believe it is around 75 acres. I have walked the south side of the property line at this point, as well as that field you see on top of the knob in the southwest corner. I killed a turkeyin that field on the knoblast spring the first time I walked on the property and found quite a few rubs on the trees on the east edge of that field on the knob......also there is a heck of a funneled crossing on the main hollow that runs off his southeast corner of the property near my property line.

My place is the orange line, his is the pink line. How would you hunt his side and why? We primarily have a southwest wind here........

General view of the Bradford County valley showing both of our properties and the surrounding agriculture.



Property zoomed in a bit comparable in size to the topo below it.....

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Just by looking at the maps I would hunt here. Look like a key spot, probably a scrape line there every year.

RE: Photo and topo gurus........lets hear your thoughts
 

Just bumping this back up. There are several people here who's input I really value quite a bit with some great experience picking up on things on a topo map. Specifically I am looking for input on the area with the pink outline........