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In farm country it takes me about 2 crop rotations and I've got a fairly good grip of what's going on with the land.

The land I'm hunting that my dad owns It took me a good 3 to 4 years before I started seeing the bucks I wanted to be seeing. They were there when I started, I just wasn't set up right.

I'm still learning on it. Its been 3 years now and each year I am picking areas that my buck sightings are getting better. I know the land really well but with different crops all around its taking some definite work of walking around.

And as for what has contributed to more success, I would have to say trail cams. I learned just by moving my cameras more often that you can find more of a core area instead of just a random meeting spot. Then try to breakthe core areadown a little more. Definately helped me out this year and hopefully a little better prepared for next year.

I'd say about 5 years on the land I'm on now until I felt like I really had a graspe on it. I'm constantly learning though. Biggest thing for me was knowing where they bed. Finding the subtle (not so obvious) funnels and pinch points. What stands to hunt according to different phases of the rut. Still working on late seasons patterns. A lot of variables involved in that.

I look at a topo for a few minutes and find out how the deer travel the property. Then I take my topo and do a grid search on foot, I find and mark thefollowing.Bedding area's, water holes, food sources (note the food source and at what time it will be available), mark all rubs and scrapes. I compare all of this to my topo's. 300 acre's usually takes about 2 days.

You have got some mad skills. I have one property that took me 5 years to get the bucks figured out. [:@]

Many years of hunting public land.......I had tofigure something out...

With Gri22ly's help....I learned 150 acres "pretty well" in one season. I still have a ways to go, though.

I found 3 good (relative)bucks on this land, this year. I ended up taking a 2.5 and a 3.5 off of it.

I know what I learned this year will save me a lot of unfruitful sits, next year. Part of the beauty of having so much time to hunt this year was being able to sit a lot of "observation" stands. Priceless.

**disclaimer -- I can also attest to what GregH says. Crop rotation needs to be monitored. It could make a HUGE difference in deer movement. Great point.

Without a doubt. Everyone close to me has planted corn(money crop) for the last 2 years. It will have to be beans next year unless they plan on picking corn that is 4 feeet tall because the nitrogen is all sucked out of the ground.