Luck Favors The Well-Informed

**almtnman** · 07-05-2006, 08:11 AM

Scouting is nothing more than gathering good information that helps us make good hunting decisions. Making good decisions about the best places to hunt is much easier when you have the facts.

A key component in scouting and hunting whitetails is understanding the lay of the land. You can scout much smarter and save a lot of effort and time if you have a good overview of your hunting area. Topographic maps and aerial photos are a great first step toward smart scouting.

Both maps and photos can help you identify key terrain features that translate into the locations of travel corridors, bottlenecks, funnels, bedding areas, sanctuary areas and even food sources. A buck knows his ground intimately and so should you. Topographic maps and aerial photos may give you that "missing link" of information, often invisible on the ground, that ties key terrain features together for your quarry.

Topographic maps and aerial photos are available from the U.S. Geological Survey. Call 1-800-USA-MAPS.

**Lan-Lord** · 07-07-2006, 08:45 AM

one of the best places I ever hunted was a bottleneck in the Texas Hill country. 2 nice sized hills made a narrow valley that the deer would travel along. Going up and around the hill was hard work because it was so steep. So deer took the easy route, walking around the base, between the 2 hills.
We set up 2 stands in this narrow valley, and would always see deer moving within there. Out of the 800 acres he hunted, there was probably 20 acres within this valley, and it was by far the most productive that we hunted.

**almtnman** · 07-07-2006, 09:06 AM

lan-lord, that reminds me of a place like that. We had a powerline ROW running through the middle of our club, so we placed elevated shooting houses alongside it and planted some greenfields in the ROW. One such place there was this elevated shooting house overlooking a nice big greenfield. On the far side of the field was a creek and a very steep hill just past that so it wasn't a good place for a deer to cross on that side of the field. The shooting house was sitting up on a hill looking down to the greenfield and had been placed there to watch that field, which did get a lot of does in there in the afternoons. I had did some scouting of the area on my four wheeler and noticed that there were several deer trails that went into a planted pine area that must have went past the shooting house fairly close. So I checked that area out and found that indeed a good trail forked just inside th pines and made on trail across the ROW only it was down in a ravine that could only be seen from the shooting house if you happened to looking in the wrong direction from the way it was placed. If you sat on either hillside looking into the ravine, you couldn't see down in it enough.

Well to make a long story short, I was at work one day and the temp was dropping rapidly, so I decided that would be a good afternoon to head out to that spot. I got there about 4pm and 30 minites later, I had a nice 6 point that crossed right where I had scouted. I got him and went back about 3 days later and here's another 6 point that walks out on the trail from the other side, so now I have him also with only 45 minutes of waiting. So 2 or 3 days after that, I head back to th stand and wait about an hour and a nice 7 point (would have been an 8 point if a brow tine wasn't broken) steps out and I drop him with one shot. Here' I have spent a total of about 2 and a half hours of hunting and have 3 nice bucks all from the same stand. The ravine was what I would call a funnel or bottleneck as you call it. It was a good place to hunt that others had overlooked.

**ratsnest** · 07-08-2006, 03:11 PM

Good story I was was in a club for 20 some odd years had place like that on a ROW, good for a buck or 2 every year. Til some other club memebers found it decided to put a green field and shooting house there.
they hunted everyday and they killed one small buck there the 1st. year and that was the last buck EVER killed there.

**almtnman** · 07-08-2006, 03:29 PM

ratsnest, that's a little like what happened to the place I mentioned only a little different. The ROW went through a pine plantation which was a good place for deer to bed in. On the north side of there was some big hardwoods with plenty of acrons for deer to eat. The deer was traveling through to the big hardwoods to feed there and then coming back probably to bed in the pines. The Summer after my 3 bucks, they harvested all the hardwoods and left a gigantic clearcut. I never saw another deer travel through there after that. It was a good place gone bad.

**ratsnest** · 07-09-2006, 07:49 PM

yep I know the feelling I hunted those riverbottom hardword for over 20 years but after they reduced it to stomps I sat down and had a good cry AND then never went back.