saddles and pionts off of ridges catches my attention first. A saddle with a secondary ridge coming into( simular to a turkey foot) it gets me excited!
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Help Support TNDeer:
What do you see? (topo map)
- Thread starter BHC
- Start date
BSK
Well-Known Member
Rockhound said:Let me come hunt, i promise i won't even look at a map except for property lines
And I promise you won't kill anything beyond a 2 1/2 year-old buck off my place. Our most productive mature buck stands are almost always terrain and/or habitat driven and often display little deer sign (and certainly no buck sign) what-so-ever.
If you don't study a map to see the terrain, you're going to wandering in the dark when it comes to hunting older bucks.
Redfred16
Well-Known Member
Is this map pretty standard terrain for the area around Nashville?
BSK
Well-Known Member
North and west, yes. Any area along the Highland Rim ( a ring of ridge-and-hollow terrain that surrounds the Nashville Basin).Redfred16 said:
BSK said:Rockhound said:Let me come hunt, i promise i won't even look at a map except for property lines
And I promise you won't kill anything beyond a 2 1/2 year-old buck off my place. Our most productive mature buck stands are almost always terrain and/or habitat driven and often display little deer sign (and certainly no buck sign) what-so-ever.
If you don't study a map to see the terrain, you're going to wandering in the dark when it comes to hunting older bucks.
Ding! Ding! We have winner. During prerut & rut this is exactly right! It took me many years of deer hunting to learn to quit hunting sign so much & pay more attention to the lay of the land & land formation. My success in killing mature bucks skyrocketed since I learner this. Great post BSK.
BSK said:Rockhound said:Let me come hunt, i promise i won't even look at a map except for property lines
And I promise you won't kill anything beyond a 2 1/2 year-old buck off my place. Our most productive mature buck stands are almost always terrain and/or habitat driven and often display little deer sign (and certainly no buck sign) what-so-ever.
If you don't study a map to see the terrain, you're going to wandering in the dark when it comes to hunting older bucks.
There you go, i rarely and i mean rarely focus on terrain i focus on habitat habitat is where it is at in my area. I have honestly seen little affect terrain has on deer in my area.
I do most of my scouting in January and Feb for the following season. Then I scout on the way in and out of my stand.
All leases we ever had scouting was band for at least a month prior to the season and this was for ALL deer. Not just mature.
All leases we ever had scouting was band for at least a month prior to the season and this was for ALL deer. Not just mature.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Rockhound said:
In areas where terrain is a dominant feature of the landscape, like in the topo map posted at the beginning of this thread, terrain will be the dominant influence on deer movement. Especially if the area is homogenous hardwoods everywhere.
Lol....is there a troll posting on this topic?
Winchester
Well-Known Member
First off a good topo mape is priceless!! Granted once you locate spots you are interested in it takes laying eyes on them to know exactly what your dealing with, but good maps both topo and aerial are a huge help to the smart hunter! Certain times of the year I hunt terrain features exclusively in these big woods mtns here!
Winchester said:
X2!
Rockhound said:
Rockhound, I'm not being a smart alec, I am genuinely curious...if you don't pick a spot based on terrain or deer sign, on what basis do you select a spot to hunt?
i just go where the deer are. i dont need a map, i know the way.
redblood said:
i sometimes wish the deer had a map so they could find me easier. there nose is overrated
pastorbmp said:
I hunt habitat. In my area we have huge thickets. And huge ag fields, i get In between the two. I put that wrong in the other post i may hunt some sign but i dont set over rub lines and such. If your not setting on a 20 year old cutover here you wont see many old deer.
Rockhound said:
I got you. It is amazing how different hunting can be in different areas - even in the same state or even in same county. I have hunted in Illinois, KY, and of course most of my hunting in TN. Large, timber tracts are by far the hardest - no thickets, no cutovers, no ag fields - so in those hunting situations, we rely heavily on terrain features to funnel deer to our positions(saddles, ridges with fingers, etc). It really helps in these types of areas to utilize topo maps to find certain areas to investigate as good setup points. It still takes boot leather, but using a good topo map can really help you see things you can't even see while on the ground scouting. In KY and Illinois (and much of TN) it is completely different. I hunted very similar terrain as you describe in Illinois - it was completely different than what I am used to hunting in East TN - as far as where I looked to setup to hunt. I hunted a strip of woods between a huge ag field and a thicket - saw tons of deer that week!
BSK
Well-Known Member
pastorbmp said:
Well said pastorbmp.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Rockhound said:
Yup. If you want to see total confusion, bring a flat, farm-country deer hunter into our hardwood hills and hollers. They will be totally lost as to where to hunt. Other than the steep ridges running everywhere, EVERYTHING looks the same. No changes in habitat. Just woods and woods and woods.
In that situation, terrain is everything, and deer will display very distinct (and somewhat predictable) travel patterns that take advantage of the terrain.
