"Just Beyond the Treeline"

By: Braden Arp

Part 2


“Is this where you had your stand”, one asked?
I turned back and replied in true honesty as bad as it hurt.
“No, I was on the other side of the tree line”.
He stood with a look of confusion as he sized up the area I told him where I was as it related to where we were standing.
“But how could you see this area from the other side of the tree line?”
I just let it go at that and chalked this one up to experience.
A common practice regarding scouting is finding a “highway” trail that looks really good and setting up camp immediately. Most of these types of trails are night trails and will be very unproductive. The area looks really good, but doesn’t produce the numbers of deer that is usually expected. Bucks rarely travel these trails, but nine times out of ten, there will be other smaller trails crossing these night trails. These are the ones to set up on. Just as I found out, a little more searching could uncover several details that are useful in determining the patterns that will produce a mature buck.
Hunters get too hung up on the fact that the deer population will pick up and move daily as if to be nomads looking for their stay. Obviously, setting up under feed trees is seasonal at best, but a very productive way to take an approach at harvesting a deer. I prefer to distance myself from the feed trees and hunt the travel ways. What I have found over the years is that deer very rarely change patterns in travel ways. Granted it is a little thicker in these spots, but it makes for a consistent stand location. It doesn’t matter what the food source if you set up to intersect the deer on their way to it.
In order to find these types of areas, you have to get off the beaten path. Depending on the terrain and geographical location, it can be a little intimidating barreling off into the pine cutovers or dense hardwood forests. There is nothing worse than being lost. I have been lost before, but had an idea of the general vicinity to my whereabouts. I have also been lost before, and after five hours of walking, finally came across civilization and had to ask someone to help me with my whereabouts. Technology has come too far now to be getting too far away without some sort of GPS devise. Like everyone else I suppose, it doesn’t bother me to get a little turned around in the daylight, but is quite the contrary in the dark. On one occasion while hunting in southern Georgia, I made my way into the edge of a swampy bottom. I never saw water on the way in, but was over my boots on the way out. Luckily a train passed by and gave me a sense of where I was. I was walking directly in the wrong direction. GPS units can also be incorporated into scouting as a tool used for marking those hidden sanctuaries that are stumbled across and never found again. Take advantage of the technology, especially when it makes your adventures safer.
Scouting can be a methodical endeavor to say the least. There is one key factor that has helped me more times than not. You have to get away from the hunting pressure. It can be done, but it is going to take some leg work to do it. We hunted an area during a management hunt when I was younger. We stopped in a few weeks prior to the hunt and a ranger gave us a tip on an unhunted tract of land. We inquired about a map and he turned and said, “Well, it’s the track behind the check in station.” That year, the track of land produced a really nice eight pointer and a missed opportunity on a massive twelve pointer, but we had to cross a very deep creek to get to it. Look for the things that might turn other hunters away. Be smart with your scouting. Be aggressive in your scouting. Last but not least, be safe with your scouting.