Posted By: Bigfoot
scouting the SHNF - 11/18/16 04:57 PM
Well guys I have been laid up for the past 12 days with a severe leg wound after falling through a dock. Laying around icing it and feeling sorry for myself had to stop so I decided I was going to forgo the pain and go do a small hunt/scouting session to the SAM yesterday. I figured I would just walk down a trail a 1/4 mile and then hike in to the woods a 1/4 mile (Yeah right!) and find a spot to just hang out and enjoy the sounds of the forest and hopefully get a chance at a deer or hog.
The first thing I noticed was how dry it was. The forest road I walked down was really void of any tracks mostly because it was too dry but even the looser pediment areas were not showing tracks. I decided to get on a major game trail and follow it up in to the woods from there. After a few hundred yards I just didnt find much for tracks or scrapes. I found a small area where they had been bedded up with some fresh poop and a few tracks but that was it. And a few older scrapes. Now granted I was hobbling along nice and slow so I didnt cover a lot of area. Since my leg was feeling good to walk I decided to keep going another half mile or so to a pond and look for activity there and wait till dark. I didnt spend a lot of time walking around looking for tracks but still didnt see any tracks of deer or hogs at all by the pond. It was 3:30PM so I figured I had better settle down quit making noise and wait till dark and that is what I did. Nada, So at sunset I hobbled out of there and drove down the roads and still never saw any deer on the roads. Which was unusual. Anyways not going back there again and that is what scouting is for. To eliminate unproductive areas.
It was good to get out and not sit on the couch waiting for my leg to heal. Yesterday I sweated my arse off! I will try again after the weekend
The first thing I noticed was how dry it was. The forest road I walked down was really void of any tracks mostly because it was too dry but even the looser pediment areas were not showing tracks. I decided to get on a major game trail and follow it up in to the woods from there. After a few hundred yards I just didnt find much for tracks or scrapes. I found a small area where they had been bedded up with some fresh poop and a few tracks but that was it. And a few older scrapes. Now granted I was hobbling along nice and slow so I didnt cover a lot of area. Since my leg was feeling good to walk I decided to keep going another half mile or so to a pond and look for activity there and wait till dark. I didnt spend a lot of time walking around looking for tracks but still didnt see any tracks of deer or hogs at all by the pond. It was 3:30PM so I figured I had better settle down quit making noise and wait till dark and that is what I did. Nada, So at sunset I hobbled out of there and drove down the roads and still never saw any deer on the roads. Which was unusual. Anyways not going back there again and that is what scouting is for. To eliminate unproductive areas.
It was good to get out and not sit on the couch waiting for my leg to heal. Yesterday I sweated my arse off! I will try again after the weekend