brotherjack
09-26-2005, 08:19 PM
So, after all the frustration with elk hunting, I slept in today and skiped my usual morning hunt. Woke up around 10:00, and did my usual day's work (which isn't much, truth be told - it's how I stay poor (grin)), and then settled down with GoogleEarth to virtual-explore some areas I've been thinking might be neat to hunt. As I was looking at the area I was interested in, up in the far corner, I see this itty bitty dot of blue on an otherwise bush-like landscape. So, I zoom in to see what that is..
On high zoom, I found a goregous little lake, no more than 500 yards from a bend in a dead-end branch of a short forrestry road. There's just a 6km road, with a couple of short branches up in there, through some super-thick bush, with no clearcuts (there are a few in deeper, but they've torn out the roads that go in there). I've been up there a few times because it's close to home, there's grouse along the road frequently, and I know there's gobs of deer in there. Surprisingly, I almost never see any other hunters up there - I guess so many of the hunters around here are the drive-by crowd, that if the bush is too thick beside the road to see, they just skip it. Better for me!
Anyway, the lake I found on the sat-photo's is super-cool, because despite the general nastyness of the terrain near the road, 30 yards into the bush it thins out, and there's some easy hiking game trails that go in and out of this little lake (I mean little - maybe 2 acres of lake, and a meadow of maybe 5). I know all this, because my wife went and scouted it out for me while I finished off some more work stuff, and said it's just goregous, and there's critter sign everywhere (and critters too for that mater - she bumped a few deer on the 20 minute scouting trip, including a big buck). No sign of human traffic either. There's two main trails that come down to the water, and a perfect rock bluff on the far side that both stops critters from coming in that way, and is high enough to climb up and get a treestand-like view of the whole meadow/lake area. So, I know where I'm going to spend a few days watching the comings and goings!
However, I didn't want to distrub the area any just for a couple hours in the evening - I wanna go when I can creep in before daylight, and spend a whole day or two there and get a feel for the area.
So, this evening, we went down to my (current) favourite watering hole to see what we'd see, and spent the evening watching whitetails come and go. The highlight of the evening was seeing a spotted fawn on a rampage (I thought there was 3 or 4 fawns playing chase in the woods, until this guy finally slowed down enough I could tell it was just him seeing how fast he could run figure 8's in the trees). Saw some antlers in amongst the does too, but nothing the wife or I wanted to put a tag on. Didn't care - just seeing critters moving around is awesome for me! (especially since I was setup bowhunting style about 15 yards from the action!). Came home happy as I could be.
Anyway, thought I'd share...
On high zoom, I found a goregous little lake, no more than 500 yards from a bend in a dead-end branch of a short forrestry road. There's just a 6km road, with a couple of short branches up in there, through some super-thick bush, with no clearcuts (there are a few in deeper, but they've torn out the roads that go in there). I've been up there a few times because it's close to home, there's grouse along the road frequently, and I know there's gobs of deer in there. Surprisingly, I almost never see any other hunters up there - I guess so many of the hunters around here are the drive-by crowd, that if the bush is too thick beside the road to see, they just skip it. Better for me!
Anyway, the lake I found on the sat-photo's is super-cool, because despite the general nastyness of the terrain near the road, 30 yards into the bush it thins out, and there's some easy hiking game trails that go in and out of this little lake (I mean little - maybe 2 acres of lake, and a meadow of maybe 5). I know all this, because my wife went and scouted it out for me while I finished off some more work stuff, and said it's just goregous, and there's critter sign everywhere (and critters too for that mater - she bumped a few deer on the 20 minute scouting trip, including a big buck). No sign of human traffic either. There's two main trails that come down to the water, and a perfect rock bluff on the far side that both stops critters from coming in that way, and is high enough to climb up and get a treestand-like view of the whole meadow/lake area. So, I know where I'm going to spend a few days watching the comings and goings!
However, I didn't want to distrub the area any just for a couple hours in the evening - I wanna go when I can creep in before daylight, and spend a whole day or two there and get a feel for the area.
So, this evening, we went down to my (current) favourite watering hole to see what we'd see, and spent the evening watching whitetails come and go. The highlight of the evening was seeing a spotted fawn on a rampage (I thought there was 3 or 4 fawns playing chase in the woods, until this guy finally slowed down enough I could tell it was just him seeing how fast he could run figure 8's in the trees). Saw some antlers in amongst the does too, but nothing the wife or I wanted to put a tag on. Didn't care - just seeing critters moving around is awesome for me! (especially since I was setup bowhunting style about 15 yards from the action!). Came home happy as I could be.
Anyway, thought I'd share...