What do you guys look for when looking at New spots to hang standss that you have never hunted the land before. I am looking at trying some public land lots of hills and oak knobs and valleys. Some open crp and creek bottoms. Where do I start. Its 300 acres.
Thanks,
Chris
Bottle necks – top 1/3 or bottom 1/3 of hill – secondary routes – very secluded bedding areas. If i can find one spot that has all of that, i found a place to camp on 
What is considered a bottle neck or pinch point. Whats the best places to look for bedding areas
Pinch points are where the natural topography makes a deer take a certain route to still feel safe and secure. A great example of this is there is a small strip of woods bordered on both sides by open cover. The deer utilize the woods as cover versus walking in the open and being exposed.
Google Earth is a great application for locating natural pinch points and travel corridors. If you want to post a screen shot of your hunting property, I would be more than happy to point out some spots that look promising to check out on foot. As good as the satellite imagery is though, you will still need to go and check the location out before deciding to hang a stand.
Bedding is a little tougher. Depending on the pressure, deer might use thicker or more open bedding areas. On the farm that I have hunted for almost 20 years, the deer use the really thick nasty stuff as their bedding area. Tree tops, downed trees and wild rose bushes make great bedding areas. In areas where the pressure is lower, deer will tend to bed where they can see or smell danger. Often these will be located on a hill, slightly below the crest. This prevents the deer from being silhouetted and allows them to survey the lower approach routes for danger.
Bedding areas are sometimes a little difficult to locate. However, if you know where they are feeding, you can find the trails that they come to the food source on. This will point you in the right direction as to where they are coming from. A word of caution though. If you go tromping into a bedding area now, you could potentially alter their patterns and it might make them less likely to move before dark. A useful tip is to hang a stand in a location where the deer are coming to the food. If after a couple of sits you notice the deer aren’t into the feeding areas before dark, then start to move into the woods more. Keep repeating this process until you start understand where the deer are spending the daylight hours. While this process takes more time and is more reactive than proactive, it lessens the chances that you will spook the deer permanently from where they are bedding.
I have attached a screen shot of my favorite stand to hunt during the rut. This is a perfect example of when Google earth can be effective but also have it’s limits.
When I first hunted this area, I hung a stand where the X is located. It looked perfect as it was right on the main travel route between known bedding areas (red line) and would force the deer to funnel through the woods instead of walking in the open fields. However, I NEVER saw deer come through that funnel when in the tree, because the stand was in the bottom of a small depression and the wind always swirled there. After two years of hunting it, I nearly gave up on that part of the farm altogether. Instead, I moved the stand up the hill and away from the funnel to where the star is located. This helped with getting winded and it taught me a very valuable lesson. During the rut when bucks are on their feet a lot, they want to cover as much ground as possible looking for hot does. When the wind is out of the east or northeast, the bucks walk on the upper side of the hill to scent check for hot does. This forces them to walk down the main trail and within 20 yards of my stand. I have shot a mature buck under these conditions during the rut each of the last 3 seasons.
Sorry for the long winded post, but hopefully this helps!
Ok thats what I was looking for. Ill post a few pics first thing tomorrow hopefully u can help me out.
Great info Jake!!!
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Great info Jake!!!
X2 
I’m short on time, so tossing in some short answers.
Often Bucks will bed in different areas from most resident does… until rut kicks in full swing
Don’t over look where coules through a field intersect the edge of the woods. My experience is they don’t often run the top or the center of the coules. Rather the 1/3 up or down. As Jake mentioned, it prohibits the sillouette and adds a level of protection for them.
Jake gave the absolute best advise with pre-scouting with satellite images. you still need to hit the ground to find paydirt, but you can eliminate a lot of dead space by doing your homework first. Here is my farm – it looks a bit confusing at first glance. I have continually mapped all the trails, bedding areas, escape routes, feeding areas (by season), and so on. I’m a little analytical, so I often get into too much detail.
But back to my point, look at where the deer naturally cross fields and hit the brushy or wooded bottle necks. You will have a higher concentration of activity where you can get multiple trails to come together and merge into one highway through a narrow stretch.
Scout from a distance and get a feel for where in relationship to wind. Wind can be your friend or worst enemy.
Here it is, I drew a line in green hopefully you can see it Any ideas? thanks for any help
If you can see the yellow dots… They look like good spots to me.
Ok I just got a email back from the county forestor and he sent me this with more define boundry lines Green is the land I was looking at but way closer to the lines than I was. red I am also able to hunt.
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What do you guys look for when looking at New spots to hang standss that you have never hunted the land before. I am looking at trying some public land lots of hills and oak knobs and valleys. Some open crp and creek bottoms. Where do I start. Its 300 acres.
Thanks,
Chris
Bow or gun season?
Hunting pressure changes everything as far as stand location. I only hunt gun season and I’m in one of the counties with the highest overally pressure, so here’s what I look for.
1. Escape routes. When the woods is suddenly full of orange, where are the “exit doors” that get the deer away from the pressure and into high-density cover.
2. Holding areas. Different from bedding areas in the sense that in a lot of cases the deer wouldn’t bed down here if they had a choice. But under pressure, they do.
BTW, don’t make the same mistake I did and assume this always = heavy cover. We found out that one of the best holding areas is actually an open wooded ridge way out in a cattle pasture. The deer go out there and lay on the sides of the ridge where they can see anyone who’s coming to get them for at least a quarter mile. We happened to spot one deer out there because as the sun shifted, he was spotlighted. Upon glassing the ridge, holy hannah, there’s a dozen deer or more out there just laying in the shawdows.
3. Bottlenecks are always good, but it can take some doing to really figure these out. What may seem like an obvious bottleneck may actually be a place where the deer avoid because it’s too confined.
4. Anywhere you can really see well. I’ve put up severa stands in areas just because there’s really good visibility and/or I could see multiple possible travel areas from one vantage point. From there, I’ve fine tuned or switched to a ground blind once the deer show me a trail that’s in active use.
Grouse
HUNT THE LEFT SIDE IN THE BOTTOM WHERE ALL THE DRAWS COME TOGETHER DURING THE RUT!
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