First time scouting...Lots of questions...

[AustinTap]

Ok guys...I'm brand new to bowhunting and need some help.

I will be hunting a 2600 acre lease in East Texas. It has a mix of Piney woods, hard woods, etc. The lease is far enough away from where I live that I will only be able to really scout on weekends. I'm going to buy at least 1 trail camara to use during the week when I'm not there.

With that said...

When should I begin scouting? What are the things that I'm looking for when I'm out there? Should I set up one of those mineral licks and set my camara facing it to capture images? How do I recognize routes between bedding areas and feeding areas? Etc...etc....etc...

I unfortunately don''t have any friends that hunt/bowhunt so I will be flying solo for a while. Any help/hints/advice at all is greatly appreciated.

[jerp]

Getting an aerial photo and a topo map would be a big help in getting started.

[AustinTap]

Getting an aerial photo and a topo map would be a big help in getting started.

Where can I get those from?

[rladner]

Where can I get those from?

google earth is one way

[stickerpatch59]

Where can I get those from?

googleearth.com, free download.

[rladner]

By the way, Welcome. Is there cattle on the property? Look for well used trails. If there is cattle it may be due to them but deer will use the same paths. Look for rub lines. Will you be using a feeder?

[Hogman7290]

Ok guys...I'm brand new to bowhunting and need some help.

I will be hunting a 2600 acre lease in East Texas. It has a mix of Piney woods, hard woods, etc. The lease is far enough away from where I live that I will only be able to really scout on weekends. I'm going to buy at least 1 trail camara to use during the week when I'm not there.

With that said...

When should I begin scouting? What are the things that I'm looking for when I'm out there? Should I set up one of those mineral licks and set my camara facing it to capture images? How do I recognize routes between bedding areas and feeding areas? Etc...etc....etc...

I unfortunately don''t have any friends that hunt/bowhunt so I will be flying solo for a while. Any help/hints/advice at all is greatly appreciated.

Get in touch with Sparkles. He lives up in that area where you do. Hw could help with hints and tips for you.

[rladner]

Are you on lease by yourself? If not, I'm sure the other lease members would be more than willing to help you and probably have the property already scouted. If not, what part of E. Tx? if it isn't too far from me I might be able to meet you out there one weekend and see if I can help.

[EastTexasMan]

Identify where their food area is on your lease. Get a google earth map, or just go to google maps and u can do it there...then scout the areas and find trails coming to and from that food. Hunt those trails. Throw out a bunch of hand corn on one and set your camera facing the hand corn. Hand corn works MUCH better in my area than a feeder

[AustinTap]

Are you on lease by yourself? If not, I'm sure the other lease members would be more than willing to help you and probably have the property already scouted. If not, what part of E. Tx? if it isn't too far from me I might be able to meet you out there one weekend and see if I can help.

I joined a hunt club with 19 other members, but I don't know any of them yet. I don't want to be "THAT GUY" and annoy them with all of my beginner questions right off the bat, so I thought I could ask them on here.

With only 2 and a half months until Bow season I want to make sure I don't waste any valuable time due to lack of knowledge.

[AustinTap]

Identify where their food area is on your lease. Get a google earth map, or just go to google maps and u can do it there...then scout the areas and find trails coming to and from that food. Hunt those trails. Throw out a bunch of hand corn on one and set your camera facing the hand corn. Hand corn works MUCH better in my area than a feeder

Great idea...thanks..

[EastTexasMan]

I joined a hunt club with 19 other members, but I don't know any of them yet. I don't want to be "THAT GUY" and annoy them with all of my beginner questions right off the bat, so I thought I could ask them on here.

With only 2 and a half months until Bow season I want to make sure I don't waste any valuable time due to lack of knowledge.

Did they give you an area to hunt? Make sure you stay in that area. You have 20 people on 2300 acres so around 110 acres a person....

[Kdog]

Good luck on your new lease! I think EastTexas man nailed it. I will say that when I joined my bow lease I was very new to hunting. Most other members are more than willing to help me with any questions I had. I am talking from where to put my feeder to showing me how to quarter a deer, tracking, and other stuff too like helping me set up my travel trailer.

I am sure every lease/club is different. Even on my place some keep to themselves more than others.

[Happy97]

Welcome, I've hunted East Texas all my life and just want to say good luck. No matter what anyone says there can be some good deer here, just takes a lot of patience to hunt them. If I where on a new lease the first thing I would look for are the hardwoods. When acorns began to fall in our part of the state this tends to be the deer's preferred food source. After you locate some hardwood flats, look for some bedding areas close by, ie clear cuts with a couple of years growth and try to find some areas to set along travel paths between the two. Trail cams are great. Also if you can locate some rub lines, the bucks tend to travel these same corridors. Also, be prepared to sit, we tend to see a lot of our deer late in the morning after a lot of our fellow hunters have left the blinds. Best of luck to you.

[rladner]

I joined a hunt club with 19 other members, but I don't know any of them yet. I don't want to be "THAT GUY" and annoy them with all of my beginner questions right off the bat, so I thought I could ask them on here.

With only 2 and a half months until Bow season I want to make sure I don't waste any valuable time due to lack of knowledge.

I did a similar thing this year in Oklahoma. I'm sure everyone else on the lease already have stand locations set up. You might want to ask the lease manager for a map of all the locations so you don't set up right next to someone else unknowingly (probably a rule against it as well). By doing that he/she will probably already have some good ideas about where you can set up that is not too close to anyone else. I just went up to OK two weekends ago to set up on a property I had never seen before. Spoke with the lease manager and he showed me a map of where everyone was set up at and I asked him about a few of the areas on the map and he gave me his insights to them and then even made a suggestion of a spot. I took it and set up. Worst case scenario I spend a season hunting it, but during that season I also get more familiar with the property and animal movements and can move accordingly. I actually do the same thing with my deer lease here in Texas. I probably moved locations three times in the first three years before I felt like I had the property figured out. And, I killed animals every year so they weren't wasted. Just felt like every move was a step up and I was right.

Good luck to you