Learn the land first? Or learn the animal first?

Newpond0

Newpond0

Active member
Was out yesterday looking for sign on an atv trail that goes way deep into the woods. It was my first time in that area. I found a few moose or caribou trails which I followed a bit but no bear sign. I got to thinking that I really don’t know this area at all. There’s thick, water, similar plants, and hills everywhere all looking fairly similar for miles and miles and miles. Where to even start?

The image of the 2 hillbillies in deliverance flashed thru my mind lol and made me think of people growing up constantly in the woods in the back, knowing all the trails, streams, openings, what’s coming in and out of there, everything. To have an area of land and really learn it well walking it over and over and over and everywhere.

Maybe it’s about learning the land first? Just an area or 2. Is that what woodsmanship actually is?
 
Knowing what bear are feeding on this time of the year, gives you info on what to look for.
 

Learn the land first? Or learn the animal first?​

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Takes two to tango. In a word, both.
AWS said:
Knowing what bear are feeding on this time of the year, gives you info on what to look for.
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You have to have a knowledge of your quarry's habits, ie. what the animal needs to survive and where he has to go to get it.
All critters require food and water; find out what food is available and where and you're half way there. Google earth is a great asset in choosing best places to start in your locale.
 
Speaking of Google earth, "Too soon old, too late smart" comes to mind on this subject.
Having hunted leased properties in Texas most of my life, scouting out a new piece of property was always priority one. Water is most often the center of attraction to game and food is also centered around the water in most cases, whether the quarry be deer, hogs or predators.

Wore out lots of boot leather scouting the ranches over the years before PC's, and even long after they came along. You know, "It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks!" Whodathunk of a computer as being a hunting aid......definitely, not me. As late as 20 years ago, when I first moved to the 3 ranches I last hunted, spent lots of leather scouting and after three years, or so, figured I had a pretty good picture of all 23,000 acres...water holes and all.

Then someone mentioned Google Earth. What the heck, couldn't hurt to have a peek. Found a number of valuable terrain features concealed in the seemingly impenetrable thickets from satellite photos. One of the most valuable was an old 150-200 yard partially grown over sendero (red <---) which paralleled a two track through some extremely thick brush in the extreme NE corner of one of the ranches. Scouting had revealed the water hole years ago, but not the old sendero.
which deer often used to travel to and from the tiny waterhole (blue dot), also surrounded by heavy brush.
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Areal photo above does not do justice to the thickness of undergrowth but I could have almost reached out and touched this buck in that heavy brush.
1746387362516.jpeg
 
When I’m out of State hunting I rely on OnX and focus on critters.

For my home turf I want to know the land, so I walked the entire 2500ac perimeter and then every road and feed trail to learn the property. I could bring up areas or spots that people that have hunted it for umpteen years didn’t know about. Actually there’s only the manager, my son, and myself that know the property like the back of our hands. Of course, trapping the place has a huge advantage as well.
 
Extremely windy today and I went out anyways. If not for google Earth I would never have found this road to begin with last fall, never talked to the locals who all pointed out the same spot where the bears are, never would have realized I needed to cross a massive creek to get to the spot, or some of of the possible access points.

That being said it's not enough. Only boots on the ground showed me where that creek is shallow enough to cross and where it's not. I found a bunch of Greenup starting today on a trail that doesn't look any different than the other trails on Google Earth, but one is green and the other is dry as a bone.

I also found a bunch of little openings following a different overgrown barely noticable trail full of moose scat and there was barely any wind in those openings! and showing signs of Greenup too! we get a ton of wind here and these openings in the thick blocked from the wind are warmer and appear to be greening up faster than the open, I would never have known this from online scouting either.

I guess its all in context of looking for things a bear would eat at this time of year, but I am realizing that boots on the ground knowing those trails, creeks, what's growing there, seeing where the sign is or isn't even though the areas don't look much different than another on a map is an absolute must. Also knowing what week or month things happen where
 
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