The Creek Side Trail

The Creekside Trail

Two hunting seasons ago I placed two cameras along a creek bottom bordered by a grown over field in a remote section of the Hoosier National Forest.  I got busy over the fall and left them there for almost two months before I went to get them.  I was pleasantly surprised to find pictures of several good bucks on the developed rolls of film.

Last year I went back to the creek bottom and found a scrape underneath a box elder tree.  These are some of the pictures from that camera.

Though most of the buck pictures show nighttime movement I believe I will do some summertime scouting here and try to locate a good tree to put my climber in.  The field is in a state of succession and is being taken over by small saplings, so I have to think the bucks will feel more and more secure about daytime movement along the creek bottom.  The area should be worth a couple of hunts anyway and maybe I'll be able to come away with a doe for the freezer.

The Highway

The summer has peaked and now the days will begin to shorten, slowly we are making our way to October and the beginning of bow season.  From now until then I will give you some information about the pieces of public land I will hunt this year and the way I plan to hunt them.  I will start with a heavily hunted section of Harrison/Crawford State Forest located along a main state highway.  I call this place "The Highway."  I don't let the fact that many other hunters hunt here scare me off -- I just try to walk further, higher, or into thicker brush than most people.

Over the years I have driven past this piece of state forest land countless times.  I never realized the property belonged to the state until last year. While carefully looking over my collection of topographic maps I realized I could indeed hunt here.  A quick study of google earth made the place seem like a spot worth visiting and the visit did indeed pay off.  My hunting buddy Kevin walked into it cold last year and killed a nice non-typical twelve pointer on opening morning of gun season.  I saw plenty of deer here last year as well and had a good shooter buck walk past me the same morning Kevin killed his buck, but I couldn't get a good clean shot at him so I decided to pass. 

Just beyond this deer's shoulder is a cedar tree where I plan to put a stand when September rolls around.  This point is on a wooded saddle and is a junction of two old logging roads that are beginning to grow over with briers and thorns.  It is hard to walk the roads, but the bucks still use them pretty heavily -- rubs and scrapes can be found along both of them in October.  I take a meandering route through the woods to this spot and stay off the logging roads.  The wooded saddle the roads are on stands thick with oaks and a heavily used doe trail runs along the middle of it.  Numerous bucks were chasing does into a ragged state over the saddle on opening weekend of gun season last year.  The place was selectively logged within the past few years and there are plenty of tree tops covering the forest floor providing good cover and bedding areas.

Soon I will post some trail cameras here and hopefully have a few good pictures to show you.