Excellent video. I live in Wisconsin and just started my journey hunting mature deer in 2023. In these 2 years, I have only seen one mature buck. Thank you for the detailed instructions - this kind of material will definitely help me. I don't use trail cameras so I am primarily relying on scrapes, rubs, and large tracks to refine my search. Thank you again - your video was uncommonly thoughtful.
Thank you for the comment. It sounds like you are already on the right track. I remember when trail cameras did not exist, and all you had to rely on was paper topo maps and your woodsmanship, so you can learn a lot through e-scouting using these concepts and doing your best to limit the time required to learn a place. In my video Series "Mapping for Mature Bucks," I stress spending 4 or more hours in these spots mapping out every deer trail, rub, scrape, etc., to minimize human intrusion while effectively learning the area so that you sit in more bullet-proof spots while increasing your chances of success.
Another great video. I like to split screen your videos with my hunting locations and follow along like that. I noticed to get the preferred 75/100 yard wide hub, I had to move up into the drainage a bit. Most of what I would call hub center points are closer to 200 - 300 yards wide. But i could move up a bit and find tighter points.
That’s exactly what I do when I’m on the ground, and the terrain I use is very similar! The wind will blow out of a 200 to 300 yd hub with no problem, but it just makes picking the right spot a little more tricky since you have more ground down in the hub to consider, but pick the right spot and you should still be able to use these concepts with success. Good luck and thanks for the question.
Another great one buddy! You definitely gave me a lot of confidence in hunting thermal hubs over our many conversations. I definitely attribute a lot of my success this year to you!
Thanks! It takes 7-10 days of putting these videos together, so there are mistakes made and sometimes you just have to laugh at them and move on. Appreciate the comment and good hunting to you!
For morning hunts, I will typically go up high and it usually involves one of the ridges on either side of the hub. I feel like more buck come off those ridges to the left or right of the thermal hub, more so than the middle ridge. But I still pay a lot of attention to what my camera data shows and if the bucks are coming off the middle ridge, then I place my focus there. With thermal rise, I like to be up in that upper 1/3rd. I'm still hunting the major travel route, but I am better positioned to avoid detection up high. I hope this helps.
That's a really good question. My experience has shown that thermal hubs do become less active a week or so after the rut kicks off and through the post rut. Once the local bucks breed the local doe groups, they move on. At this point, you are effectively hunting long-range traveling bucks. They will travel through these hubs because they follow the same trails for the most part, but seeing one while you are in the stand is definitely at a lower rate of occurrence. If hunting a thermal hub with the right wind and thermal conditions in the rut or post-rut, you should expect to have quite a few sits with no sightings at all, but if you are patient and sitting in a good spot, you can get one of these cruiser bucks sneaking through for sure. I hope this helps.
Thanks ! I felt the same way but don’t have enough experience to be certain. I know I’ve sat in hubs early season and late season and there’s just not much using it. But the sign is there from where they did use it during the rut as you mentioned. I think a lot of people get caught up thinking it’s a great spot year round and I have found it’s actually a good spot for a short window of time.
@@jarredmeadows8160 Well said. I prefer to hunt thermal hubs the last part of Oct, but not before. Go in too early and you have a better opportunity to spook a buck than you do shooting a buck. I want him to be unpressured and moving in daylight, not pressured and moving in there after dark and getting a whiff of human tracks after I have left. He becomes much harder to hunt when he has smelled you or where you have walked.
I know that country and have spent some time hunting near Castlewood and St. Paul. Very steep! You almost have to concentrate your search up high near saddles and topographic hubs because the elevation change is 2000 ft in most places. I have some other videos on the channel that focus on topo hubs and connecting drainages that might be of some help if you want to check those out.
I use the CalTopo app with shaded relief set to (normal) as the base map and slope angle shading set to (gradient) as a Map Overlay. LiDar is standard on these maps. I have a video on my channel that shows how I set up CalTopo for hunting if you want to check it out. Here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/UpG9jHKxQNE/v-deo.html
I guess it would depend on how often the access road was used by people, and how much sign I could find. If people are traveling the road by foot weekly, I would think the local bucks would no tend to travel more by the cover of darkness, but the rut may cause a long distance traveler to slip through during daylight. How much sign do the secondary ridges have, and is there a hub scrape down in this hub?
Subscribed. Question about the labeling on the map...I presume you are building these from memory and approximating the trails after you do the walk through or are you somehow importing these coordinates / paths after doing your scouting? I have used GPS mapping apps on my cellphone to record tracks when I find a decent deer trail as well as google maps to drop waypoints to get exact locations.
I build these during e-scouting making educated guesses based on the terrain, creek crossings, drainages, etc. and then I confirm and/or adjust them when I get boots on the ground. What I am left with is reality.
@@HillCountryBucks_FarmLife I really like CalTopo and you look like you use it to your full extent. Do you have a pro version to save all that work you have put in? Does CalTopo allow you to import GPS coordinates and other things like .kmz files?
@@talktolee You can import both waypoints and .kmz files with the free version of CalTopo. You can save 5 maps, but honestly, you only need one map to save all of your data for as many U.S. States as you want. I have the Pro version, but only for seeing Land Ownership lines.
Excellent video. I live in Wisconsin and just started my journey hunting mature deer in 2023. In these 2 years, I have only seen one mature buck. Thank you for the detailed instructions - this kind of material will definitely help me. I don't use trail cameras so I am primarily relying on scrapes, rubs, and large tracks to refine my search. Thank you again - your video was uncommonly thoughtful.
Thank you for the comment. It sounds like you are already on the right track. I remember when trail cameras did not exist, and all you had to rely on was paper topo maps and your woodsmanship, so you can learn a lot through e-scouting using these concepts and doing your best to limit the time required to learn a place. In my video Series "Mapping for Mature Bucks," I stress spending 4 or more hours in these spots mapping out every deer trail, rub, scrape, etc., to minimize human intrusion while effectively learning the area so that you sit in more bullet-proof spots while increasing your chances of success.
Thank you for the great video!! Lots of very useful information for those of us learning to hit this terrain!
Glad it helped you out. Good luck with your hunts!
Another great video. I like to split screen your videos with my hunting locations and follow along like that. I noticed to get the preferred 75/100 yard wide hub, I had to move up into the drainage a bit. Most of what I would call hub center points are closer to 200 - 300 yards wide. But i could move up a bit and find tighter points.
That’s exactly what I do when I’m on the ground, and the terrain I use is very similar! The wind will blow out of a 200 to 300 yd hub with no problem, but it just makes picking the right spot a little more tricky since you have more ground down in the hub to consider, but pick the right spot and you should still be able to use these concepts with success. Good luck and thanks for the question.
Enjoyed the video. Keep'em coming.
Appreciate you watching! Let me know what you'd like to see in a future video!
Another great one buddy! You definitely gave me a lot of confidence in hunting thermal hubs over our many conversations. I definitely attribute a lot of my success this year to you!
I appreciate you taking the time to watch, and I'm glad you found success with a big public land mountain buck this season!
Another good one
Appreciate it! Thanks for watching! Let me know if you have any terrain features in hill country that I might make the next video on!
Excellent video!! Thank you!!
I appreciate you watching!
incredible in every aspect (even the humor)
Thanks! It takes 7-10 days of putting these videos together, so there are mistakes made and sometimes you just have to laugh at them and move on. Appreciate the comment and good hunting to you!
I created an email address for the channel if you are still interested in that 1:1. Email me here:
HillCountryBucks.FarmLife@gmail.com
Very cool content. Great detail. So this was an evening hunt. How would you hunt it in the mornings?
Hopefully this helps a few folks out there who enjoy hunting the hills. Thanks for the comments.
For morning hunts, I will typically go up high and it usually involves one of the ridges on either side of the hub. I feel like more buck come off those ridges to the left or right of the thermal hub, more so than the middle ridge. But I still pay a lot of attention to what my camera data shows and if the bucks are coming off the middle ridge, then I place my focus there. With thermal rise, I like to be up in that upper 1/3rd. I'm still hunting the major travel route, but I am better positioned to avoid detection up high. I hope this helps.
Do you find thermal hubs dry up later in the season and out of season or do you feel they are always a productive area?
That's a really good question. My experience has shown that thermal hubs do become less active a week or so after the rut kicks off and through the post rut. Once the local bucks breed the local doe groups, they move on. At this point, you are effectively hunting long-range traveling bucks. They will travel through these hubs because they follow the same trails for the most part, but seeing one while you are in the stand is definitely at a lower rate of occurrence. If hunting a thermal hub with the right wind and thermal conditions in the rut or post-rut, you should expect to have quite a few sits with no sightings at all, but if you are patient and sitting in a good spot, you can get one of these cruiser bucks sneaking through for sure. I hope this helps.
Thanks ! I felt the same way but don’t have enough experience to be certain. I know I’ve sat in hubs early season and late season and there’s just not much using it. But the sign is there from where they did use it during the rut as you mentioned. I think a lot of people get caught up thinking it’s a great spot year round and I have found it’s actually a good spot for a short window of time.
@@jarredmeadows8160 Well said. I prefer to hunt thermal hubs the last part of Oct, but not before. Go in too early and you have a better opportunity to spook a buck than you do shooting a buck. I want him to be unpressured and moving in daylight, not pressured and moving in there after dark and getting a whiff of human tracks after I have left. He becomes much harder to hunt when he has smelled you or where you have walked.
Good explanation.Not sure what state your in but places I hunt look nothing like that terrain.Mostly just steep mountains.
I’m in the South, and mainly hunt the hills West of the Appalachian region. I plan to make some videos in the more steeper area in mountain country.
@@HillCountryBucks_FarmLife great! I hunt steep Virginia mountains with little to no ag.
I know that country and have spent some time hunting near Castlewood and St. Paul. Very steep! You almost have to concentrate your search up high near saddles and topographic hubs because the elevation change is 2000 ft in most places. I have some other videos on the channel that focus on topo hubs and connecting drainages that might be of some help if you want to check those out.
Where do you get your LIDAR data from?
I use the CalTopo app with shaded relief set to (normal) as the base map and slope angle shading set to (gradient) as a Map Overlay. LiDar is standard on these maps. I have a video on my channel that shows how I set up CalTopo for hunting if you want to check it out. Here's the link:
ua-cam.com/video/UpG9jHKxQNE/v-deo.html
What if an access road goes through the hub? Foot travel or vehicle?
I guess it would depend on how often the access road was used by people, and how much sign I could find. If people are traveling the road by foot weekly, I would think the local bucks would no tend to travel more by the cover of darkness, but the rut may cause a long distance traveler to slip through during daylight. How much sign do the secondary ridges have, and is there a hub scrape down in this hub?
Subscribed. Question about the labeling on the map...I presume you are building these from memory and approximating the trails after you do the walk through or are you somehow importing these coordinates / paths after doing your scouting? I have used GPS mapping apps on my cellphone to record tracks when I find a decent deer trail as well as google maps to drop waypoints to get exact locations.
I build these during e-scouting making educated guesses based on the terrain, creek crossings, drainages, etc. and then I confirm and/or adjust them when I get boots on the ground. What I am left with is reality.
@@HillCountryBucks_FarmLife I really like CalTopo and you look like you use it to your full extent. Do you have a pro version to save all that work you have put in? Does CalTopo allow you to import GPS coordinates and other things like .kmz files?
@@talktolee You can import both waypoints and .kmz files with the free version of CalTopo. You can save 5 maps, but honestly, you only need one map to save all of your data for as many U.S. States as you want. I have the Pro version, but only for seeing Land Ownership lines.