Take a spring deer scouting hike

This buck bedded in tall grass during hunting season. Find these spots now.

The weather for the past three days has left something to be desired. Normally, by now, it's quite easy to get around in the woods, but in my area of the northwest Lower Peninsula, we've had 18 inches of new snow in the past 72 hours.

So give the snow a few more days to melt, and then go for a walk in new deer areas. You may just find this fall's new whitetail deer habitat on federal or state-owned land.

A two-hour hike can be great fun. Especially when this little jaunt enables hunters to check on where deer are traveling.

Now is when to find hidden bedding areas, seldom used trails & other hotspots.

Actually, hunters can get some good winter exercise while scouting for old and new deer sign. The third fringe benefit of this early-spring hike is to look around near feeding areas or bedding areas for shed antlers.

To me, the walk gives me some exercise while allowing me to check out various nearny areas. There are always spots that are seldom or never hunted hard, and I like to use this opportunity to check out different locations before the snow is completely gone..

Deer are amazing animals because they can -- and will -- hide out in some of the strangest areas. Some of these spots are used year 'round, and very few sportsmen take the time and make the effort to go there to study the terrain for good deer sign.

This buck bedded in cedars and pines but traveled through this pinch-point.

Let's face it: some deer have more ambition than some hunters. But deer, also are a lot like hunters: they choose the easy spots. It's the big bucks that sometimes settle into a pattern of laying up in places where humans never go.

It's up to you to find these locations. They often are in very heavy cover that can barely be penetrated in an upright position, but imagine how happy you will be if you find such an area this spring and follow a buck's tracks out of there. These areas can be an ace in the hole next fall.

Get out and look before all the snow disappears.

I've seen countless whitetails laying up in cattails around a swamp. Some head for the densest part of a cedar swamp, and other deer will hole up wherever they can get out of the coldest winter weather. Deer in this area favor thermal cover that offers good bedding habitat.

Creek bottoms are good spots to check, and I still have some food plots that will begin growing once it warms up. Deer lay up back in heavy cover, and it provides them with available food and cover throughout the winter months when deep snow piles up.

There is a narrow funnel in one of my hunting areas that has a deer trail running through it that looks like a cattle path. That spot has thick cover at both ends of the funnel, and I check it often during the winter to look for big tracks moving through the area. I know that many of the largest bucks in the area bed down at opposite ends of the funnel, and I have good stands at both ends of the cover.

There are some deep tangles in some low-lying areas. The cover  is thick and tangled, but even the largest bucks seem to ease their way through such spots without making a sound. If you or I were to move through it, we'd make a great deal of racket. The bucks, they ease through without making a sound.

Walking and looking, stopping and checking out tracks along major and minor trails, is perhaps the best cure I know for cabin fever. We all suffer this problem to some degree during the winter months. This offers a temporary cure for a winter-weary hunter.

Check those areas you really wouldn't want to walk through,

Pick a nice day, dress comfortably for the weather, and go for a stroll. Stop often, look around, and study the area for some "eye candy." This is one term used for a big buck, and I've walked up on such animals on many occasions.

One never knows what they may find during an early spring walk in the woods. If nothing else, it is great exercise and provides us with some fresh air.

It's something we can't find while sitting on the home sofa.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors