Scouting with aerial photos

[Chivo]

What are some of the things you are looking for when using aerial photos to "prescout" an area? I dont have much experience with using them so any info would be very helpful. If anyone could give photo examples, that would be awesome. I'm not looking for "your spot", just a general pic of some land and examples of what to look for! Thanks in advance.

Chivo

[gunfun13]

Anything that funnels deer. Thin strips of timber between wood lots, places where woods narrow like into hourglass shape, saddles in ridges (you'll need a topo map to identify these), fingers of woods jetting into a field or marsh. transition areas of cover are all good places to start.

[rudy78]

Reading them is tough to describe. The way you read it depends on the type of cover it is as well. You will read a big woods way different then farm country. Something that will help you a lot is look and study an area on an arieal and then go walk the ground with map in hand and keep track of where you are. Before you go look for places on the areial that might be good places for deer (funnels,...) then see how these look as you walk and really pay attention to details. Compare similar features on the areial and then on ground and find out which one are concetrating deer (runs) and figure out what makes that different then similar looking ones that don't have as much movement.
Reading maps takes looking at the big picture of the area and then looking for the fine details that are going to focus deer movement within the big picture.
Maybe show a picture of an areial in an area your looking and people will be able to help you a little better.

[jme]

If it's public land that gets a lot of hunting pressure the first thing I do is take note of the obvious things that Rudy and GunFun mention. These are eliminated as possibilities since everyone else will be there! I look for openings, areas where pines give way to hardwoods, swamps, and so on. If the aerial photo has a 'birds eye' view, use it. A topo map will help too. As has already been stated, you MUST walk the land. I find it's best to do this in Jan/Feb/Mar when deer sign is still evident (if there's no snow), you can see the lay of the land, and sign of other hunters is still apparent.

[Chivo]

Thanks guys. That's pretty much what I figured. I did actually study a topo and aerial of the area I'll be hunting this year for the last couple days. Today I went and scouted the area and it really helped to have an idea of the areas I was looking at. It really helped it all come together and made it simple to know where I was at all times. Sometimes it can be easy to get turned around, but I didnt feel that today at all. Thanks for the info. Another thing that helped me was I found "Mapping Trophy bucks" free online in pdf form. I read probably half of it last night. The info in there really describes what you are looking at on topos and plat maps. That is invaluable information. If you have never read that book, I highly reccommend it! Here's a link to it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=C3gXZcD_EKkC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=mapping+trophy+bucks+notes&source=web&ots=9OWi2htbAL&sig=8gxuVIL4_n9CrN86B89UW-4v-as&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP1,M1

[rudy78]

Just make sure you remember the advice we gave and give us credit when you shoot that monster buck, we want to see our names in the footnotes, LOL:D

It is fun to begin to see how it all works together isn't it!!;)

[ridgewalker]

There are many things that can be seen from a good aerial shot including all of the above. I look for changes in the tree lines, trails I had not seen before, shooting lanes that others have placed, and occasionally a property line will be cleared enough to see. State trails are often quite visible. As said above finding funnel points are invaluable. Believe it or not on some aerials I have even found the blinds of others that I did not know were there. There is a real difference in clarity and view in the different aerial sites so check more than one out and find the one that works best in your area. Remember there is no such thing as being overprepared before you go in for the hunt, especially in a new area. Have a great season!