The author shot this nice 10 pointer after just a few days of hunting a new property. After passing on this buck once, he came back to his senses and decided not to let another opportunity walk on by.

After accepting an editorial position with BOWHUNTING in the spring of 2007 I needed to relocate. The move brought me to north central Minnesota and I found myself over four hours away from the farm that I had been bowhunting since I was 15. The 540-acre fallback crutch that I had relied on heavily to get my whitetail fix was now a weekend-only option.

My search for some closer-to-home hunting land started with public land and ended up in some depressing conclusions. The areas I walked were full of permanent deer stands and easily accessed from roadways. After failing at finding a secret public honey-hole, I started tapping into a pool of relatives and family friends that might turn up something. Through some incredibly good fortune I was given permission to hunt a distant relatives’ 160-acre farm that only had two other archery hunters occasionally using it.

Starting From Scratch
After talking to the landowner about the layout of the property I knew that I needed to get out there and burn some boot leather. A quick web search revealed some aerial photos that I used to get an idea of what the neighboring properties consisted of. I’ve never been able to pinpoint funnels or potential stand sites with too much consistency using topographic maps and aerial photos. I’ve always preferred getting out and taking a good luck around, but those tools have definitely helped me find food sources or bedding areas on properties I didn’t have permission to enter. This knowledge gives me a slight edge in knowing how “my” deer will be influenced by what the neighbors have to offer.

Early in April, with snow still on the ground I set out for a scouting trip. An old overgrown homestead greeted me at one of the two access points (the other was a minimum maintenance road that comprised the back boundary).

Soon enough I found myself standing next to a large cattail slough that bordered an agricultural field. Coming from an area that was loaded with fertile soil and abundant crops left me unprepared for how important the bean field on my new property would be simply because of the general lack of quality food sources in the area.

After scouting the edge of the slough and the crop field I continued on through the property to see that a second smaller slough bordered the back of the field. It looked like decent bedding cover with very few trees around it. Overall, the first 80 acres had the food and some bedding cover, but left a lot to be desired in the stand set-up department.

The second 80-acre parcel offered more hope for an aerial attack. The piece was basically a long rectangle bordered with mature trees. The interior of the property featured two small hayfields that were bisected by another large slough that had a small man-made pond in it.

The exact layout of the land isn’t quite as important as what the property had to offer, which was three bedding areas (the cattail sloughs), three obvious feeding areas (agricultural fields) and a water source (the pond). Although my initial scouting trip didn’t reveal too much encouraging buck sign, I did find a few areas that had enough rubs to convince me they were staging areas. In addition to the obvious attractions, the point in which the two parcels connected was an unbelievable funnel that linked most of the prime bedding cover to the bean field.