Need help analyzing Google Earth Image. Where would you hunt?

[ssssnake529]

Looking for advice from the collective.

Heading for an Idaho deer hunt. Week of September 25th.
Picked out some wilderness land, most of it trail-less and not too close to roads.
Mountains are not super high (ridgelines are around 7000 feet, give or take.)

Only one hiking trail in the area, which follows the southern most drainage East to West.

I have marked a few spots that seem promising to me.

Where would you hunt, and why?

 

[climb-101]

i would prob start with E. looks like a nice little bowl and can prob glass A,C, and maybe F.

 

[Bbear]

I'd suggest up on top of A. You could possibly glass both sides of the ridge and down into the bottom. If you manage to get some heavy snow, they'll most likely head down a bit. Check the side of the valley opposite A, C & B in that case.

 

[WeiserBucks]

Some of the Wilderness is on fire, you should check to see if your unit is going to be accessible or not .

 

[climb-101]

Some of the Wilderness is on fire, you should check to see if your unit is going to be accessible or not .

very valid reply. we have burne over 1,000,000 acres so far this summer and there is no rain in the near future.

 

[aspenbugle]

I'm with climb-101, with the emphasis on glassing. No reason to pic one. Let your binos tell you which one. By hunting just one specific place, you risk spooking them off before you really know where they are and what they are doing, and it's also a good way to waste several days of your hunt. Get up high by E and glass as much of A, E, C & F as you can, and later you can work down the ridge in the directions of G and then glass B, D, F, & G (if you can). If more than one person, you can "divide and conquer" the glassing. A day or two should hopefully let you know, where they are, if they are there in those drainages much. If not, you can move to the next drainage up and glass. Just my $0.02

 

[Wedgy]

During the drought years the deer never came down from the Sierras because there was no snow and no food down low. Last year the week I was there we had winds up 90mph that kept the deer in the thick trees and a pistol or 30-30 lever gun would have been great instead of my LR rifle, nothing was out in the open. In general our deer tend to be more on the South facing slopes because there is more grass to eat as but it can get too much sun and dry out so it kind of depends on the weather. We just glass an area and then move up higher if we don't see anything.