Scouting for River Bottom Bucks

Scouting For River Bottom Bucks
By Chuck Smick

Would you like to locate prime deer-hunting cover and habitat in your state of residence or your hunting area? The Ohio River travels through and borders Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. This river bottom offers a hunter many opportunities to seek out and locate some real trophy bucks along its course.
The river bottoms offer a variety of habitat, food and cover that allow bucks to thrive and grow to trophy size. Large tracts of timber and thick brush, coupled with agricultural crops, provide the deer a comfortable living throughout the year. The rich bottoms also provide the mineral base that allows bucks with good genetics to grow some impressive antlers too. Deer thrive and grow huge along many river bottom areas throughout the country. The Ohio River provides exceptional areas on both sides of the river because of the rich agricultural areas along most of its course.

A hunter can locate quality hunting areas by contacting the State Game and Fish Departments in those states that border the Ohio River. It is important for a hunter to obtain good, quality maps of the areas that he is interested in hunting. A thorough search on the Internet to locate maps, along with hunting information, is the key to locating productive hunting areas and trophy hunting spots for the hunter who does his research in this area.
Hunters will need to gather information on what counties in the state produce trophy bucks each year. This is critical if the hunter wants to pursue a Boone and Crockett or Pope and Young buck. A hunter will also have to obtain information on public land in these areas, or take the time to locate landowners to obtain permission to hunt or lease the hunting rights to the land that he wants to hunt.
Another option is to locate outfitters in these prime buck areas, if they are available, and book a hunt. The states of Illinois and Kentucky both have outfitters in good buck areas. Both Illinois and Western Kentucky are noted for producing trophy bucks each year. The State Game and Fish Department can help a hunter with locating outfitters many times. If you plan to use an outfitter, contact him well ahead of the season to get information on previous clients, the size of his hunting area, accommodations and general information on hunting in the area. Be sure to do a thorough background check on any reference that you receive from the outfitter.
Once a hunter locates a prime hunting area, either public or private, a good map is in order. Good quality topographical maps are a must to start the search for key areas to find deer. Once this is complete, a hunter must put boots on the ground to locate prime spots to target trophy bucks. If a hunter wants to meet with success, he must locate good food sources, both natural food sources and agricultural sources, when available. The hunter must also locate travel areas, funnels, water sources and bedding areas in his hunting areas. New technology can be used to “get a view” of the deer that call your hunting area home throughout the year. A hunter can use trail cameras to find out the quality and quantity of bucks in his hunting areas.

Locating good travel areas and feeding areas can also be accomplished from longer ranges through the use of good quality optics. A high-quality pair of binoculars can be used to observe deer without disturbing the area too much. If a hunter wants to put his tag on a real trophy, it pays big dividends to avoid disturbing the hunting area with a lot of human activity and scent. This is important, even during the off-season, while you are scouting and locating potential hunting areas to put up stands. When scouting on the ground in the hunting areas, it pays to practice stealth and good scent control. I use the same precautions for scouting as I do while I’m hunting. I prefer to use rubber boots, shower with scent-free soap and use scent-eliminating spray on my clothing before I enter the hunting area. The fewer disturbances that you create in an area, the more natural the deer will act when prime hunting time arrives! This is especially critical if you are bow hunting where shots within 25 yards are preferred by most hunters.
I use traditional archery tackle and prefer my shots to be inside 20 yards for good, clean shots at deer. Every hunter has his own “comfort zone” for shots with a bow. Each of us must make the decision where to place and set up stands in relation to where we expect deer to travel through our hunting area. This is necessary to be successful in stand placement for quality shots that we hope will come!

While scouting, locate well-used trails, along with tracks, droppings and feeding activity. If a hunter can locate old rubs and scrapes from previous years, it will help him locate potential buck travel corridors and rutting areas. It is important to locate points of entry and exit where deer enter and exit feeding areas. Locating these feeding areas is key to locating the does because where there are does, there are bucks, too. This is common knowledge to most experienced hunters, but worth repeating because “little things” are often forgotten in our rush to locate deer for the upcoming season! Use a good pair of binoculars to observe feeding areas from a distance. Make sketches of key feeding areas and note where deer enter and exit these areas.

Often, it is not necessary to walk into these key areas to locate sign if this technique is used. Ensuring that you take good notes and record your observations of what your scouting has revealed is important. Excellent notes are critical! It will definitely help with stand location when you are after the trophy of a lifetime or want to fill a tag with a fat doe for the freezer!
River bottom areas along the Ohio River provide excellent habitat and food for bucks to grow large, and for large deer numbers. The diversity of food sources and cover provide ideal locations for a hunter interested in hunting for a trophy buck along the Ohio River bottoms. Now is the time to get out there and locate these areas and get prepared for a successful season.
Chuck Smick is a freelance outdoor writer and photographer and an avid traditional bowhunter, with over 40 years of hunting and fishing experience in 17 states from Alaska to Florida.