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

[ssssnake529]

Looking for advice from the Rokslide 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? If you're having trouble seeing the detail of the picture below, here's a link to the larger photo.

 

[Bynumlife]

It's really hard to say from the image and without spending a ton of time researching your area. But in general, I always start with getting 2 miles away from roads or 4 wheeler trails. Then I look for food, water, bedding on northern exposure slopes. You find that combination and you will almost find animals. From there find a spot that's you can get high and glass multiple areas.

One thing that's been helpful recently is the STORM app. It allows you to drop a pin on where you want to be hunting and it give the 10 day weather forecast for exactly where the pin is located. More important, it gives you the wind direction! That can be very helpful know the predominant winds. Obviously morning and evening thermal still apply.

Hope this helps.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bubblehide]

Based on the time of year, A, because you can look into that north facing slope across canyon. If you get some elevation you might be able to also look into that plateau (E) and bowl to the east, and move accordingly.

However, there is a lot of other interesting country there, including that pin to the north.

 

[fngTony]

One thing that's been helpful recently is the STORM app. It allows you to drop a pin on where you want to be hunting and it give the 10 day weather forecast for exactly where the pin is located. More important, it gives you the wind direction! That can be very helpful know the predominant winds. Obviously morning and evening thermal still apply.

Hope this helps.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The wind direction feature on the storm app was my secret . Seriously it helped a lot when we couldn't scout much and eliminated some areas because we couldn't legally get on the right side of the wind. I also used it for a couple weeks before the trip to take notes of patterns, time of day. That became a schedule that factored in with terrain and habitat from topo maps and google earth. Another thing is use the 3D view and do a virtual fly through on google earth. You'll be surprised what you see.

 

[MNTNHUNTER284]

So looking at your pic I happened to stumble upon where it is using my google earth. I honestly think the country more north and west from there would hold more deer. That being said I could see how that might be unrealistic to get over there if you're on foot. If I were to hunt this spot I would Camp at E and glass there as well as the Basin to the East and then the spot you marked A. If that didn't net anything for a few days, or there was just very little sign etc, I would move to where I could see the bottom of the Canyon by C, the habitat by the pines in the bottom looks good. I don't see F holding many deer, it looks ultra rocky on that face.

 

[ssssnake529]

Thanks for the replies. This was not my first choice. I had scouted out some other country, (North and West of this section) but it's on fire right now, and the land and access all around it is closed. So, I'm just going to have to go in and explore some new territory.

 

[Owenst7]

Nothing useful to add here .

Red on green might as well be invisible to those of us that are colorblind. I had to invert the colors to figure out what you guys were talking about haha.

 

[idahohikker]

I'd be seeking out more open sagebrush country. That looks pretty elky to me.