DS20 Part 12: A New Swamp

Scouted a cedar swamp marsh last night after work. The blue dotted line is my planned route, the yellow dashed line is my actual route. Parked on the side of the road at what turned out to be 20yds from an old logging trailhead. The logging road is the solid red line. I didn’t know it was there and decided to check it out after I did my scouting loop if I had time. Accidentally, I came to the end of it on my way back to the car and walked it back. Overall, there wasn’t a ton of deer sign. Typically in cedar swamps you will see a fair amount of tracks and some muddy runways. I didn’t see a lot of either. The tracks I did see were smaller. There was a TON of deer scat. Pretty much everywhere, which I attributed to deer who had yarded there this winter. It was challenging to find beds, but I did find two for sure beds and one that is probably a bed but I’m still going back and forth on it in my head. I also found a couple tall rubs, one that was mid thigh high to about the bottom of my sternum. I’m 6’ if that gives you some scale.

The surprise of the evening was a large island in the swamp. The topo showed a small hill, but in person it was much larger, maybe three times longer and twice as wide as the circle on the topo. The hill is shown on the map by the white shaded oval. Trees on the island were small and medium aspen/poplar, pines and cedars here and there. I saw a few ash and maple here and there, too. No oaks. Other than natural browse, I’m not sure what the “hot” food source in the area for deer here would be. There is some hill country a mile or so away to the east and a small farm a mile west. There wasn’t a lot of people sign. There was a small creek crossing on the logging road that someone laid some cedars across as a bridge. There was a trail along the NE side of that hill island that someone had discretely cut circles of bark off of trees as trail markers every 10yds or so. There was a pair of chest waders hanging in a tree that someone forgot or left there on purpose after they sprung a leak. And of course, there was a ladder stand.

This was the most photogenic of the three beds. The good thing, I think, was that the best deer sign wasn’t near the human sign. I feel like the area with all of the rubs would be a good contender for a trail camera. I may put one out there looking south over the north transition between the marsh and cedar swamp where most of the rubs were. That is definitely the best place for a stand, and there were a few trees that would work well for that area. Definitely a good place to hang a stand this fall for a hunt or two.