I am a college student away from home and I do not have many chances to go back to northern wisconsin where I have hunted all of my life. Up there we bait to draw the deer in. I do not have much experience scouting for deer. I know what signs to look for and I know that the key is to find their bedding area and their food source and intercept them.

Look for pockets of high ground in the marsh.  Once the deer feel hunting pressure they will hide in the marsh.  If you can get there first you should see some action.

It is possible to do a drive with just two people.  Look for major escape routes and post one guy downwind and have the other guy do a crossing pattern moving towards the escape routes.

-MD

Thanks for the advice but unfortunately it is only me that will be hunting this area. I do not have a friend down in Milwaukee that hunts.

If its public land (as I assume from the DNR owning it) I would assume come opening morning, it will flood with hunters? I hunt in a similar situation. After about the first few hours opening morning the deer feel the heavy pressure and stop moving freely. Then the trick is deer drives. You don't necessarily need a partner for deer drives. Find the escape routes, walk an extra mile in, or wade across a river to find areas where other hunters won't want to go. The deer will know these areas of less pressure and run to them. Now if you have a good spot from scouting you could sit there opening morning, but otherwise and I do this immediately once gun season opens, find a place you believe deer will run to to hide, and get there EARLY. I'm talking like at least an hour before opening. I prefer to be in my spot set up and give the woods plenty of time to settle down and then wait at least an hour in the dark before it is legal to hunt (check the regulations on when you can load your gun). This way when other people start flooding the woods, they will drive deer to you. The next tip is to sit ALL day. if you move you will push deer to other hunters. Instead sit through the noon hour when other hunters are moving in and out of the woods, and let them push the deer for you.

To find these spots your best option is to scout after the season and hopefully, before snow/ snow melting if there was snow during season, and finding the areas with heavy deer sign, and then remember them for next year.

If your bow hunting, you just have to use traditional scouting and hunting techniques (ie food, cover , water, etc).

Hope this helps and good luck this year.

Thanks for the advice but I should have been more clear. This is for next years bow season. I have gun hunting land in the UP that I go to. I think that there will be much less pressure for bow season and late bow season.

dpohlman2 i'm in the same boat your in. I grew up in Missouri but i'm playing soccer and going to school out in Nebraska. I haven't found a place to hunt out here yet and its killing me hearing all the stories and seeing the pics of the deer all my buddies are killing back home. I can't wait for thanksgiving break when I can get back in the woods and hopefully put the smack down on a few whitetails!
Hope everything works out for ya, good luck man.

If you have a whole year to scout I would start by going out there and just sitting on the ground in different areas. Once you find a place with "heavy" traffic put you a trail cam out and see what you get during different parts of the day. If you don't get many pictures after a week try a different spot. Always put some sort of bait out as they come through without it, but you may not get them in front of the camera or get a good shot without it. If all the pictures are at night find their travel route and more up or down it depend on the time and place the camera there. Once you find the daytime spot that is where you need to hunt. Any place with really thick cover is most likely going to be a bedding area and move out of there to do their daily activities. Also find their natural feeding grounds, ones close to acorns, natural greens, or berries is where you'll find them. They also move along creekbanks so scouting that area and where they cross a creek or ditch (if one's on the property) is usually a good place where you can find tracks a lot better and know for sure that you're on a deer trail. Open areas are real good during the early part of the season as there is not as much pressure and they move more around in open fields and such so don't be leary of hunting these areas during bow season. I would actually sit on one if you can and look to see what all is out there. Main thing is that their patterns are constantly changing due to several factors so you want to be scouting during the season if you want to get the best idea for their patterns, but be out there as much during the year as you can this will also get them used to you being out there and your "footprint" won't be as bad. Look for old rub lines as well if you want to try to find bucks, but typically if you find the does the bucks will be there at some point. Scouting requires a lot of leg work, but if you can get enough cameras you want have to do as much and won't have to be out there as much so look on craigslist for some to save money just don't buy any real old ones. Good luck.

I'm a college student too, but lucky for me I'm getting a ride home (I don't have a car at school) next weekend (8 days) so I can get a weekend of hunting with my dad in and hang stands for the gun season come the 17th. I missed October this year due to my schedules but hopefully I can get some hours on stand before thanksgiving to get rid of this itch I can't seem to shake here . My count down has finally begun.