Late Summer Scout Determinations

[gjs4]

How many of you do all of your winter and spring scouting, then go in right before season (or even the start) and make the determination if it is worth hunting at that point?

I had traditionally scouted my areas and/or built the farm up and stayed out from lat August until season started mid Oct if not Halloween..and a very successful friend, and an article i just read said you best bet is to hunt the freshest sign.

[jlh42581]

Garret,

Ive always let my cams do the talking. If I am not seeing what I want on a cam near where I am thinking about hunting I am going somewhere else.

I once had this great rubline between bedding and feeding. I thought, this should be easy. Hung the cam and had pics of a beautiful 140 class 10. Too bad he never reached the huntable area till 10pm.

[G3s]

I honestly never really stop scouting...I am one of those that feel the most recent information is the best...I do a lot of long range scouting with bins and spotting scopes also. I run cameras from June through March to see who is who and what the home ranges seem to be for certain bucks.

[blackwolf]

I do spring scouting to get a "good idea" of things and possibly add some stand set-ups ready for fall. Then I put out 4 trail cameras which I leave out June thru Sep just to get an idea of bucks in the area. Finally, quick "spot checking" in late Oct tells me where to hunt. Previous years hunts meld into these decisions as well.

[Stanley]

I think everything depends on an individual basis and the style you hunt. Some guys like to put the boots to the ground and some like to go low impact. If you are successful, keep doing what you are doing and improve from there. I personally don't traditionally scout that much. I like the low impact aspect of scouting. I would venture to guess I scout less (boots to the ground) than anyone on this site. I would also venture to guess I'm not the least successful on the site. So sometimes its not how much or when you scout, but how much you get out of every trip into the woods.

[BigHunt]

im scouting all summer, up to and after opener....checking fields , glassing fields, shinning, and then hunting in season....

[dan]

How many of you do all of your winter and spring scouting, then go in right before season (or even the start) and make the determination if it is worth hunting at that point?

I had traditionally scouted my areas and/or built the farm up and stayed out from lat August until season started mid Oct if not Halloween..and a very successful friend, and an article i just read said you best bet is to hunt the freshest sign.

More scouting usually leads to more success... But it can also hamper success. The key is to scout enough to gain intelligence, but not so much ( or in the wrong place at the wrong time ) that you jeopardize success...
As Stan pointed out, there is more than one successful way to hunt. But, in regards to the way I hunt, its a bad idea to spot check buck bedding area / staging areas and then decide whether to hunt or not.
1st off, if you intrude and get your scent in a bucks staging area he will no longer feel safe there and he will move... Secondly, I think the thing your looking to find is scrapes and rubs and maybe big tracks, but that is not always what you should be looking for... Young bucks in the 1 to 3 y/o variety do the majority of the rubbing and making around there bed rooms. Mature bucks sometimes do, and sometimes don't. Tracks are great, but often in the staging areas the ground is to hard to see them.
I learned a long time ago that when the rubs and sign goes cold, some times it means a mature buck has moved in... If you sneak in and don't see rubs or scrapes and leave, you might be hurting your chances at a huge buck... A lot of my biggest bucks were killed in spots that did not have much sign...

Take a step back and think about your main goal... Is it to shoot a mature buck? I know most of us would shoot a 3 y/o or maybe even a 2 y/o, but if the "goal" is to shoot a mature buck, don't put yourself out of the game by being to worried about "buck sign"... I would say about 1/2 my bucks came from well used beds with very little buck sign around them.

1) Trust your spring scouting...
2) Do your summer and fall scouting from a safe distance to determine use
3) If you enter a staging area to hunt and there is no sign of human activity, stay there and hunt it that day.

Little story...
When I was making Marsh bucks one of my expartner's came here from Michigan to hunt with me. I knew where a 150 inch buck was hanging just after dark from shining. Wanting my "friend" to get a crack at him, I told him I knew of two bedding areas and he was likely bedding in one of the two. The 1st one we went to was the best one, where I expected him to be. The "friend" looked around and said there is not even a rub in here... Can I have the other spot... I said if thats what you want. I took him to the other spot and it was littered with rubs that in my opinion were from a two y/o... But his face lit up and thats where he wanted to hunt. He saw nothing. I had the 150 inch buck get up from its bed and walk right in. However, I shot it in the shoulder blade and did not recover it. Its the same bed I shot this last seasons buck out of... Was not much for rubs there this year either

[Stanley]

How many of you do all of your winter and spring scouting, then go in right before season (or even the start) and make the determination if it is worth hunting at that point?

I had traditionally scouted my areas and/or built the farm up and stayed out from lat August until season started mid Oct if not Halloween..and a very successful friend, and an article i just read said you best bet is to hunt the freshest sign.

More scouting usually leads to more success... But it can also hamper success. The key is to scout enough to gain intelligence, but not so much ( or in the wrong place at the wrong time ) that you jeopardize success...
As Stan pointed out, there is more than one successful way to hunt. But, in regards to the way I hunt, its a bad idea to spot check buck bedding area / staging areas and then decide whether to hunt or not.
1st off, if you intrude and get your scent in a bucks staging area he will no longer feel safe there and he will move... Secondly, I think the thing your looking to find is scrapes and rubs and maybe big tracks, but that is not always what you should be looking for... Young bucks in the 1 to 3 y/o variety do the majority of the rubbing and making around there bed rooms. Mature bucks sometimes do, and sometimes don't. Tracks are great, but often in the staging areas the ground is to hard to see them.
I learned a long time ago that when the rubs and sign goes cold, some times it means a mature buck has moved in... If you sneak in and don't see rubs or scrapes and leave, you might be hurting your chances at a huge buck... A lot of my biggest bucks were killed in spots that did not have much sign...

Take a step back and think about your main goal... Is it to shoot a mature buck? I know most of us would shoot a 3 y/o or maybe even a 2 y/o, but if the "goal" is to shoot a mature buck, don't put yourself out of the game by being to worried about "buck sign"... I would say about 1/2 my bucks came from well used beds with very little buck sign around them.

1) Trust your spring scouting...
2) Do your summer and fall scouting from a safe distance to determine use
3) If you enter a staging area to hunt and there is no sign of human activity, stay there and hunt it that day.

Little story...
When I was making Marsh bucks one of my expartner's came here from Michigan to hunt with me. I knew where a 150 inch buck was hanging just after dark from shining. Wanting my "friend" to get a crack at him, I told him I knew of two bedding areas and he was likely bedding in one of the two. The 1st one we went to was the best one, where I expected him to be. The "friend" looked around and said there is not even a rub in here... Can I have the other spot... I said if thats what you want. I took him to the other spot and it was littered with rubs that in my opinion were from a two y/o... But his face lit up and thats where he wanted to hunt. He saw nothing. I had the 150 inch buck get up from its bed and walk right in. However, I shot it in the shoulder blade and did not recover it. Its the same bed I shot this last seasons buck out of... Was not much for rubs there this year either

#2 is great advice and so true. About 7 years ago my buddy stopped by the house in August. He was watching a bachelor group of 4 bucks and was videoing them feeding in the evening. Wanted to show me the video of bucks. One was a Booner and the next biggest one he arrowed in November. Had he went down and scouted he would never have gotten the buck. Scouting from afar is why he was able to kill the buck (pictured).

[Bigdaddy-yoyo]

Good stuff guys !!