Breaking down in season scouting

[hunter10]

I'd like to see strategies for your in season scouting. Many people have talked about it lately and many do it including me but sometimes I wonder on smaller tracts if I'm Doig more harm then good. It's much easier for a guy to go stand on back and scout on the way in than a guy on 100 acres. Besides checking for tracks, good etc how do you make your way through small areas without disturbing your hunting chances next time you come back.

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[E72]

Maps first , know entry and exits you'll take according to terrain and wind . Walk in ditches , or shallow creek beds if you need to.
Obvious times : You can get away with a lot more on windy or rainy days . Only scout late morning to early afternoon. . Try to stay out of known or potential bedding . Be careful not to dive in too far... (I'm guilty!) but sometimes you have to take chances to get on a big one .

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[MOBIGBUCKS]

Observation stands are the key to my in season scouting. Maps only tell you so much and I'm not as aggressive as some guys on here. Id rather wait and observe a couple days before delving into an area I'm seeing bucks

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[Tufrthnails]

Even before I got here mid day was my scouting season except during the rut. I would hunt mornings and evening and eat lunch then drive somewhere I hadn't been and just blow the area out. If I am just looking for fresh sign of a known area either an observation stand or scout hunt. Scout until I find first fresh sign and hunt it then. Now that I'm bed hunting more I'm kinda playing it by ear, but i think it will prob be the same tactic just looking for fresh beds during midday.

[Kraftd]

I prefer to do it with a bow and stand on my back if I have some tentative destinations. I also confine it to properties I haven't spent much time on or want to learn more about. For instance if off-season scouting isn't really correlating during sits. I'm not terribly afraid of going too far if I'm on more of a scouting mission than hunting mission. What better intel is there than jumping a buck from a bed during the time you can hunt him? Then you can really step back and figure things out.

I'll add that for me its a balance that's hard to master. I have always cyber scouted before going in, and usually have an aerial up on my phone. If I'm seeing the right sign where and think I know its coming from bedding. I'll tend to set-up and sit. I'm not necessarily trying to jump deer, but it will absolutely happen. I also very rarely jump a deer when I'm mentally more scouting than hunting and don't go try to find the exact bed and look at exit routes. That being said. if you jump one ahead of you that didn't wind you, can be worth setting up right there. I've never pulled that off, but plenty of stories here of those who have.

[kripp53]

I just put up a similar question in the Scouting Forum. My question is would you hunt the sign you find that day or would you keep scouting and set up a game plan for a day later, or a week later?

[mauser06]

Kripp, like Kraft said, when you find it your stand aughta be on your back and bow in your hand...once you start to find it look around and find a tree...


I'm no pro. Far from it..but learned a lot from here...

Like was said deer will tolerate you being some places...secluded driveways, field edges, tractor paths, hiking trails and logging roads etc if people regularly use them...once the spot starts showing sign it's time to climb a tree...


I have a spot I ran a camera last year...daily people walked by it...often with dogs...but so did hunters...and mature bucks..it was an ATV trail...had I not ran cameras there is never hunted it because I know the human use is very high...most of it was night time till the rut...still blows me away that mature bucks walk down the trails even during the rut in broad daylight...



If you find the sign and don't hunt it the damage has been done...the spot has been pressured and they know you were there...if you are in a place a big buck won't tolerate it they will smell you were there and you run the risk of them stopping the use of the area...

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[Motivated]

Hunt hot sign when it is hot, not a week later when it cools down. Once they have scented your ground scent, why would you come back a week later when they are avoiding the area or have changed patterns, food sources, travel routes?

I seem to remember Dan beating it into my thick skull on one of the podcasts. Hunt fresh sign, not old sign, if you want to kill deer.

Also, if you bump one and they do not know what you are, then set up downwind of the bed. They may try to return but will drop downwind to scent check it first.

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[headgear]

Shining and observation stands just don't work in most of the places I hunt, although I do have a couple of spots where I might be able to spot a buck in a bed with a spotting scope. I mostly try and locate tracks in the general areas I hunt and try and connect the dots to pre scouted bedding. Otherwise if a spot is way back by foot or canoe there isn't a great way to scout the area, then I usually end up scouting my way in and having multiple spots to scout/setup on. Always good to have backup plans, especially if the sign doesn't tell you where to hunt. Sometimes you just have to dive in and roll the dice.

[JoeRE]

My in season scouting is based on a number of fundamentals similar to what others have mentioned.

Anticipate Annual patterns I keep track of what deer are doing every year and the various conditions that seem to affect them - food sources, hunting pressure, weather, the big ones like that. Yea stuff changes year to year but a lot of things stay the same...or pop up again a few years down the road. Doing this reduced how much in season scouting I need to do....all I want to do is spot check.

Scouting tracks (and other sign) I do as much scouting as I can in conjunction with hunts, with bow in hand, but on top of that I often do low impact loops through my hunting areas. It works for me because sometimes I can take an hour or two at mid-day off from work and do a quick scout. Just sticking to field edges and open timber mostly and checking tracks, seeing when scrapes get opened up, any tall rubs, what food sources look prime. Basically, I am walking where plenty of other people walk on public areas (used to do it when I hunted more private farms too) so I know my impact is minimal. I stay away from bedding, my stand sites, and security cover. Keep in mind what direction the wind is blowing. I think you can do that on many small properties as well depending on how they set up...not walking through there every week, just a quick walk before the season, maybe another in the pre-rut that's all. That tells me when perennial primary scrapes closer to bedding will be open as well, and any buck tracks I recognize or just big ones that perk my interest and hopefully are in from of a camera so I can ID the buck.

Trail cameras I hang my cameras and check them by phase of season, seems like in 3-4 week increments - early season, build up to the rut, and then the rut itself. The cameras are in low impact areas not where I usually hunt, on or near food sources and/or primary scrapes. Ideally I check them right after the first cold front in late Sept or early Oct because if we get another cold front within a week of that I often see similar deer behavior. Then again in late October. Come the rut I try to just park them over potential buck cruising routes that I might hunt next year if I like what was on camera.

I don't do much shining...partly because I don't get enough sleep the way it is, partly because I'm not wild about it, few times I have done it seemed to really disturb the deer but to each his own I guess.

I do a few observation sits but not many...a lot of the terrain is not conducive to observation sits and I rarely have two days in a row I can hunt so the sitting back and watching isn't the best option.

I am pretty obsessed with timing the few hunts I get around good conditions...if I had more hunting time it would skew more heavily toward scouting with bow in hand. I rely pretty heavily on predicted activity such as mentioned above just because it cuts time. By the look of it my hunting time this year will be in particularly short supply

[whitetailassasin]

There are some key factors I use when I'm season scouting. You need to see the overlay of the land, features, etc. Wind direction, entrance and exit strategies. Even though your going to be hunting fresh sign you really need to have a solid game plan of how your going to approach an area. Observation stands can work really well on new areas, but fresh sign changes the game for me. It needs to be hunted right then right there. Small parcels are hard to hunt and scout, I really prefer winter/spring scouting before hand and then going in based on that knowledge, and adjusting if I see something telling me to sit there. Paying attention to the details is such a big part of in season scouting, the smallest ones can tip you off to a great plan of attack. Plus lets you monitor pressure that's happening or has happened in an area. Take the time to think and plan and your hunts will improve.

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[mainebowhunter]

There are some key factors I use when I'm season scouting. You need to see the overlay of the land, features, etc. Wind direction, entrance and exit strategies. Even though your going to be hunting fresh sign you really need to have a solid game plan of how your going to approach an area. Observation stands can work really well on new areas, but fresh sign changes the game for me. It needs to be hunted right then right there. Small parcels are hard to hunt and scout, I really prefer [glow=red]winter/spring scouting[/glow] before hand and then going in based on that knowledge, and adjusting if I see something telling me to sit there. Paying attention to the details is such a big part of in season scouting, the smallest ones can tip you off to a great plan of attack. Plus lets you monitor pressure that's happening or has happened in an area. Take the time to think and plan and your hunts will improve.

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Preseason scouting really hinges on what I find for inseason scouting.

Most of my camera work is more of less trying to confirm that buck is in an area and how does that relate to my preseason work. How can I connect the dots. Then, inseason, I find sign and its an "ahha" moment. For example, just pulled cams today. Last season, hunted this one property. Knew there was a 4.5yr old buck that made it. First time out this year...saw him. Just pulled cams after 2 weeks. When I hung cams, there was a bunch of droppings, big droppings all the same size, in 3 different areas. Had a hunch it was a good buck. Guess what I got on the first camera pull. 3 great bucks. 1 is nice, another is REAL nice. My preseason work put me on bedding, my inseason scouting saw the droppings. Cameras confirmed what I was looking for. My next move will be to move in with stand and maybe an observation sit or 2. Will I kill the deer? Remains to be seen. BUT I know I am in the game.

I find, without a GREAT preason scouting season, its tough to have GREAT inseason scouting plan.

[JoeRE]

After thinking about it, in season we are using a variety of tools to get those observations that are crucial to adjusting our strategy to fit what the deer are doing. The tools we use depend on situation and preference. Observation sits, trail camera photos, tracks, they are all maximized when you understand the bigger picture of what you are looking at like both Maine and WTA are suggesting. Not just “I see a buck over there so I need to hunt there” sure that might be what you need to do, but WHY is he there…what are the weather conditions, where’s he bedding, where’s the food, where’s the does, where’s the other hunters. Looking at observations in that context is what really puts a person in the game.

Also I will make a shout out to in season scouting after you filled your tag. If you have free time get out there, don't wait till spring when fall sign definitely fades. I know its a lot easier to tell what part of the fall rubs and scrapes were made looking at them in November or December than in the spring.

[mainebowhunter]

If you using trail cams to do your inseason scouting..getting bucks daylight does not mean your "on them" because as soon as those bucks change off daylight your "off them". Putting a camera on an apple tree, getting pics of a buck or 2, planning your strategies around just the trail cam photos, rarely works in a lot of places. I see it on a lot of TV shows...and if you have the right property it can work. Just has not worked really very well for me. MWW whitetail had a show about waiting for "daylight movers" before you started hunting. Here in Northeast, I would rarely ever hunt.

It can be a hard concept to grasp and a hard habit to break. Took me a while to get a hold of this. I listen to my buddies all ready to hang sets based on a few daylight pics of a deer. BUT many have no idea where that deer came from. And most of them, 98% of them, rarely ever kill that buck. I am sure most of them think I am a raving lunatic!

Suppose if the shoe fits...

[DaveT1963]

After thinking about it, in season we are using a variety of tools to get those observations that are crucial to adjusting our strategy to fit what the deer are doing. The tools we use depend on situation and preference. Observation sits, trail camera photos, tracks, they are all maximized when you understand the bigger picture of what you are looking at like both Maine and WTA are suggesting. Not just “I see a buck over there so I need to hunt there” sure that might be what you need to do, but WHY is he there…what are the weather conditions, where’s he bedding, where’s the food, where’s the does, where’s the other hunters. Looking at observations in that context is what really puts a person in the game.

Also I will make a shout out to in season scouting after you filled your tag. If you have free time get out there, don't wait till spring when fall sign definitely fades. I know its a lot easier to tell what part of the fall rubs and scrapes were made looking at them in November or December than in the spring.

Once again Joe RE I think you are spot on. Cameras, sightings and even scouting gives us/me some single point of time pictures of a much larger puzzle. In themselves, they don't put my game plan together. However, when we collect these nuggets, combine them together, and then using our biggest asset (that soft mushy thing that fills the gap between our ears) we can begin to makes some guided assumptions of what a buck might do in the future. I call this looking for a vulnerability. The more we practice this, the more we gain actual experience, the more data points we can relate to one another, and the more we pay attention to the small details in this pieces of "evidence", the better we may become at interpreting where a buck may be vulnerable and when. Almost like being a criminal profiler???? If we are not looking forward in time, then all we have collected is a lot of historical data points and really are probably no closer to getting ahead of him.