Hunting Hot Sign

[Strenke629]

So I thought we could discuss some good techniques on determining hot sign or high percentage areas where to find good sign, and some different tactics successful hunters use when going into a piece for the first time without any pre-scouting involved (besides cyber scouting). A lot of my hunts this season have been going in blind without any pre-scouting involved. I'm struggling in determining sign that should be set up on immediately. I see the sign but the question whether to push further or set up now is burning a hole in my head.. Is there a way to tell a rub that happened 3 weeks ago from one that happened within the last 3 hours?

[hunter_mike]

When you see a scrape that has fresh pee on it and the licking branch above it still is wet, thats something i have seen and set up near immediately. Saw the first buck about 10 mins after i got the stand up that time. Kinda lucky but i happened to be in the right area.

[dan]

If you look at enough rubs and scrapes you can easily tell new from old. Wet rubs, or with shavings on top of leaves, or marks in the soil tahat are fresh, would indicate fresh..

Scrapes that have very few leaves or debris in them, that appear wet, not dry, with loose soil kicked on top of nearby leaves that are still round balls of dirt not discinigrated into dust, you can sometimes smell the rut scent in and around them. With fresh tracks of a shooter size animal, are fresh.

Tracks that you can still see extreme detail in, edges are sharp, not crumbled and dry. Debris knocked up by the track are still not stuck to the ground, still loose, not broken down into dust, not dried. Can be considered fresh tracks.

All this won't get you a buck if found in night time travel areas... Look near edge, near thick, between bedding areas, close to bedding, along transitions.

[JAK]

I did a few sits on scout and sit missions.. only bonus for me was most of the hot sign I was seeing was fairly close to the area I thought the bucks would be using but like I have read on hear I didn't ignore that the scrapes and rubs were fresh just knew bedding was 200 yards further in from that sign so I pushed in and set up on beds don't know if that's right or wrong but it seemed to work. Ill be trying that more from now on I could see how it would be easy to push to far though.

[Northcarolinian]

I did a few sits on scout and sit missions.. only bonus for me was most of the hot sign I was seeing was fairly close to the area I thought the bucks would be using but like I have read on hear I didn't ignore that the scrapes and rubs were fresh just knew bedding was 200 yards further in from that sign so I pushed in and set up on beds don't know if that's right or wrong but it seemed to work. Ill be trying that more from now on I could see how it would be easy to push to far though.

I don't claim to be an expert hunter but this is what I would have done if I had my stand on my back scouting. If all the sign is out in the open i want to slowly creep towards the bedding following sign if possible....

[hunter10]

I walked into the woods one morning years ago and busted a buck that was making a scrape on a ridge. As a learning lesson I wanted to see what a very fresh scrape looked like so I went over. Dirt kicked up on top of the leaves, scrape clear of leaves and debris, are stunk of deer, there were a couple worms coming up out of the fresh dirt and there were definined tracks in the wet peed on scrape. After seeing this a couple times it's fairly easy to tell what an older scrape looks like