elk yinzer wrote:greenhorndave wrote:This brings up something that's borderline a new topic. That is, Scouting with Stand On Back during in-season scouting.
What's your preferred method during in-season scouting? With a stand? Without? For what reasons?
Both. My experience is the past two seasons I think I went a little too far with SSOB and tried to use it as a substitute for pure inseason scouting. In my playbook SSOB has to be a much more targeted approach to scouting. When I generalize scouting, I am talking much more thorough coverage of an area. I will usually carry my bow regardless just in case.
Backstory....I like to be as efficient as possible. I don't think hardly any of us get to hunt as much as we would like to. I've been hunting for 20 years and growing up hunted mobile and hunted bedding areas. I've killed a lot of deer during the rut (mid Oct - mid Nov). Rut is my bread and butter. I've never had much early season success at all (early season here is first 1/2 of October).
So I started to dive into the tactics on this forum, and a lot of this is not real new to me. I'm not the biggest devotee either, but SSOB is one thing I really picked up on and tried to adapt more to my situation. Something to a degree I've always done but I went more gung ho. Traditionally I would allocate a good chunk of early season time to purely scout, gathering intel for the rut. I kinda thought with SSOB, ok, best of both worlds. I can have my scouting and hunt too. Maybe finally figure out some stuff for early season that works.
I hunt big woods/mountainous terrain. I believe that does make it a little different because deer here break some of the "rules". The only thing predictable amount mountain deer is they are unpredictable. Food sources and a whole litany of things can shift the pockets of deer significantly. Here today, gone tomorrow.
So SSOB, I go into an area I scouted last postseason that looked great. I have beds marked. I have a great approach. But i haven't been there in 6 months. I go in there 4 hours before dark SSOB and there's nothing. Deer just aren't using the area. What do I do now? Cut bait and go to another area? That might take me a good hour, plus. Just setup here, maybe I missed something. Sign can be weird like that. Maybe the next bench down or up on the ridge is torn to heck. Sun starts dipping lower and you feel some pressure to find some hot sign and get set up. I'm hot, tired from a good climb and have 25 lbs of equipment on my back. It's not the ideal scenario for analysis and decision making.
Or, I go into an area I scouted a time or two but really don't know it like the back of my hand. I'm kinda guessing where I am going to end up. I run into some sign, maybe deer, maybe hunter. I bump a deer. I'm SSOB but I'm not getting a complete picture of the area because I am still trying to be stealthy. I can't truly, truly scout SSOB. Find a good tree and setup but not really sure what I am setting up on. Not too good.
I don't think as mobile hunters we should ever stop SSOB. I'm not hating on SSOB at all, I'm the doofus that didn't do it right. It's an awareness you should always maintain. What I am saying I've come to discover in my situation its not a replacement for inseason scouting whatsoever. I still need to take some days to just purely scout and not worry about setting up or blowing deer out or whatever. Let the sign paint a complete picture of an area instead of just guessing from a few little tidbits of info.
This post and I have way too much in common lol.
I find that I tend to be more successful SSOB when I am more familiar with the area and way the deer use it. On the private I occasionally hunt, I am dialed in. The majority of public I hunt, not so much. Obviously this means I need more time on the public to get more familiar and confident with those areas.
We always hear that confidence is key, and I'm sure most of everyone here agrees with that. In practice, however, we often don't put ourselves in position to be our most confident.
Back to my resembling the above post. I frequently hunt similar terrain and there is plenty to choose from, but it's such a hike to get into an area, that I tend to feel committed to it once there. A few times last year I never found anything fresh and continued scouting until dark, but once I check the area where I knew the sign oughta be I'm too far away from anything else good to find much. I basically just confirmed that the whole area was cold. Other times I set up anyway and want surprised at an uneventful sit. What's better, go ahead and sit it and hope one just moved in that day, hence the lack of sign? Or expand on scouting the larger area in case there's some overlooked micro bedding I missed?
In an effort to increase my percentage of high confidence sits moving forward, this year I'm going to focus on a particular unit on a different, much flatter wma that has plenty of habitat diversity, is an adequate size without being overwhelming, and I have confirmed big bucks that survived last season. I can only hunt this wma in October, so I'll still be moving back to the mountains afterwards and hopefully get in on more rut action there in the hills.
Not all those who wander are lost...
