When to stop scouting?

[keepthefevercalls]

Hey guys question for you. Our archery season starts october 1st. I mainly hunt public land. When should I stop boots on the ground looking for beds scouting? I know I can keep up cyber scouting as well as keeping an eye out for fresh sign when the season rolls around, but when is a good time to back out and leave areas alone? I will be visiting a few new points this weekend hopefully. Is the impact much smaller if I keep hitting new areas rather than in depth scout an area twice?
Thanks alot!

[ Post made via Android ]

[Hawthorne]

I stop around Labor Day on private land.We have an October 1 opener also. I like to have my tree stands prepped and plots planted before then. Public land I'm still new at. I let someone else talk about public

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[csoult]

I am always scouting, during the season it's more on the way in and on the way out of where I will set, but I never stop.

[<DK>]

Unless im peck scouting, i don't go out of my way to search for beds this time of year. Hopefully you are only going on rainy or wet days? A public land deer is a different animal than a private land deer. I learn every time i step out in the woods and when i get on this site but here is my 2cents:
IDk how prepared you are for the season right now, but if it was me I wouldn't trudge through doing 1/3 elevation scouting (im in hill country). I would concentrate more on scouting from afar, trail cams and getting prepared to throw sets at spots for going in blind. I have more than enough beds to try this season, but I still have areas I didn't scout and they are for sure getting at least one sit, going in blind. Lots of staring at maps! Pick a rainy/wet day, pick the best spot you can find on the map for suspected bedding or somewhere you have seen bucks in the past, choose easiest fastest access point to get in and out of it. I would use the access trails as much as possible, bc they are watching and smelling all the time for those trails, but it will be tolerated more.

If you decide to do this you got a few things to consider:
1 You can choose a bedding area to go in w the wrong wind for him to bed there, so maybe you wont spook him out and let him smell you.
2 Or you can do the Bump & Dump only its a month early instead of the night before like normal. You can choose to go in on the correct wind, approach from downwind or cross wind and hope you bump him out to get a look at him. Then setup a stand or pick tree and prep it for a stand. It is best to have a stand pre set for this situation, bc you want it to be quiet fast setup.

[tbunao]

Never!! The way I scout changes though.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[cbay]

Will be fine tuning some setups and moving a few fixed stands all the way through this month. Plan to hunt from mid october on. Maybe i wouldn't know if i got by with it or not but feel pretty confident my odds will depend on what i do when i go in to hunt.

[rbuckleyjr1]

Funny, I was just texting my buddy a similar question earlier. Watching Swamp Bedding really got me hungry to do more scouting. I have been looking at maps of new areas and have found some spots with great potential. Until you get boots on the ground and see the area you don't really know whats there. I probably wouldn't dive into the bedding areas, but check to see if there is sign of anything coming/ going into suspected bedding picked from aerial/ topos.

Pretty sure Dan would say, "If you need the intel, go get it..."

[Motivated]

My preseason scouting ended last weekend. I had some fine-tuning to do on a core bedding area had to go back in. The area was so thick I needed to use my Google Earth maps,compass and the tall sycamore trees as landmarks in order to keep my bearings. Most of the time I could barely see in front of my face, but there were openings in the thick stuff there as well as 25 foot tall trees for setups.

I am glad I busted through that area because it had to happen sometime. It was maybe only 10 acres but the devil is in the details on your setups. Impossible to really know the details well enough without going into that thick area. Better to scout it now than during the season. I have confidence that my setups are solid now. I won't be going back until I'm climbing a tree and hoping for a kill.

So I don't know if this is right, but this is what I did. I walked up wind of the area while I was talking and making noise. I did not want to for the buck to feel like he was being hunted or spooked out of his core area. I would rather him feel like some clumsy hiker or explorer was just wandering through his core area.

My two cents.

[ Post made via Android ]

[wickedbruiser]

Never!! The way I scout changes though.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

x2

[warhog23]

Never!! The way I scout changes though.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

x2

X3

But i would stay away from the good stuff u know of unless u've either missed or slacked off on ur late winter/early spring scouting and u need info on the deer but anything now i scouted i would almost wait till rut to hunt it

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[keepthefevercalls]

Thanks for all the replies!
This being my first season, it never even hit me to scout previous to this summer. So you can bet I will be doing lots of scouting early spring next year!

[ Post made via Android ]

[matt1336]

Scout the bedding areas in spring and stay out of them in summer until you're ready to hunt them in fall. In summer scout by shinning and glassing from the road or long distances. Scout by looking at google map arials or something similar. This is way too late imo to be in or near bedding if you plan to hunt those areas this fall.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[mheichelbech]

As noted, glassing and trail cams (checked sparingly or before a good rain event) are your best bet at this point. Sign such as trails and beds can be hard to see and are subject to change as a result of changes in food, cover and pressure come the season.
With smaller properties you may not see big changes in trails or bedding but you run the risk of altering movement or even causing a buck to relocate at this point. I know as I have committed this error.
May not be as big of an impact on heavily used public where deer are used to seeing people roam the woods but I'm still not sure you get the payoff unless you have some ironclad observation setups.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Outdoor814]

When you stop careing.

[ Post made via Android ]

[Crazinamatese]

Ideally, you should never stop scouting an area. Even during the season. Chances are you will find some decent fresh sign while walking through the woods to your predestined spot from preseason scouting. Setting up near that fresh sign while it is still fresh maybe a game changer.