size of your hunting area.

[Octang]

It seems to me that it is more terrain dependent than anything. I have one patch of public land I hunt that has beds everywhere because it is so thick and nasty. Granted most of them are satellite bedding and doe bedding that can be ignored, but the deer are certainly there. However, across the river on the same property, you will find almost no deer bedding, just trails because there isn't good cover to be found.

[headgear]

Expand, hunt the best of the best areas. I really don't know how much land I have scouted over the years, for sure over 100K but of that 100K acres most of it is garbage. In the bigwoods I might find one decent bed for every 500-1000 acres, even then if I find 4-5 beds some don't get use a lot and some are prime areas that are used every year. Basically I want to scout like mad and only be hunting the best of the best areas. However if a big buck shows up in a given area I want to know every potential bed in that area so I can attack that buck from every possible location.

We have had many debates about scouting a bunch of land vs knowing one area really well. The answer is all of the above, I want a bunch of great spots but I also want to know the land inside and out. The ticket is to just keep adding new land and re-scouting old/known areas and slowly build up the best of both worlds.

[Babshaft]

Interesting thread for me personally because the biggest chunk of public that I have to hunt in my area is the closest to me. It's almost 30 000 acres. I've put almost 60 hours of time scouting it and have had a terribly hard time finding deer sign. Tons of moose sign but it looks like all the good bedding spots that should hold a mature buck are holding moose. I didn't want to give up on it but I was getting close.

I went to one of the workshops and Jeff gave me an idea that has panned out so far for this property. However, one light bulb moment I had at the workshop is something Dan's said a lot, but it didn't register in my small brain well enough. Dan walks past a lot of bedding, and goes right for the good stuff. I believe Dan is pretty well only hunting primary bedding. He's not wasting time on anything else. So for me, the size of the hunting area stopped mattering, and the ability to hold (and for me to find) primary bedding became the focus. Because of that, I put this area on the back burner. I have two other large public lands that are an hour away, that are considerably easier to find primary bedding. Being a new beast, I think I'm better off to put as much time into these areas as possible. I'd rather have 25 primary bedding spots, that I've scouted and prepped that are an hour away than 100 maybe bedding spots close to home. Right now 25 primary bedding spots is ambitious for a first beast season, but it's a great goal for me to try and attain. Once I get there, I plan to put the time into the property near me to get on the bucks instead of the moose.

The size of the area was an initial factor for me, but now, I cyber scout anything that I can get on, that I think will have primary bedding. If I can't find any, I move on the the next. It's been panning out really well for me so far, but the fall will be the real test. If I see mature deer, then I know I'm moving forward. If not, I'll be learning and figuring out how to get better.

[ihookem]

Ya , that Bobshaft might have to switch off deer and hunt moose. Poor guy. Another thing I see while cyber scouting is, my land is so flat that the topo hardly has a line through the whole 5,000 acres. I know of two absolutely huge buck beds. and I know almost exactly where they are on the topo. I can't see one thing that would tell me there is a buck bed there. Just makes no sense at all on the map. When I walked up on them , it was obvious though. Matter of fact , I found one last week on my way back from getting the trail cam. Deciding to see if I can find this stand I have picked out. I found it alright. On my way back to the car is when I found this huge bed. I was almost mad, appalled and a bit over joyed at the same time. Had I not found that bed and that buck was in it he would have busted me coming into my stand that I think is going to be my best stand yet. He would have seen me going to the stand and almost for sure would have seen me climb the tree to boot. DIRTY !!! I SAY. The nerve of his sneakiness! How dare him pull the wool over my eyes. Joke would have been on me . Now , with that bed there , it is plan B. Problem is , I can't find for the life of me how I'm going to sneak up on that buck. AInt no way ! Two feet of water for 100 yds and more brush than trees. Also, I need to find how to get my waypoints to Caltopo from my old Garmin GPS. Are some too old to transfer, cause we can't figure it out. These are some very good posts and as I think of it. Both of the biggest beds are .4 mi. from agg. fields and to get into.

[brancher147]

I concentrate on maybe 20% total land area that I could hunt. I'm looking for specific features, terrain & foliage. Then I put boots on the ground in that 20%, and if I don't see what I want, I move-on. The rest of it, I don't even bother with!

I cull thru my spots every season. Adding new spot with good looking potential. Dropping spots that have not produced, or lack the sign I want to see. Every season, I want to put myself in the best spots I can find, every sit! I've been finding some great new spots this year, I'm probably gonna drop 8-10 spots from last season, just because I can only handle so many spots per season. It doesn't mean I may not check them out again later, to see if the sign has picked-up.

I do similar scouting. Probably less than 20% needs to be scouted. Once you learn the terrain you need for the way you hunt and are able to cyber scout and plan your scouting it cuts way down on the area you need to scout. I used to walk all day for days looking at everything and never find much. Now I walk for a few hours and find what I am looking for. If you don't find what you are looking for in the terrain you scout, move on. I have about 30 spots ready for next year on 4 pieces of private totaling 1000 acres and 3 WMA's that total about 200,000 acres. And that is just in WV. I have spots in VA, and OH also. Of these 30 spots I will probably key in on the 10 best and hunt those areas the most. And I always find new spots once the season starts.

[RidgeGhost]

I concentrate on maybe 20% total land area that I could hunt. I'm looking for specific features, terrain & foliage. Then I put boots on the ground in that 20%, and if I don't see what I want, I move-on. The rest of it, I don't even bother with!

I cull thru my spots every season. Adding new spot with good looking potential. Dropping spots that have not produced, or lack the sign I want to see. Every season, I want to put myself in the best spots I can find, every sit! I've been finding some great new spots this year, I'm probably gonna drop 8-10 spots from last season, just because I can only handle so many spots per season. It doesn't mean I may not check them out again later, to see if the sign has picked-up.

I do similar scouting. Probably less than 20% needs to be scouted. Once you learn the terrain you need for the way you hunt and are able to cyber scout and plan your scouting it cuts way down on the area you need to scout. I used to walk all day for days looking at everything and never find much. Now I walk for a few hours and find what I am looking for. If you don't find what you are looking for in the terrain you scout, move on. I have about 30 spots ready for next year on 4 pieces of private totaling 1000 acres and 3 WMA's that total about 200,000 acres. And that is just in WV. I have spots in VA, and OH also. Of these 30 spots I will probably key in on the 10 best and hunt those areas the most. And I always find new spots once the season starts.

Same thing here. I probably scout less than 5% of the land available to me. Its hundreds of thousands of acres, so 5% is still a lot. But I really narrow it down by map first. I probably only hunt 1 or 2%. Best of the best is all I'm interested in.

Now, get me outside of my comfort zone, like the swamp I was in this past weekend, and I have to scout a much larger percentage to find what I'm looking for.

Once you get some experience in on a certain terrain or habitat type, the scouting becomes almost surgical.

[Jonny]

Ya , that Bobshaft might have to switch off deer and hunt moose. Poor guy. Another thing I see while cyber scouting is, my land is so flat that the topo hardly has a line through the whole 5,000 acres. I know of two absolutely huge buck beds. and I know almost exactly where they are on the topo. I can't see one thing that would tell me there is a buck bed there. Just makes no sense at all on the map. When I walked up on them , it was obvious though. Matter of fact , I found one last week on my way back from getting the trail cam. Deciding to see if I can find this stand I have picked out. I found it alright. On my way back to the car is when I found this huge bed. I was almost mad, appalled and a bit over joyed at the same time. Had I not found that bed and that buck was in it he would have busted me coming into my stand that I think is going to be my best stand yet. He would have seen me going to the stand and almost for sure would have seen me climb the tree to boot. DIRTY !!! I SAY. The nerve of his sneakiness! How dare him pull the wool over my eyes. Joke would have been on me . Now , with that bed there , it is plan B. Problem is , I can't find for the life of me how I'm going to sneak up on that buck. AInt no way ! Two feet of water for 100 yds and more brush than trees. Also, I need to find how to get my waypoints to Caltopo from my old Garmin GPS. Are some too old to transfer, cause we can't figure it out. These are some very good posts and as I think of it. Both of the biggest beds are .4 mi. from agg. fields and to get into.

Look at a higher detail topo. 2’ opens up tons more detail than the standard 10’.

[Babshaft]

Ya , that Bobshaft might have to switch off deer and hunt moose. Poor guy. Another thing I see while cyber scouting is, my land is so flat that the topo hardly has a line through the whole 5,000 acres. I know of two absolutely huge buck beds. and I know almost exactly where they are on the topo. I can't see one thing that would tell me there is a buck bed there. Just makes no sense at all on the map. When I walked up on them , it was obvious though. Matter of fact , I found one last week on my way back from getting the trail cam. Deciding to see if I can find this stand I have picked out. I found it alright. On my way back to the car is when I found this huge bed. I was almost mad, appalled and a bit over joyed at the same time. Had I not found that bed and that buck was in it he would have busted me coming into my stand that I think is going to be my best stand yet. He would have seen me going to the stand and almost for sure would have seen me climb the tree to boot. DIRTY !!! I SAY. The nerve of his sneakiness! How dare him pull the wool over my eyes. Joke would have been on me . Now , with that bed there , it is plan B. Problem is , I can't find for the life of me how I'm going to sneak up on that buck. AInt no way ! Two feet of water for 100 yds and more brush than trees. Also, I need to find how to get my waypoints to Caltopo from my old Garmin GPS. Are some too old to transfer, cause we can't figure it out. These are some very good posts and as I think of it. Both of the biggest beds are .4 mi. from agg. fields and to get into.

Hahahaha I live a tough life!

Awesome stuff man. Hopefully you get a chance to get him when he leaves his bed and starts sloshing through the water. Maybe the first good cold front will get him on his feet earlier.

[atlasgem]

It seems like everyone else on here has access to huge areas. Around here there are a couple public areas at approx 1,000 acres within a 2 hour drive of me. The majority of the public land is small parcels (50-150 acres). Scouting on these properties is similar in a lot of ways to what others are saying: maybe 20% of the land looks good and is worthwhile scouting. I can usually scout the entire property, but the hardest part I have found with scouting these small parcels is putting the big picture together. The deer are travelling way outside of the boundaries and it is hard to get anything but a glimpse of their habits. The good news is that a lot of public land around here is wet meaning less hunters and good deer bedding.

[Jonny]

It seems like everyone else on here has access to huge areas. Around here there are a couple public areas at approx 1,000 acres within a 2 hour drive of me. The majority of the public land is small parcels (50-150 acres). Scouting on these properties is similar in a lot of ways to what others are saying: maybe 20% of the land looks good and is worthwhile scouting. I can usually scout the entire property, but the hardest part I have found with scouting these small parcels is putting the big picture together. The deer are travelling way outside of the boundaries and it is hard to get anything but a glimpse of their habits. The good news is that a lot of public land around here is wet meaning less hunters and good deer bedding.

Large areas can be a blessing and can also be a curse. I grew up hunting big tracts of county forest and that is just what I love hunting. Cattails are fun but my heart lies up north. Just the way I roll i guess.

There are guys here who kill mature bucks hunting small parcels (150 and under) and guys who kill mature bucks on larger stuff (1000+) and even up in the northern big woods with seemingly endless public.

If you look closely, you will see everybody has a little twist that sets them apart from everybody else. Think JoeRE, Magicman, PredatorTC and Dan hunt the exact same way all the time? Learn the fundamentals first (the beast), then figure out what is going to work for you and where you hunt. Cause I can point out differences in each of them and how they hunt, but they all are top notch killers.

I'm scouting another area that I know has other beasts hunting it, cause they have kill trees prepped exactly where they should. Pretty obvious I need to change my tactics to account for that.

Hunt like everybody else, and you will have the success of everybody else. Hunt like nobody else, and you will have success like nobody else.

[PK_]

If you were to add together all the total acres of the public lands I hunt each season, I don’t even know must be around half a million, probably more. IMO, 5k acres of public in most situations is pretty small. I prefer giant pieces of public. But I don’t get to scout any of it, I just hunt it.

[ghoasthunter]

I now have 49.4 miles on one piece piece of public land that is about 5,000 acres. I scouted most of it . One area is so hard to get to that I just didn't go there but hope to sometime . My question is , after scouting 5,000 acres. I find much of the land does not have a whole lot of deer sign, but always some. I also find much of it has a lot of trails , but very little for beds. I also find a small fraction of the land that has pockets of many beds and rubs with trails going everywhere. This is actually a very small area, about 7 acres according to Caltopo. Is this common in your hunting area ? I know of two areas like this and are very small but there are so many beds i can't believe there are that many deer in there to make all those beds. Even stranger, there are almost no deer there right now. They are not way back in the marsh, they are near the food. Is this common in your area? Also, I have never found a dead head in any of these areas. Most likely cause they are not there in the winter time. I'm just wondering if I hunt an unusual area , and is 5,000 ac. too small and I should be expanding my scouting?
One more thing, I have only found one shed in 49.4 miles, and it was not even from this year cause it was all green.This seems very low to me. How about the rest of you ? Should I be looking somewhere else? I hunt there with limited success ( one doe in 2 full seasons and a little in 2015. The reason I hunt there is cause it is at most a 5 mile drive from home.

if I'm on a 5000 acer section I'm only really hunting about 50 acers sometimes. your going to find pockets of deer hunt the biggest best spots. where I live I have sets over closer to 60000 acers of public all that land and I'm still focusing on 1% of it so 5000 acers really could only be a handful of sits. some years they are hot some not but you got to find them all and focus on the pockets that are on fire

[john1984]

Here are some properties that are or can easily be used by the public near me in WI. All the following properties are basically adjacent to each other.

Necedah wildlife refuge= over 30'000 acres open to deer hunting.
Meadow Valley wildlife area = 57,000 acres of public land.
Black River state forest = well over 60,000 acres of public land.
Fort McCoy military base = very easy to get bowhunting access to over 40,000 acres.
Clark county state forest = 170,000 acres
Sandhill wildlife area = 9,400 acres

Plus all the MFL /FCL and other lands right next to these big pieces.

Tons of options.