Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting How do you guys scout?

Any tips? Methods? etc


I'm curious about how to pin down where mature bucks hang out.

I wait to see where the neighbors encroach with their stands.

Then I tell them to move it or lose it, and hunt that spot.

I'm not the best at it by a long shot. In northern MN, I look for food first. Then I look for sign, then I get onto the nastiest areas in the sign. I'm mean nasty. Some shots are at 5-10 yards. I think of the two trully mature bucks I've shot, there was some luck. However, it was the rut, I was in their bedroom, and they both came to a bleat call.

Food and does are what you need to find, then search the "outskirts" for rubs, scrapes, big tracks/beds, and pinch points, is what I do.

Do you have a particular season or hunting method in mind?

What Type of deer? I could give a long answer on Muledeer. A short over view: I use other tags to learn an area, Then use that info to hunt. For example I will draw an easy to get Elk tag in a hard to draw muledeer tag area. Then As I hunt Elk I mark my deer scouting map with hunt plans, Starting spots, Hunt tactics. Mark all the water and learn how the deer use it. Try to determine travel paths and choke points. I'll mark bedding areas and why/when they are using it. I'll view the area on Google earth and Bing birdseye view for hidden basins etc.

Find the thickest, nastiest stuff on the property and hunt the edge of it

YEP, this ^^^

**Normally** in southern Ark by the time the rut gets going the acorns are gone and the deer are back to browse.

I don't USE feeders or bait.

I ALWAYS hunt the does and the bucks WILL COME !

Pre scout via google earth

Check out possible area on foot

Check for sign

Find food and water source

Find bedding areas, or likely bedding areas

Find travel routes

Look for thick cover nearby

Find an area to overlook where prevalent wind will be in your favor

Plot out collected data via google earth. Sort of a double check process, plus seeing everything you find in one viewpoint is valuable data.

Hopefully this works

tall Muck boots and take off walking mid day into where you suspect
deer might be

dont touch a damn thing, dont smoke, dont leave a trail of poptart crumbs,
etc

check likely food sources, then check for scat in and amongst those same
areas

check for nipped off vegetation, crushed-split acorn hulls,

thick overgrown always doesnt always belie a
default bedding area.(that may change with increased hunt pressure). I've got
multiple deer beds under white oaks,
they are just quartering there, eating acorns, makin dooky and sleepin all in the same place

terrain in conjuction with all above items is important. Unstressed whitetails are lazy, they will maintain daily trail traffic at the same contour. They dont like crossing contour elevation intervals in a perpendicular pattern. Except for escape routes

otherwise they will cross ridgelines at passes, breaks, saddles or lesser sloped approaches. additionally check for geographical or manmade features the exclude easy passage, narrow routes or constrictive passages like bluffs or open areas. tree lined fence rows between two fields with thick harborages on either end like what i call an hour-glass funnel are great. look for trails in these areas, preferrably a well beaten path

dont let lack of sign now in likely deer habitat discourage you, signs and traffic may switch on overdrive in simply two weeks time as day get shorter and deer be gettin their nite time freak on

I like bing maps for somewhat open areas but I'm finding that the pics I get in my area are with leaf cover on the trees or I'm in pine country and you can't see the pinch points as well.

dont scout with a 4wheeler, souped up golf cart, razor,
mule, gaytor, etc

this will just telegraph your intentions to deer for several acres. and
if its a ranch and you ride all day anyway to fondle your
bovine vulvas, blah blah blah

then by all means just top off your automatic deer/impala feeder and GFY



just walk,
it's good for you

Unless it is a brand new area to me I only scout on my way in to hunt or on my way out from hunting. I do my best to only be in the woods when I can hunt.

Pine thickets, find where oaks and pine meet. Find scrapes near thickets and hunt them in the afternoon til dark and right after rain stops. They 'll stick their nose out...

From everyone's input I think you are on the right path. With the work you've put in via the maps and the legwork we did last Saturday I am feeling very good about what we found.

Looking forward to going back in, finishing those areas up and checking out the other, larger valley.

I have a tip for y'all based on years of hunting whitetails in the Trans-Bluegrass of Kentucky
Briar Archeology

Some son-of-a-gun has been riding his 4-wheeler past the locked Forest Service gate into what's been a walk-in only hunting area for years. Tracks all over the place, and yesterday I saw the machine parked high up on the mountain way above me. I've been walking in there to hunt mulies for years. Didn't see a single deer yesterday, not even a doe. Doggone it!

Now maybe I shouldn't blame the guy who illegally rode in there on his 4-wheeler, but I think I will anyway.

Guy

I'm hunting public land again this year, so I look for the land that is not easily accessible and people pass up. I found a corn field that is shape like a square. 1 side is private/posted land. The rest joins up to a public shooting range. I plan on sitting on the corner near the private land, looking into the standing corn. There is a small creek that follows closely to the road so water, food, and thick cover.

Well, that really sounds pretty accessible to me.

Topo maps are your friend. When I did the public land thing, I usually had a REALLY good idea of where I wanted to go before I got within 100 miles of the land.

Now, it is more of a "check to make sure the deer highways didn't get moved during the summer" kind of thing. Don't touch anything, and find the scrapes/rubs.

Now, with where I hunt, I spend more time figuring out where to put my stand than anything else. I want somewhere I can get to in the dark, quietly, without going across any of the deer "highways" on the property.

Food and water sources. We use several trail cameras to check things out and then move them over active scrapes as the season gets closer