sometimes plan sometimes not...i have general areas i look at aerial photos are ok to look general areas to go and not to go (talking western hunting here) as far as mountains and canyons to avoid....but other then that you really need to be there to effectivley scout, IMO.....i never really thought about over scouting until this year...

prime example..brother and i scouted an area fairly hard before archery opener....we were up there about every other or third weekend for two months before the opener...every time up we would see bucks, EVERY TIME.....come opening morning it was like the vanished...granite the many hunters running around on quads didn't help the issue.....we didn't see a single legal buck an any of the areas we had scouted previously....whether it was our fault or not...i can tell you i plan on scouting from a distance and with my bino's this year...staying away from the areas i plan to hunt as much as possible...

the type of woods i do hunt determine how i usually scout...most of the time it is drive in then walk, and walk, and walk...so to scout i actually have to be close to were i want hunt (which is not good, IMO) so this year we are trying to go to an opposite ridge and scout...if not then we will go in maybe once a month...set up the cams and let them work for us...once a month should be a lot better then the twice a month we were doing