RE: Your Hunt to Scout ratio?
I actually went "scouting" today. My wife, daughter, dogs and me went to one of the WMA's and hiked around for about 3.5 miles. I had the GPS to mark our track and I actually did mark one scrape, it was very active and right on the "trail", but I got to eyeball a whole bunch of really promising area. I may even "blind" hunt it this season but it will get pounded come February time.
I'll put that track and the waypoint on a map, do some topo scouting to figure out where I want to go then, put some waypoints on the map where I want to go and upload them to the GPS. Mark(waypoint) ALL of the sign I'll see on the scouting trip and start making a map of this area. It will tie into another area I have scouted a little and maybe into some more spots I have scouted in this WMA. It is 1700 acres and if I can get it mapped out I think it offers some prime hunting areas.