ok...so i done my reading on "precision bowhunting" and "hunting pressured whitetails" (very GOOD books...great reads) they both agree that scouting should be done NOW and stands hung NOW. i have the time and could do that....i can go out and find sign now...but the thing that stops me is many, many of those bucks are dead. i dont understand what good scouting will do when the deer that made the sign is most likely dead. more and more bucks are seeing 2.5yo+ now...but still not near what most states and areas see. my areas are pounded in rifle season.

whats the reason for me to scout and hang stands now when the chances of the deer that made the sign last fall of being alive are slim to none??

will bucks generally use the same areas every year regaurdless if they are the same bucks or not?? i really want a nice buck next year...and wanna do everything i can to see success...but to me waiting till the antlers are growing and seeing the bucks sounds more logical than taking the time to scout and hang stands and trim lanes etc etc and not have quality bucks around...

i already know most of my areas VERY well. i been running through them for years now..know where the rubs and scrapes show up..know where the trails are etc...i could walk through now and find more sign that i missed in the fall...then once we start seeing bigger bucks i know where to put the stands...

any info? convince me to hang my stands and pick my locations now...i wanna do everything i can to ensure i am on good deer in the fall..i want a bow kill buck more than anything...i cant get it off my brain..

The only thing I can offer is that during the spring, I'll go thru areas to look for sign that I otherwise would not walk thru and disturb at other times of the year. If you hunt the same areas, year after year, you won't pick up much. I don't hang stands, but do note trees that I may want to revisit in my climber. Usually rubs show up in the same general areas year afetr yera, with minor tweaking

I don't bother with Spring time scouting, because the deer's spring time pattern is SO much different than that of the fall or winter. My summer (mid July)scouting consist of hanging up 3 trail cameras, basically just looking for "potential" shooters in the general area. Then come the first of Sept. I will begin to "pick and choose certain areas. I may be missing something by not scouting earlier, but it has not failed me yet.

thanx rybo...you were a guy i was hoping would reply...you can pretty much relate to what i mean..and you get big bucks killed pretty regularly.

thats kinda what i was thinking would be the best option..snoop around a bit...check hidden spots i may have over looked...take notes and log my findings..then come mid/late summer do some observing and such and find the spots i wanna hunt and pick the trees and have my lock ons and areas prepped by late august..be out of the area for a month or 2 for sure...

Rybo pretty much echoed my feelings. If for some reason I found the hotspot of hotspots I might hang a stand, but really, until crops are in, the quality of mast crops is determined and some glassing throughout the summer is done we don't need to be hanging a lot of stands. The problem we run into with a lot of these books and magazine articles is they feel a need to come up with something new and dramatic. Much the same as the call manufacturers have to come up with a new "Growl" or "Bark" or "Fart" call each year. I find more and more as we get into more and more access to publications and cyber space articles that people are coming up with a lot of crap to hear themselves type. They all want to come up with the "Ground Breaking" article. I find more and more of them just stretching an isolated happening to make declare it the "New Law of Hunting". Get out, look around, pick some trees and see what the summer and early fall brings. Don't burn yourself out or hang all your stands for deer that might be alive or might not. They might be in the same place in the fall, but they may not be vulnerable there. Read all you want and then go hunting.

I think that going out in the spring can still be beneficiary even if some of the mature bucks in the area that created the sign have been killed. I usually look for deer sign in general, not necessarily buck sign. Good hard trails, white oaks and things like those are always good places you might want to hang a stand. I think that if you find good deer sign and set up you will be likely to have an incounter with deer, both does and bucks.

As for bucks using the same area year after year even if it is a different buck...i have had a spot thati have hunted for the past few years and i have taken quite a few mature bucks off of it. It seems to me that year after year, it always holds good buck. Im sure it depends on numerous other things, though for me, then answer is yes

I sure am glad tohear someone else say they don't think hanging stands in the spring is necessary.
Like david said, how do you know what you'llhave till closer to fall?
Deer change patterns and home range based on the food supply. I would really want to see what the mast crop was going to be like before hanging 5 or 6 stands based on last years activity. Sure , there are always more consistant trails used by deer throughout the year , but based on what I've seen in the past, even those trails don't get the traffic w/o food around.
Now is a great time to find sheds and check a new area. You won't hurt a bedding area if you tromp through it right now. I really think it's too early to pin down stands.

you can look for bedding areas and set stands up now so not to spook them later

I feel like you are about where I amat with my area. I will never go into their bedding area. I skirt the outsides looking for rubs, trails,scraps, especially community scraps and etc. The big bucks are there an if you are not seeing them they are not where you are at during the fall.Check any old roads where they travel during the night time, look fortracks that are much bigger than all the others. Ifyou do find some try to figure out where they were headed or where theywere coming from.Try to figure out where the does are at also during the rut, hunt them. I do not stay in one area long if I am not seeing what I want to see. This is some of what I go by an I do not hang my stands until the morning of the season, They are hidden in a brush top or somewhere nearby so they can not be stolen or clue somebody off where to hunt.

thanx guys...i figured i was better off doing things my way. exspecially in my area. what was corn last year isnt going to be corn this year. and the white oaks that dropped last year most likely wont be dropping this year..

maybe the books were mainly pertaining to new property. i can understand that. which is something i DO wanna do is gain a few new properties. spend my spring and early summer snooping around in them and learning the areas and noting sign...but still wont hang stands. and my other areas i will snoop around areas i might have overlooked. note everything...come fall when the farmer tells me he been seein a big buck here there and there i will already havea good idea where the stands need to go up...sneak in on a rainy day in early sept and hang them and get out..

wait...i only plan to hang 2-3 stands...the rest will be hunted with my climber and one spot is an apple orchard i got sole permission to hunt. i wanna put up a ladder stand in there..

i think ill be set come fall. just gotta wait and see what bigguns are aroung and where