scouting lets you know were to start hunting. after you have been sitting during season you get a better idea i scout from the end of bow season until it starts and usually have a lot of areas i am familiar with. then you have options

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Don't hardly scout, property is rather small around 35acres that is long and skinny. Can watch a couple of fields that they feed in by looking out the window.

I'm also on public land and it's about an hour or so from the house. So I go in there a couple times a year, there's a large lake near by so I take the kids fishing and check it out on the way back.

I get some info from a couple other guys that I know hunt the same public ground and then by what I see when I go in to hang my stand.

This year I guess I got lucky, I've been seeing deer, no shots yet but it's been close. I choose not to risk a bad shot, but the deer have been there.

I'm not holding out for any big antlered critter, I have four doe tags and I'll take them as they come in and if I get a shot a t a buck. It's a bonus.

I scout when I can....my land and leases are five hours away. I know the land pretty well, I've been hunting in that area for over twenty years. Still, it is nice to know if there are conditions that are making the deer behave differently than they have before.

I hunt public about an hour from home as well. Try useing "google earth"it is free to download, and the satalite imagry is great. I only get 4-5 days in the fall to scout so i use the imagry to find all of the "good lookin" spots, then check them on foot when i get the chance. It realy cuts down on the amount of time spent wandering the woods.

I scout very little before the season. In fact when I see some sign of a good buck, I back out. I'm afriad I'll make them leave if I keep stomping around in there. I'm pretty sure that tracks are the only way to really predict the size of an animal. So if I see even a small rub and some big tracks, I'm gone until it is time to hunt.

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I'm scouting all the time..............driving down the road I'm looking for deer and new possible hunting spots........most of my scouting is done from long range with a spotting scope or bino's, the only time I scout in the woods is during season with the bow in my hand & stand on my back. My main hunting area is 300 acres and to go into the woods in the off season just contaminates the area and pushes deer to the nieghboring land. So my definition of scouting my be a little different than others,but it garners the same results.

Hunt only PL that it's 2 and 3 Hrs from home...I don't get much time for scouting or hunting for that mater, but I still try to do all my scouting with maps and other info over the internet...By the way...have not kill any deer yet (this is my 1st year)