Bucky10

How many of you bowhunters or shotgun/rifle start scouting now until season and what do you look for this early

nub

Mushrooms! Seriously tho, a side from the shrooms, I find trails, sheds, old rubs and scrapes. Bedding areas are good to find this time of year. I' m not too worried about bumping them this early.

skeeter 7MM

I scout all year via walking, while hunting, shed hunting, glassing fields & driving around. However during fawn dropping season I stay well away from the bush they live in and scout from a far. In our area this is may/june. I tend to scout very little in this time period, except the odd evening drive with the fam. I find it more productive to start scouting in mid july and then heavily in August just prior to the Bow Season in Sept. By this time you' ll see the bucks growth in antlers, bachelor groups, feeding patterns, trails, old rublines, etc.

However if it is a new area then a walk to familarize yourself now and then is a good idea. Since most my area I have hunted for a number of years, I have very little base scouting to do. I spent more time scouting from a far to see what bucks around, numbers and try to pick up & key on any patterns the deer have. I carry a small pad of paper to jot down notes. I also have maps and plot the areas with my findings each year. The map allows me to analize where they are bedding, what corridors they travel on and where they are feeding and watering. This allows me to analize where I should position for wind direction and time of day I plan to hunt, in realtion to the deers patterns. Of course fine tuning happens when I am hunting.

The most important things to look for is bed, save corridors for travel, food & water. It is critical that while locating these spots you find areas where you can be positioned for concealment and ambush sites that will up your odds at harvesting game with archery equipment. Once you have located these essentials the rest like: rubs, scrapes, etc all fall into place.

Summer scouting is great time to take kids and the wife or girlfriend out. It will allow them to see what it is like, enjoy the outdoors and live in your passion....the bonus is wife is happy cuz your all together and your happy cuz your doing what you love to do. Payoff comes in the fall when you come home with your harvest and your family knows the spot where you took your deer...becomes a family trophy! If you don' t have a family or wife, well then go hard...just remember this when you do

whitetails & muskies

I really enjoy scouting the first several weeks after the snow leaves the ground in spring. I was up to the area I hunt, opening the cabin this past weekend and scouted a little, but tooooo much darn work to do. Still even had a little snow on the north facing ridges.

This time of the year, rubs and scrapes still look quite fresh. Find a nice shed or two and you " know" he made it through last season as well as the winter!! I have found some of my best spots in the month of April.

Not much time this past weekend, so I didn' t scout much at all, but I did find a set of fresh tracks that I could lay four fingers wide in it....nice deer for sure. The best part is they were no more than 100 yards from one of my stands!! Oh Baby....


So, scout just like it' s fall. You will at least find where he was last year, and if he made it through the winter, he' ll be bigger this year, and probably re-visit this very same area, if he' s not living there already. A real bonus is finding rubs in a general area that are from consecutive previous years...in other words, old rubs + new rubs in THE same area = a big buck haven.

Rack-attack

I am almost all done for this year.

Worked my butt of almost every weekend the weather permitted. New trees cut, trails cut, new bedding areas found and set up. A new plot of woods mapped out and setup. One big antler found

I have a few more things to do, Then I won' t go neer my stands untill hunting season. Aug and Sept I distance scout bachelor herds.

it is fishing time

timbercruiser

No, during the spring and summer I feel that the patterns and food sources will be completely different from the fall and winter.

hntngirl

I spend so much time in the mountains where I hunt, it' s like my second home. I spend alot of time just hiking, picking chantrelles, looking for sheds, or any of the other cool stuff you can find on deep walks in. I do make mental notes of where I see nice rubs or other sign (and the actual deer I see). Based on late last fall and this spring, I think I have my opening day narrowed down to two spots, even though it' s still over five months away.

Bucky10

Are you being serious Timbercruiser, if so why do you think that they will be different?

Rack-attack

Bucky

It doesn’t matter if the deer have diff. patterns. Heck they could be 200 miles away for all I care. There sign is still there, the woods are still there, and there is still tons of things to learn or discover.

In the off season you do not pattern single deer, but you learn the woods, the beds (areas you may not go near during the season). Now is the time to trample through it. If you already now the general pattern and habits of your local deer, you will know what spots may produce and what spots wont.

Set up as many trees as you can, you may not need them but they are there if you do.

You will learn something new every time out

Good Luck

timbercruiser

Bucky the area I hunt has a lot of deer. On one 120 acre area I hunt on I saw 24 bucks this year that were not shot as an example and we have about 4000 acres leased. Food sources change, timber is harvested and other things will change the deer patterns between now and fall and besides some of the land I hunt I have been hunting on for 35 or so years. All I would get would be a bunch of redbugs and I get plenty of them working buying timber.