snedd162

Best thing to do is to hang a stand and hunt the area you want to scout. Scouting at this point is for post season. Your best bet is to take a shot and pick a tree to hang a stand.

tdoro89

someone on here said scout during the middle of the day. But ive seen deer very active between 11am and 1pm. Its not like they sleep from 930-10 am all the way till 4pm... i think deer might have 2-3 hour naps at various times during the night and day, followed by 2-3 hour periods where they are awake and moving around.

Night Crawler

here's a form of hunting and scouting all in one. Stalking, walk at a snails pace stop every step or 2 and have a look around. Might even sneak up on a monster.

Sfury

Well, I'm an ambush hunter. I scout throughout the fall patterning my prey. I walk throughout the area I hunt potentially up to the weekend before the gun deer season begins.

I didn't set my stand up until the Sunday before the opener last year. I even walked into my stand the Friday before to drop off some items for the opening day. I shot my buck opening morning. It's something that my family has done during many seasons.

Some years we wait for days before we get a shot. Either way, the deer don't leave the area. They just avoid the people they spot first. Stay quiet, stay still, and you can win out over your prey. It's a matter of waiting them out in a well chosen spot.

Patience in some years yields great results. The spot and stalk hunters had a huge disadvantage with the weather conditions where I hunted last year. Way too noisy to be effective last year. In other years, they have more success. It's a gamble on methodology and weather conditions.

tight360

Which why I do not use trail cams, never have. I scout using tree stands in the off season, when 1OCT comes around, I hunt and hunt only. Trail cams could never tell me where they come from, bed down or where they go when they aren't in the frame. You can get some nice pics to show your friends though.

esguerra27

im newbie of this forum.

tight360

I've shot 9 of my 14 bucks between the hours of 9a - 3p.

cal516

I scout sometimes after a morning hunt. When I get down I drop off my stand and take a long slow walk in the woods looking for any sign. A friend of mine and I did just this yesterday. He took me to a spot that had been productive opening day bow but we both didn't see a thing. We started from where we walked in from our trucks and walked a trail along a ridgeline. It was barely wide enough to walk because the ridge was so steep and there was swamp on the other. We saw sign along the way and when it came out there were enormous amounts of tracks crisscrossing when area opened up. We followed it out and it dumped to a soybean field that had not been cut. At the very edge of the field was a few rubs. We left. I hunted there that night and sure enough a huge doe walked right out the trail we walked just a few hours prior and right under my stand.

Had we not taken the time to figure out where the deer had moved we would not have discovered a new little afternoon spot to hunt.

cal516

I scout sometimes after a morning hunt. When I get down I drop off my stand and take a long slow walk in the woods looking for any sign. A friend of mine and I did just this yesterday. He took me to a spot that had been productive opening day bow but we both didn't see a thing. We started from where we walked in from our trucks and walked a trail along a ridgeline. It was barely wide enough to walk because the ridge was so steep and there was swamp on the other. We saw sign along the way and when it came out there were enormous amounts of tracks crisscrossing when area opened up. We followed it out and it dumped to a soybean field that had not been cut. At the very edge of the field was a few rubs. We left. I hunted there that night and sure enough a huge doe walked right out the trail we walked just a few hours prior and right under my stand.

Had we not taken the time to figure out where the deer had moved we would not have discovered a new little afternoon spot to hunt.

JeffHoskins

It is very true that they nap for 2-3 then get up for 2-3 hours. Generally they lie down to chew their cud and digest their food. Deer are ruminants meaning they have a 4 chambered stomach. They go out finding food and store the food in the first stomach, then on the bed they regurgitate it and rechew it and swallow to the second stomach. This allows them to quickly find food and go back to cover and finish eating it. This keeps them hidden for longer increasing survival of them and their young. I hunt on what is practically a wildlife preserve, 3k acres of old growth hardwoods, never cut. The land is practically never used so the deer behave in a natural manner. I have seen them come to my acorn trees to feed for an hour then lie down close by and chew their cud for 2-3 hours and get back up to feed. Last week I climbed a tree with 4 deer bedded within 60yds and they did not flee. When the son came up they stood up at 730am, ate for an hour and laid back down to digest. Luckily they walked off after that so I could leave, 2 does and 2 fawns.