Day 1. Let's get it. I was the nail this year. Next season I will be the hammer. Lets make it happen fellas. If you do any scouting and want to post your findings, do it on here. Good place to learn from each other.
When you scout this time of year, what are you generally looking for? Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
Get it Brett! I'm seriously thinking of doing a Jan squirrel hunt and scout. @pastorjim08 granted I'm further south than Brett and don't get the snow advantage you Hoosier get, but I still find some late scrapes, browse, tracks and travel corridors (sometimes this is little more than turned over leaves or narrow corridors through pines/vines/briars). But the other thing I look for, mostly during turkey season, is different parcels of land. Always looking for food, water, cover and the above.
Timely thread! I'm anticipating at looking at one section of a WMA here in SE TN. A few others close by that would allow scouting and small game hunting. My grandson and I were out a couple of weeks ago and found some rubs that we felt were recent. He missed the youth hunt last weekend due to baseball practice.
I'm looking for pockets of cover/bedding that appear to have buck sign from multiple seasons. For me that is the best way to get into the action where I hunt. Im just not that sophisticated enough to set up between bedding areas and get any consistent buck travel. I have to be at the end game. I want to be close to bedding all year. I walked in a good mile and a half today and did it from the opposite side from which I scouted this past off season. Hardly any buck sign at all even though there was good cover and transition areas. Really weird. Like less than a half dozen small rubs over that mile and a half. I left a cam out there for 2 months. In the month of November I had groups of does come by that cam on average once every 3 days. Over the course of the two months, I had doe groups come by once every six days. However, there was only 1 buck that showed itself on cam. The map of this area looks great and there was no sign of any hunters out there....but the lack of buck sign and lack of trail cam pics of bucks during the rut made me cross that area off my list. Doe groups every 3 days near bedding should bring in some bucks to sniff around, even if it is at night. Nope. This is the only buck to show on cam even though I had multiple picks of large doe groups during the rut. I bet those young bucks are getting blasted during the two month gun season.
I'm in the process of closing on our first home, it's the heart of ice fishing season, and we could get 4-6 inches of snow on Thursday/Friday but I'm still itching to get out there and follow the trails in the snow/look for sheds.
I asked about this because even though I am extremely fortunate to have very good private ground to hunt, I kinda wanted to branch out into some public. That's part of the reason for becoming a saddle bruh as well! I'm trying to soak up all the Info I can find on the subject. Once I retire......again I might also hit some out of state besides Ohio. Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
Winter the best time of year to scout. Everything is laid out like a roadmap. So easy to see. I try not to pressure the deer much if it is super cold. They just been through the gauntlet and are trying to replenish their reserves. Im always looking for buck beds and doe bedding areas. Also find potential food sources and follow the trails backwards. Sometimes this leads right to bedding. As for shed hunting, aside from the obvious places like foodplots, ag fields, bedding areas, fence and creek crossings... i basically Find the fresh poop. Thats what i look for when shed hunting. Fresh Buck poop. Of course i look for sheds too.
Day 2 of scouting was pretty uneventful. I may have to cross most of this place off my list even though Ive put in 2 years of hard scouting. I may have to hunt less and find more quality, even if it means driving an extra 30 mins.
I hope to be getting out to start scouting within the next few weeks. I'm ready to make it happen. 2021, I will kill my biggest buck.
Can’t wait to see you next to a buck of this caliber this year . Kidding kidding. Can’t wait to follow along with your scouting adventures this year! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If driving that extra 30 mins to reliably get on deer saves you multiple fruitless sits, it's 1000% worth it.
I adopted a small WMA 4 miles from my house as a volunteer to look after it, gives me a reason and motivation to spend more time on it.
Found this food plot while scouting a new piece of public with my son Sunday afternoon. The wind was wrong to set there for the evening so we sat another food plot about 500 yards away. What looks like the best bedding cover close to this plot is a draw on the far side of a ridge to the east. The wind was WNW so we walked the perimeter of the food plot. I marked every trail entering the plot as well as an active scrape and picked two different trees for future hunts. Looking at the map after we got home, I found an access route that would work for a west wind as well. A SSE wind would be best though for this spot.
