Each year how many hours would you say you spend in the woods preparing for the season and then hunting. I have spent about 10 hours in the woods scouting this year so far and probably another 2 stuck(foot of snow on the mountain) this yea I am hoping to spend around 100 hours scouting and close to the same hunting if not more I planed on going to several other states but I still haven't found anyone to go with or hunt with
I spent more time in the woods scouting last year than ever before and was rewarded by seeing and being within range of more deer each hunt. I plan to do the same thing this year. I would say I scouted over 100 hundred hours for the first time last year. I am going to try to get a good 60-80 hours in this year, maybe more prior to April.
Between foods plots and apple tree pruning,game cameras,ect Plus hanging stands,scouting, then hunting well over 100 hours probably pushing 200 and up.
I am completely changing gears this year. I'm going from hunting iffy private land to public land that I've scouted well. I'm hitting up the Kettle Moraine State Forest almost exclusively this year. I purchased a new GPS and have approximately 12 stand sites that I have scouted by topo and aerial maps that I want to check out so far. I anticipate this year will be better than last year. Can't wait.
Call me crazy but I plan on spending the least amount of time ever for scouting this year. I am taking what I learned from in season last year and relying on that info instead of just walking through the woods and messing everything up.
I don't spend a ton of time scouting anymore, mostly time spent running trail cams. The fact that I have hunted the same property for over 30 years has a lot to do with that. If the season goes as planned I'll usually spend 200+ hours in a stand each season. Dan
I am going to spend much more time scouting this year than I ever have. I have been looking for more land to hunt as well. Hopefully it pays off.
If you already know the lay-out of your land, I would say this would be a decent strategy. If you do not, then I would say you are wasting valuable time not spent in the woods, because at this time of the year you are not "messing" things up by scouting. Scouting has become the number 1 equalizer for me in terms making the most efficient use of my time in the woods, plus I LOVE walking around in the woods when it is nice and cold.
I plan on spending a LOT of time in the woods, not necessarily scouting for deer but doing many other things. I will keep my eyes and ears open while I am there though . I plan on taking my dauhgter crow hunting next Saturday and that will include a fair bit of "woods time". My wife has shown an interest in fox hunting and, although that will be evenings and nights, I'll also use that time to get info on night movement of the deer around here. I am trying to incorporate my wife and daughter into the woods time so as to try and enjoy the best of both worlds.
I enjoy too many other activities to spend too much time scouting. Right now the only scouting I need to do is if I want to expand my knowledge of the public land areas I hunt.
I have no idea how many hours I spend shed hunting, scouting or hunting. Could care less... but probably safe to say more then most. I really enjoy all aspects of it. It is a year long adventure for me. While I don't hunt other states... I hunt a very large area. I shed hunt it all to see what bucks made it. I scout it all to find the best bucks in the area. That takes a lot of time. Again... I love doing it !! My goal is to have at least 3 - 4 big bucks scouted in different areas by the time hunting season starts. Working on the farm limits my time during harvest. When I get a day off... I need to know where certain big bucks are. I want to be able to hunt them with any given wind direction to get the most out of hunting if harvest is taking a lot of my time. I don't like going into a hunt blind and hoping for the best without a clue what is roaming the area. I want a plan for any given day that has the greatest chance of putting me within 30 yards of a big buck. I also hunt on the ground so the less time I spend blundering around and scenting up the place... the greater the odds are that I can get on a buck before he knows I am hunting him. Since it is open here... I need to know how to get in and out of an area without wising up the deer. Shed hunting is a great time to get to know a area without fear of scenting up the place or worrying about busting deer. In the summer I can long range scout to not disturb the area. Give me a spottng scope/time over a trail camera any day. It works best for me for my tree barren area. I like hunting as close to a bedding area of a known buck to have the greatest odds of catching him on his feet during daylight. Simce we don't have mast bearing trees here... I need to know where the perferred food source is during any given period of time. I need to figure out how he will travel through an area to get to it. I want to stress that this is what works for me. It won't be the same for someone who hunt woods or small properties. You are asking a very good question and everyone can be right with all the different answers depending on their situation... terrain... desire... time of year they are hunting. Examples of what I am talking about... 1. Open country verses big woods. 2. Ground hunting verses tree stand hunting 3. Season starts in September verses someone else's starting mid October. 4. Early season tactics verses prerut/rut tactics verses late season tactics. 5. Hunting one area verses hunting mutlple areas. 6. Hunting small acreage verses big acreage. 7. The time desired to putting into scouting. 8. The amount of time one can hunt. I will take early season over prerut/rut here any day. Most would not say that and look forward to prerut/rut. The best chance here " for me " to take a big buck with bow is early season. I would rather bow hunt late season in the cold then hunt the rut here for the same reason. Sorry for getting windy but it is the best way for me to answer your question.
As time goes on, I find myself doing less and less scouting. Maybe I'm completey wrong or completely off base here, but I feel that it isn't quite as important as many people make it out to be. Especially winter/spring scouting. To me it's not always the total time you spend scouting, but making effective use of the time you do spend. So I guess quality over quantity. My reasoning is like this: The majority of people I know usually spend a lot of time scouting during late winter/early spring simply because this is what we've taught ourselves to do. So we walk and we walk and we walk some more, all the while looking for the precious sign that's going to lead us to the promised land of mature bucks. We document rubs, scrapes, beds and all the other deer sign we can find in hopes of unlocking the big mystery. Trouble is, we're either analyzing old sign made by deer that for all we know may no longer be alive, or we're analyzing sign that was made during the winter months where deer's travel patterns and living habits are drastically different than they will be come next fall. So what are we really learning? Are we gaining precious knowlege that will help us, or are we simply throwing ourselves off the trail? For many people, I feel the latter may be the most accurate. When it comes to scouting I feel that the macro view is much more imporant than the micro view. I don't need to know where every rub, scrape, bed or pile of poop is at. What I do need to understand is the topography of the land, general bedding and feeding areas, and the travel corridors that connect them. Much of this I can get from topo and aerial maps without ever setting foot into the woods. Of course you can't learn 100% of the info you need from maps, which is why some scouting is very important. But does it really require 100's of hours of time to walk some properties, get the lay of the land, figure things out and make some decisions? Probably not. For me I prefer to do some walking for sheds because it's good excercise, I like to see what bucks made it through winter and it's fun. I don't really do it for the scouting value. After all, you may find sheds miles from where that buck spends his time in October/November so the location of the shed in most cases will tell you very little other than that buck was alive and in that spot at some point in recent history. My time now and in the future will be spent glassing feeding fields in the summer (which in many cases doesn't give you as much info as you think) and using trail cameras to locate the bucks I want to hunt, when I can hunt them. Some in-season scouting to locate fresh sign IMO is much more valuable than finding rubs made 4-5 months ago from a buck that may no longer exist or may have moved into a new area. Sometimes I think we try to put more importance on things either because we falsely believe that we need to in order to be successful, or because we want to be more hardcore than the next guy. You spend 20 hours scouting? Well I spend 50!
Justin, I agree! I killed a 140 class buck a few years ago the 1st time I set foot on a piece of property. I could see the lay of the land from the road and I knew it was an obvious funnel. The first NE wind I got I was in there predawn getting a stand setup and killed him a few hours later. I knew there were good bucks in the area and I knew this was an obvious funnel between doe bedding areas. The rest was easy. It's kind of like an Ol' Timer told me years ago. "The only tracks I'm interested in are the ones he's standing in" Dan
TJF, Justin, and MeanV...good posts. For me I have to walk a decent amount on the grounds I hunt in the off-season. I have to learn new spots each year as each area I hunt on the miltary base may be closed down at any second and for an unspecified amount of time. I need to know a good 200-300 acres here and there to be able to adapt to the ever changing environment where I hunt. Justin, great points about analyzing old deer sign and making too big a deal of it come the current season. One thing I have found where I hunt however, the older mature bucks tend to lve in and around certain spots every year. They know where the best bedding spots are located, so if you find a mature buck bed one year in a certain spot, you can almost be assured that another older buck will come in and bed in that same general area once it is vacated. So off-season winter scouting in terms of locating solid mature buck beds can produce results come the upcoming season. That sign is pretty consistent from year to year in terms of large rubs/scrapes in specific spots, flanking a big bed or two in certain terrain. TJF. I really LOVE the year round approach as well. So I really like walking and looking for new things in the deer woods. The increased amount of scouting I have performed over the years has made me a much better deer hunter. I will continue to scout hard on the ground each off-season in order to continue to get better. Cool thread.
Thanks for everyone's input. I got a lot of ideas now I know that spending a lot of time in the woods isn't always what you need to do. Sometimes you need to use what you get from the season.
