More important..Time on stand or pre-season preparation?

Which do you find more important to your deer hunting success, time spent hunting or pre-season scouting/preparation?

Would you give up 20-30 hours of scouting to gain 20-30 hours of hunting time?

 

What's Dan Infalt's motto?

Scout, scout, scout, hunt.



Sorry to kill your thread Brett. before it even got started :D

No, seriously... there's an itty bitty argument to be made that you can't kill 'em from your couch, and you never know... but time invested in good scouting/preparation will alleviate 90% of that never knowing.

 

Greg, no problem my friend. I bet some people hunt in a manner or in an area where time hunting is more important than time scouting.

 

Undoubtedly.

To some extent, I could lay claim that my hunting area falls under that aspect as well... though, in truth, it's mostly because I've hunted it so much and know it like the back of my hand now.

There's only SO many places that are "good" spots... and it's just a matter of putting enough time on stand to have a shooter buck cruise by. Again, that's so because of previous years' worth of scouting.

When I broach into a brand-new spot, I have better luck following Dan's above motto... though I'll admit to sometimes having a feeling of not wanting to "mess the area up" with too much scouting (i.e., spreading too much scent around), and I'll scout minimaly just enough to feel I've garnered enough intel to warrant hanging a stand and I'll set up real quickly in an attempt to catch something completely off-guard and unaware.

 

And 1000's of trail camera photos. I am in the same boat as what Greg said

 

Shadow, thats a hard one. To me they go hand in hand. If you lose time scouting you may loose knowledge. If you loose stand time you loose oportunity durring the season. I beilieve they are equally important. That being said, I would rather lose some of my scouting time and gain stand time. That is as long as I would have at least some scouting time.

 

Do you believe pre-season scouting is more important to hunting in the early season as compared to late October/November? So quite possibly scouting is more important as it pertains to the early season as compared to when bucks are running wide open....not sure.

 

I would give up every ounce of pre-season scouting to double my time in the woods during the fall. Between using topo maps/aerial photos from the comfort of my own computer and in-season scouting on the fly I feel I have plenty of information to be successful.

Pre-season (spring/summer) scouting, to me, is just a bonus and a way to kill time until the fall.

 

Since this is my first full season of scouting (meaning all year doing it) and based on my limited knowledge/experience it seams to me and I could be wrong on this one, that preseason is more important due to I would think bucks are more likely to be more random during the rut based on where the does are. Like I said though this is my first full year of scouting so I will find out this coming season.

 

I would say preseason scouting big bean or alfalfa fields patterning bachelor groups of bucks to try and harvest one of them the 1st week of the season is a great tactic

 

Here's a thought, or situation... that may not be applicable to everyone, but certainly is to the area I hunt.

Pre-season or summer scouting is important to the area I hunt for about the first two weeks of season; that's it. After that, the bucks are out of their summertime feeding patterns due to a variety of factors: Human pressure, shortening daytime hours, perhaps just the feeling that the onset of winter is coming on (e.g., testosterone building, velvet shedding, et al.) and last -- but certainly not least -- the food sources drying up (think beans) or changing (i.e., corn harvested, etc.)

After that time, what you knew about their summertime routines is now mostly pointless.

 

You are very right Greg. Our season starts earlier then most states so I can get a month out of it instead of just 2 weeks. The examples you listed are spot on.

Scouting never ends for me. I will still scout a lot more then I hunt in a normal hunting season. Whether it be sitting in a combine, driving to and from work, during dinner breaks at work, scouting inbetween AM and PM hunts or scouting while hunting.

Tim

 

To answer Brett's question. I wouldn't give up scouting... especially preseason scouting to get more hunting time. The amount of hunting I get in is determined by my job. Scouting less wouldn't help me in any way. It would only hurt me.

Tim

 

Throwing out more tips here...

Some people overlook the most obvious "scouting" tidbits as well. I have actually killed bucks doing this.

People don't pay attention enough to what Will Primos calls "MRI" -- which means "Most Recent Information"... When I'm talking to the landowner on the biggest farm I've got permission to hunt on, and he tells me he's seen a shooter come out in the same spot a couple times in the far corner of the bean field, I'm on it.

I've done it before with a friend who's an engineer for a train company that travels through the area I hunt... You can glean such knowledge from school-bus drivers and mailmen as well.

Having contacts who spend a lot of time around your hunting area when you're not there -- but don't hunt themselves -- is worth its weight in gold.

 

Quite giving away all the good secrets dammit !!!!!!!!! You are on a roll tonight !! Now knock it off. :D I always go out of my way to stopping in and saying hi to the farmers/landowners that give me permission. Those chit-chats are always beneficial before we really get into scouting.

Tim

 

OK, OK... You're right; enough secrets. From here on out, the newbies are gonna have to earn their stripes themselves. :D

 

:D I wasn't worried about the newbies though. It turkeys like Crik, Buckeye, Fran, Preacher Tony and such that might benefit from it !!!!!

Tim

 

With my teaching career, I get a huge amount of time to scout and could afford to give a little of it up. I would swap a little scouting time for more "morning" hunt hours. With my work schedule, morning hunts are sparse. Evening hunt time is plentiful though.

 

Every situation is different.

Scouting/preparation is by far the most important for me, I do lots of map work.

If you or I hunted a lease in Pike Co. IL.....it wouldn't matter if we scouted at all, time on the stand and watching the wind would be the most important.

 

Good points. Kind of why I am thinking about this is that I was out bass fishing the other day when a driving thunderstorm started pounding down. I had to take my kayak and ground it because the winds were so bad. It rained sheets for an hour. I didn't take shelter, I didn't just relax, I busted off into the woods and scouted some spots. After an hour the rain subsided, I was left muddy and soaked, but I found "1" spot. I was wondering if it was even worth it since I didn't find any beds, only some tracks that were being quickly washed away. It was a remote pain in the rear area to get to. I hunted around the spot for years, but had never seen the tiny, thickly vegetated point look the way it did. Browse, cover, linking terrain, and heck to get to for the average hunter=good where I hunt. I saw a beautiful 2.5 year old 2 years ago 150 yards from the point and almost killed the buck of my dreams 3 years ago within 500 yards of the point. I am going to head back in there this weekend and tromp through the darn area.