After reading several threads on here I'm finally going to ask the question: Are you really "scouting" OR being "Intrusive"? How often do you "scout" during season? I see a lot of people burning rubber this time of year to locate a good deer on cam and then when he disappears they don't put the same effort into locating the same or another during season. They rely on luck or the rut to bring him back rather than being aggressive and relocating. I also see a lot of people mess a good buck up by checking cameras WAY to often and then wonder why the deer is totally nocturnal. So what's your thoughts.... Are you scouting or intruding?
I have watched bucks go nocturnal for several years right around when the velvet comes off and the buck groups break up, has nothing to do with human impact
Yea that's their natural instinct once testosterone kicks in and velvet drops. I'm talking about constantly "pressuring" a property, whether it be checking cams, moving stands, checking plots, basically being in there to be in there. Do you think you'd have a better chance at killing that buck if you knew he was on camera, had an idea where he bedded, and went in for the kill when the time was right. Rather than hoping to kill him by constantly intruding on his tract of land.
Our property in Ohio and even properties up in Michigan we hunt human impact has everything to do with deer going nocturnal or getting ran off of the property all together.....IMO. Small game season, over checking trail cams, setting treestands just before deer season...all stuff that often happens right around the time velvet starts to drop. That's why we are going full tilt trying to get everything done now so the last couple months it is very low impact. None of us small game hunt our deer hunting lands much if at all. This past season in Ohio we saw that several of our good bucks left the property just before the rut, about a week before we actually hunted the property. We attributed that to our lack of does residing on the property and the bucks began traveling to seek out does on other properties. As far as making changes, we don't have a lot of other options down there when they do leave. Hopefully with the cornfields from last fall/winter drawing in new does helped as it seems we have a few more residing there than in year's past.
It is either one or the other in my opinion. I live where I hunt and I am in the area I hunt every day, I feed everyday outside of hunting season. I mow the pasture area near the deer feeder I have close range encounters 30-40 yards on a regular basis. Typically when I have these encounters the deer walk off rather than a flight reaction. I have been using this approach for over 10 years and it seems to work. I know the tactics I use if I tried it in big woods or in pressured areas my hunting would be terrible. I am lucky in that I have no hunters within 5 miles of me
One of our properties is a known hot spot for deer, especially in the fall. We only enter that property to hunt in the fall or look for morels in the spring. Other than that, we only scout by watching the activity around the property. We don't bother with trail cams here. This seems to work fine. Our other property seems to always have some sort of human interaction, whether it's fishing the ponds, ginseng hunting, or camping in the cabin. The deer here seem a little more spooked but they still walk right up to the cabin. I feel that we would be intruding on the one property if we started running trail cams all the time. However, on the other property we can scout more because the deer are used to human interaction. I think it all depends on the deer herd and how well you minimize harmful interactions.
I think the 24/7 data I gather from a trail camera placed on the fringe is better than a stroll every once in awhile in the interior. I check my cams on average every 10 days and I seem to do ok during hunting season.
The most I do is go sit in the stand and observe a few times before season and check trail cameras every 3-4 weeks during "off-season". If I go sit in the stand, I dress and use scent elimination as if I were hunting.
Scouting and being intrusive go hand in hand... It's all part of the adventure. I enjoy checking my trail cameras every 3 weeks or so - I am really not concerned about chasing a specific deer off of my property by checking my trail cams that often because I don't place the cameras in the core of the property. I scout early spring which doesn't have any impact on if the deer stays on the property throughout the year. Moral of the story for me: I am having fun while scouting and checking cameras, and I could care less if I don't see that giant buck every year. Shooting one is obviously an added perk, but I am happy just to be out there.
I've hunted the same properties for years. I put out cams to see what I have leftover from the year before not necessarily to "scout" the deer. That being said, I'm hunting public this year and other than Google-Scouting I've decided I'm going to more often than not, walk in and hunt "cold turkey." I'm interested into seeing how my results are going to be. Of course, the fact that I'm going to hunt cold turkey doesn't mean a dozen other yahoos have been making deer in the exact same area nocturnal for 3 months...lol.
I believe it is possible to scout too much. I only start seriously looking for deer to hunt about a month before the hunt. Once I find them, I pretty much leave them alone. I might watch them from a distance about once a week until the hunt starts, but I don't put any pressure on them. I watch them enough to know what their patterns are so I have a good idea what they are going to do once the season starts. I also spend a lot of time watching how their patterns change once the hunt does start.
