For years now I have been helping hunters improve their skills when it comes to hunting. A large part of that involves helping them have the right strategy going into deer hunting season. A crucial element in that is when to start scouting and when to stop. What I mean by “when to stop” scouting is; you need to know when to stop entering the woods where you plan to hunt in order to avoid alerting the deer to your presence before you even start hunting there.
I hunt primarily on the eastern side of the United States, which is quite a bit different than hunting farmland in the Midwest. The challenge for a lot of new hunters is that they watch all of these TV shows that are filmed on these farms in the Midwest. Honestly, they seem to be able to get away with a lot more in the Midwest than we can on the east coast. In the states I hunt, PA, NY, MD, VA, WV, there are a lot of mountains and hills, which means constantly swirling wind directions and also a LOT of hunting pressure. You simply can’t afford to be walking in and out of the woods too often right before the season. If you set up a trail camera and check it every week like some people do out west, you will never see the bucks you are getting pictures of because they will have you patterned before the season even starts. This means that when you get close to the season, you need to stay far away from your hunting spots!
In a normal situation, scouting for me ends by the beginning of August and it begins while I am actually hunting in the previous archery season. When I walk into the woods, I am looking for new deer sign as well as what the preferred food sources are at that exact moment in time. I also like to exit the woods using different directions upon leaving a morning hunt in order to explore new areas. If I find a new hot-spot on the way out, I typically leave it alone for a week before going back, and I make sure that I wait for the right wind. I shot a really nice buck on public land in NY hunting this way. If you would like to see the video of me harvesting this deer, you can do so by watching it here.
That hunting area was a place several hours away from my house, so I was seldom there. I visited it once in the spring and picked my hunting spot. When I didn’t prevail on my first hunt in the fall, I walked a different way back to the car and found a bunch of fresh buck rubs and ended up scoring on that buck the following week.
A large key to my success was the minimal amount of times I was in that area throughout the year leading up to the hunting season. Another prime example of that is the buck I shot in Pennsylvania the following season. It gross scored over 143 inch. The way I scouted that spot was by studying the topo maps and aerial photos first, a skill I have spent many hours developing over the past 10 years. (I also have an instructional video I sell on my website that has transformed the way many people scout and hunt, and you can check it out too if you want by clicking HERE.) Knowing how the deer can sometimes use the topography and various natural funnels, I picked a spot on that property and sat in it one day the previous year during gun season (although I was hunting with my bow). Many deer came by me, but no legal bucks were in the group on that particular hunt. Since I knew the spot was an excellent area to funnel the deer to a specific area, I never returned to it until the afternoon I planned to sit it almost a year later. Sure enough, this big 11 point came out to the field following a group of doe just a few minutes before the end of legal shooting light. To see the full hunt, watch this video here.
With all of that in mind, I like to do quick, precise scouting trips while coming out from a hunt during the hunting season, and then I stay out of those areas for a long time before I actually hunt them. Outside of hunting season, my favorite time to scout is just after the season ends. Living in the north east, we often have snow in the winter, so I like to go out and walk around new spots to see where the deer movement patterns are immediately after the first bit of snow hits the ground. I continue to periodically visit places all the way up through August, but especially during spring turkey season. I actually spend a lot of time scouting during turkey season because the woods are already spooked up anyway. I will constantly be branching out and finding new spots. I will ultimately try to have so many spots in an area that I could literally sit one stand an entire season and not need to revisit it because I have so many other options to pick from. A lot of hunters burn out a stand, but that majorly reduces their chances of success.
Anyway, when I do my scouting in the spring, I look for rubs and scrapes that are left over from the previous year. This gives me an idea of how the deer were utilizing the area in the late season, but you need to be mindful that their patterns in the late season may not be the same as they are in the early season. The reason is that hunting pressure and food sources can dramatically change the way the deer behave throughout the season. Therefore, I am mindful that the information I gain from spring scouting may at times be more applicable to hunting in the following late season, and I stay out of the area as much as possible until I’m ready to hunt it. When it comes to hunting the early season, I will simply identify where the thick bedding areas are and where the primary food sources are. This typically means finding white oak trees (white oaks have rounded-edged-leaves whereas red oak have pointed edges. Red oak are typically more bitter tasting, so the deer leave them till the snow thaws in the spring). Knowing where the white oak are from my previous visit, I will then take ONE quick trip to visit that area during the summer to see if those trees are producing acorns that year. I do this by using my binoculars and carefully looking into the tops of the trees. I will then stay out of there until the season! However, if there are no acorns, I don’t hunt that stand location that year because there is no reason for the deer to be at that precise location on a daily basis. YOU NEED FOOD for the deer to have a good reason to be there. No food = no deer in many situations.
The more familiar I get with an area the more I know how to get the information I need with MINIMAL IMPACT on the land. What I mean is, I will wait until the last week of June the following year and hang a few trail cameras in the areas I have honed in on from the previous year while scouting during the season and during spring turkey. After hanging a trail camera at the end of June, I collect them a month later, which is also when I check to see if the oaks are producing acorns that year. I then “stop scouting” that spot until I am walking in and out of the woods on the one or two days I hunt that spot during the hunting season. By scouting this way, you are scouting smart and not giving the deer a lot of opportunities to pattern you. That is the mistake many rookie hunters make. They wait until the last minute, until just before the hunting season, and then they will go into the woods looking for rubs and scrapes. The smart bucks pick up on these rookies right away and immediately start avoiding the areas where the novice hunter has been.
Therefore, try to do your scouting in the late winter and early spring and STAY OUT of your hunting spots as much as possible in the months leading up to the season. Experience proves that your best chances of shooting a good buck is the very first time you sit that stand, and it is because you haven’t been in there a lot to tip the deer off to your presence. I believe that following the ideas I have suggested in this article, if you don’t use them already, will help you be more successful as time goes on. Good luck out there and God bless you!
If you would like a ton of tips for archery and bowhunting white-tailed deer, visit my youtube channel by clicking HERE!