How many “spots” do you scout ?

[Northcountryman]

Hey guys;

So I’ve been busy doin a lot of fishing , doin trout in the spring and a lot of warm water as of late due to the heat ; now, I figure I gotta make some time for some scouting!! 

 

Last season, I plotted 2 spots on my gps that I wanted to explore more throughly this year and hang stands but what I was wondering is, should I check out more spots or is 2 good enough? 

I’m ourchasing trail cams for these 2 spots but may be there are even better places to hang them? 

 

Thanks for any any input or advice, 

David 

[Robhuntandfish]

Really depends on the spot.  The right spot that is loaded with deer and your set.  But can never have too many spots is my theory.   

Someone can have 200 acres but a guy with the right 40 might have more and better deer.  

I've got 14 stands up on 4 different properties .  For reasons of wind direction and deer movement and not over hunting a spot.  

But I always tell people have a minimum of two in an area one for a west wind and one for an East wind at the least

[G-Man]

i hang over 30 stands a year. and always scout new spots

[Swamp_bucks]

I hunt stateland 95% of the time so im always scouting.  I dont think you can ever have to many spots to hunt.   But like robhuntandfish said try to have a setup for each wind if possible.  

[Doc]

This time of year, I am a "hiker". I wander all over my hunting area, checking out known past hotspots and occasionally going through some areas.  What am I looking for? ...... primarily checking oak trees and the occasional wild apple trees and checking where the wild grape vines are. Tracks and scat are interesting from a deer inventory standpoint, but most of the time, deer are traveling differently than they will come October 1. Food sources are in a continual state of change. Bedding areas are interesting to locate, but they too change with the seasons.

I do hunt some state land, so it is good to check non-hunting pressures (mountain bikers and hikers and bird watchers) on certain areas. Any activities that can impact patterns are good things to know about.

I spend a lot of time re-building ground stands even if the locations do not yet look hot. Experience with many of them shows that even though the areas look dead right now, that can change with something as simple as acorn-drop or rut.

So the answer to your initial question is that I have an infinite number of places to scout. It's not a case of finding a couple of spots, but more of keeping a running account of what is happening in the entire hunting area so that when the season comes, I will have a good idea where the deer should be as the season, food sources, and the rut progresses. I also place as much value on past hunting experiences as I do the current scouting (maybe even more so). Past hunts tell me a lot about how the wind behaves in an area and directions and times of deer travel and why the deer are where they are.

[wolc123]

On 7/28/2018 at 9:17 AM, Northcountryman said:

Hey guys;

So I’ve been busy doin a lot of fishing , doin trout in the spring and a lot of warm water as of late due to the heat ; now, I figure I gotta make some time for some scouting!! 

 

Last season, I plotted 2 spots on my gps that I wanted to explore more throughly this year and hang stands but what I was wondering is, should I check out more spots or is 2 good enough? 

I’m ourchasing trail cams for these 2 spots but may be there are even better places to hang them? 

 

Thanks for any any input or advice, 

David 

It depends on how many days you are planning to hunt.  If your only plan on getting out a few times, then two spots might be ok.   My best hunt from any stand is very often my first one, each season.  The reason for that is: each time you hunt a spot, you leave scent behind.   Deer are mostly nocturnal, so even if you see nothing by day, they will smell the scent you left behind, when they visit the area at night.   That is also one of the reasons why I don't use trail cameras.   

I am the only one who hunts on about 100 acres total in the southern zone, between my folks place and our place, and I currently have (10) stands and blinds on those two farms.  That gives me coverage for various wind conditions.  Each season, I tweak the location of stands a little, mostly based on what happened and what I saw on the previous season.  This afternoon, I located a good tree to move a stand to over at my folks place.  I am also very short of free time this year, so that move, and lowering a high tree stand to a more comfortable elevation at home, will probably be my only "tweaks" this year.   

Less pressure means better hunting, and my hunting at home in the southern zone has got a lot better the last 5 years, since my in-laws moved up to the northern zone.  Now I hunt half as much at home, but still average about the same number of deer here as I did when I hunted twice as much.  We have been eating real good when you throw in those "bonus" deer from up north.   The deer are fewer and further between up there, but the scenery is many times better and the hunting pressure is many times less.   

Up there, I mostly hunt from a seat on the ground, always picking an optimum spot based on the wind.  I also still hunt between spots, but have only taken one deer that way, compared to (3) from the seat.   With 500 acres of private land up there, adjoining 6.5 million acres of public, there is no reason to hunt the same spot more than once a season, or at least not more than one on a long weekend.

Edited July 30, 2018 by wolc123