Bocajnala

Anyone ever go into a season with basically zero scouting time? Between a new baby, new job, finishing up school, a sick grandpa, and other family requirements, I just haven't been able to scout. I'm not concerned with gun season, I know I can at least find doe then. But my archery season will be just winging it basically. I've had my camera out a few different spots so I know deer are moving. But I haven't done any of my typical scouting type stuff. Haven't watched fields, walked properties, hung new stands, etc.... My plans are to set up my one ladder stand in a spot that has always been good for deer moving, a nice little funnel between two fields, and use my climber for anywhere else I decide to go. I won't have much time to archery hunt anyway. But I've never had a season with zero scouting time.... Feel like I'm going in blind. Just gonna use my previous knowledge, hope the deer are still using similar patterns and adjust as I go through the season I suppose.
-Jake

alleyyooper

Been there done that with no time for scouting. If I am hunting property I've hunted before 9 times out of 10 things are the same as the year before. Some times if the farmers have changed the crops in a field you can still go back in history and do some thing that worked then.


Al

BarnesX.308

All the time. My hunting property is 2.5 hours away. I have two kids, so I had many years like that.

rockport

If you are hunting familiar spots scouting is over rated IMO. I think you are often better off without it.

I leave certain spots unscouted by design and those spots are where I usually kill big deer.....of course I do know the terrain of these spots.

mounting man

Jake,i am with rockport on this!
If you go to the same areas,as i had,for a very long time, the deer seam to just use the same trails,funnels and bedding spots. Its like the old does teach the young deer the area?
The only down fall,as it was with us,is some one,with a lot of money,buys your whole hunting area or leases and post it!

grinder67

I agree with rockport also. I hunt the same places every year and have since I was a boy.

rockport

I can't tell you how many times Ive scouted a timber just to find out what I already knew. The only thing I really accomplish is now that big mature buck knows Ive been in there too.

BarnesX.308

I'm a little on the fence about this. I have hunted the same place since 1984. But, things are constantly changing there. It's 3000 acres of private property that was completely clear cut years ago and is now too thick to really even see through. It is bordered by game lands that add up to close to 100,000 acres. All of it is unbroken forest, hemlock swamp, laurel thickets, cliffs and mountain steeps or blueberry patches. Where the deer are changes all the time. There's not one agricultural field and then a thick river bottom where the deer always move between. They meander all over the entire mountain and I think their food sources change quite a bit throughout the season.

The young bucks and doe are pretty predictable. This would be the local herd. The ones that stay near the road and houses. They don't go too far and it's pretty easy to find one of them. The big mature bucks are a mile or so back into the bush.

rockport

Your still going to guess wrong way more than you guess right but you only have to be right once.

Give it a shot. Set up on terrain (pinches,saddles,shelves,etc.) and only go there to hunt.

You have to believe in what you are doing as the vast majority of mature buck sign you find scouting is created in the dark and you want to find him in the daylight so you have to have confidence in your ability to find these terrain hot spots that may not have a lot of deer sign because one mature buck may be the only deer using them. .

Oldtimr

My tree stand is a permanent stand fastened to three hickory trees. It is the 2nd one I have build on the property because I lost my first one due to the sale of the 10 acres my stand was on. The property is a little over 100 acres and owned by brothers and sisters and it is used as one property for hunting. One sister sold her patch and the new owner did not want hunting and my stand was on that patch. I have hunted the whole property for about 15 years and know it well, I know the trails and pinch points and they have not changed since I have bee hunting there. I looked around and found a place where I could watch 5 used deer trails and an open field. I do not feel the necessity to scout since I know the areas the deer use when not pressured and when not pressured. I will make a trip to the stand which is in another county toward the end of this month to check for any kind of repairs that may be needed and to replace the die cut cammo material that the sun and weather over the last few years have damaged and I will remove any vegetation that may have grown to block my shooting paths. On the saturday before the season we have sight in day in one of the owners who lives on the property back yard, before we shoot I will take two hunting seats and cable lock them in the stand and I put out my nylon rope that I use to pull things up into the stand. Since two of the owners live on the perifery of the land on opposite sides, which is woods and two small fields that a local farmer has silage grass in, they keep me informed about what is going on on the land. If you know the property unless you are targeting one specific animal, you don't have to scout.

My stand from the field side looking into the woods.



From in the woods looking out to the field. You can see my truck in the field.