A lot of things sound good on paper, but fall apart during practice, and it’s not just a government thing.
The importance of scouting for deer “just prior to the season” is a perfect example.
All these articles about scouting we see every year seem to make perfect sense, but in a practical sense, scouting “just prior to the season” usually does more harm than good for one simple reason: deer will pattern you much quicker than you pattern them.
I’m not saying that all these articles are necessarily wrong, and they do teach us a lot about interpreting sign, but every one of them should come with a bold warning label, sort of like cigarettes: WARNING: SCOUTING TOO CLOSE TO THE SEASON CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR SUCCESS.
I’m basing this on a awful lot of bow hunting experience. Over the years I’ve learned a lot of things that have helped me keep the freezer full and the electricity on throughout the winter. Of them all, the AVOIDANCE of scouting is probably the most important.
Whenever we walk through the woods, every deer within a hundred yards or more of our path knows we’re there, because humans are noisy creatures in the woods, and when we’re scouting, we seem to think we don’t have to be quiet or stealthy because we aren’t actually hunting.
During the process of scouting, we spook a tremendous number of deer we didn’t even realize were there, because the only ones that snort are the ones we surprise at close range. The rest of them just slip away and stay away.
People who wear rubber bottomed boots and take many precautions against the distribution of their scent while hunting, think it is fine to scout in tennis shoes or smelly work boots.
Consequently, they leave all kinds of stink all over the place, and any deer that isn’t directly spooked by the scouting process becomes alerted to the fact humans were there for a day or two after they’re long gone.
Deer consider our presence quite disturbing, whether we are carrying a weapon or not, and they will go out of their way to avoid any place were they saw or smelled us for some time. For most deer, it takes about a week for them to get over our noisy and odoriferous intrusions, and it may take a big buck even longer. That’s why so many times hunters who find oodles of evidence of deer activity just prior to opening day don’t see anything come opening day–not even fresh sign.
Despite the common advice, just prior to an actual hunt is the worst time of all to scout. I’ve learned, however, that a good spot remains a good spot, year after year. So I start the season in old faithful places I haven’t visited since last season and branch out from there.
The exceptions are spots I find a month or so prior to the season during early squirrel hunting excursions. Squirrel hunting is a great way to scout for deer, because you do it with great stealth, full camouflage, and you go slow enough to notice a lot of little things. No scouting should ever be done at a fast pace.
It’s not that I don’t scout at all during the season, and it’s not that I don’t like to do it, but I rarely scout before I climb up a tree. Almost all of my scouting is done after I climb down without a knife in my hand.
Once the bow season starts, I scout brand new spots only during the early afternoon, with a stand on my back and a bow in my hand. If I find a promising place, I climb a tree and hunt it during that first entry. Then I leave it alone for at least a week. Deer move mostly at night, so while I may sometimes hunt the same spot morning and evening, I never hunt the same spot one evening and the next morning.
I use a climbing stand and try to hunt a different spot every day, resting every spot at least a week. I know a lot of spots, and I add to them every year, but where I hunt each day usually is determined by the direction of the wind when I head out the door, and which spot I haven’t been to in a while.
I realize that most people can’t hunt that much, but the point I’m trying to make is that if you feel you must scout prior to the season–do it well before the season. Otherwise you’re probably hurting your chances much more than helping them.
Ron Kruger has been an outdoor writer/photographer/editor for over 30 years.
Tags: bow hunting, deer, deer hunting, gun hunting, scouting
