Okay. But answer this truthfully
@redsquirrel
How much gear did you purchase last season? How much more scouting did you do?
Did you scout and locate the two 10pts you took off season???
The only gear I purchased was a new bow (and I went with a bear off ebay) because 2 days before the season one of my limbs splintered, and a sladder to try out because I've been waiting to see it since it was announced. I've made a few gear purchases over the past few years to try new things out but I'm mostly using the same setup for 6-7 years now. More than anything I'm apt to pick up an extra of something that I already have and love when it pops up in the classifieds than to buy the "latest and greatest" at this point.
How much scouting did I do? - hard for me to put a number on it. In 2022 I tagged out with my bow on Nov 1st. Usually I start scouting for the next year as soon as I tag out, whenever that may be. I did a little bit of gun hunting but not much and spent more time scouting than hunting after that. I still enjoy gun hunting but bow hunting is my passion and I love scouting as much as hunting so many times I will skip gun hunting in the late season and scout instead. I would honestly guess between 15-20 days, some days as short as 2-3 hours, others as much as 6-8. I had the entire week of thanksgiving off and I spent most of those days scouting. This year I spent a lot of time in the late season duck hunting and was combining duck scouting with deer scouting so I have areas I have to go back and focus on more specifically for deer. But I would say at least a dozen trips out since I shot my last buck. I did a bunch of scouting in October also while I was tagged out waiting for my new tags to come in. I can't scout like I did before we had 2 kids but I can also say I can scout smarter now than I did then. Scouting for me has become more of a part of my lifestyle than something I have to do. The rush that I get when I find a spot that is clearly holding a nice buck is close to the one you get when you actually shoot one. But you get to daydream about that spot all year
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I don't hunt specific bucks as in I know the specific buck that I am targeting usually. I hunt specific areas where I know nice bucks have told me there are living. My first 10 pointer with the bow this year I did locate where I shot him in the post season, or actually I think it was during a late season scouting session. I came back during a nasty rain storm about a week before I shot him to see if the area still looked good. It did, I picked which tree I would climb and my next hunt in was when he showed up. My second 10 pointer was on a piece of property that has a 4 day limited hunt where you're only allowed in a couple weeks before the start to scout. I had located and hunted once this area last year and once allowed in I did a one day speed scouting session through the couple previous spots I had found and to see if I could find any new ones. This was really the only spot that I had any real faith in so I decided that since it was the rut I was going to spend all of my time on this hunt at this spot. I hunted something like 9-3 the first day and saw a spike, and the second day saw a doe around 10 and had him show up between 11-12.