Deer eat sleep breed and try not to get eaten. That’s it. Anytime you see a deer walking or running, it’s coming from or going to do one of these things. When they are doing these things, and where, are very important. If you hunt in highly pressured areas, they won’t be doing that traveling very often in daylight or areas open enough to be seen by things trying to eat them. So how do you find out when and where deer are doing things?
Walk. Leave your tree climbing stuff at home. Put a couple sandwiches and 3/4 bottles of water in a fanny pack and go walk. Don’t map out a route with 100 waypoints to check out. Just pick an area that you can cover in a day. Bring a notebook or your phone or whatever method of remembering stuff works for you. If you find a deer trail, push leaves back and see if travel is in one direction or both. Note that. Then follow it until it either runs into a food source, or disappears into thick cover. Almost all deer trails start and end this way. The only other trails you’ll encounter in the open are buck cruising trails during rut. They typically run across all the normal trails other deer are using so they can scent check quickly. They are not obvious or easy to find sometimes. Don’t waste your time right now.
Just walk. Cover as much of the ground you plan to hunt as possible. I’ve covered a couple hundred miles so far this season. I don’t consider scouting a waste of time. I consider sitting in a tree with really low odds of a deer coming by during shooting hours a waste of time. I spend 80% of my time on hunting ground walking, and 20%, maybe, in a tree. I don’t climb a tree unless the sign makes me do it.
I recommend two resources - ‘my style of hunting’ by Mr Warren Womack - it’s a sticky in the deer hunting forum. Obviously your land and food is somewhat different. Just the concepts are what’s important. The other is whitetails by Dr bob Sheppard. Again, disregard specific details about weather or terrain. Concepts is what you’re after. You can believe Disney and that deer are like people and do all the weird things we do. Or, you can apply scientific method and math to hunting and shorten your learning curve.
I read both of these before every season.
If your goal is to only shoot large bucks, good luck. The folks who make a habit of doing that either have an abundance of one or all of three things: experience, time, and money. Until you have one of those things, cover ground, find deer in the flesh(note sign, but don’t prioritize it), figure out why you saw that deer there. If there’s not a really good chance a deer will be in the area you’re deciding to climb a tree, don’t.