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Did you scout enough this pre-season?

cville_bowhunter

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2022
Messages
272
We all hear how important it is to get "boots on the ground." I heard it so much and from so many different sources that I knew darn well that it was the only way to up my hunting game. I think I spent somewhere between 12-15 days of pre-season scouting this year (Jan-early Sept), and although it's way more than I've ever done in years prior (a day at most right before opener), I'm still wishing I did a little more.

Do you feel like you did enough scouting this pre-season? What does "enough" feel like to you?

Thanks!
 
Nope. Meant to spend a day in early June multiple hours north scouting with my FIL. The evening before he slipped while chopping wood, cut open his shin…ER trip for stitches. He couldn’t walk very well the next day. Didn’t end up going.
 
I hope I scouted enough. Covered miles on, honestly fairly small sections, of 11k acres of public nearby over the last year. I've seen deer nearly every time out for the last 2 or so months. I also know some spots NOT to go lol, could prove useful. First season starts Saturday!

Good post, and good luck!
 
I scouted exactly 0% for reasons and am largely hunting blind this year. I know the general areas they’re located but don’t really know where I’m going until I walk into the woods.


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Same. I have good intentions every off-season and then I’m back to this same position every season.
 
I went out quite a bit starting July 1. Mostly setting cameras near bedding, pinch points and community scrapes. Very little action the first 3 weeks but picked up July 30th. I have 3 -4 spots I’m really liking. My best spot got blown out last week when to hunters passed my cam 1 week before the opener. I think I may have a chance opening day but if not that spot my go to lower on my priority list. Happy with my efforts though.
 
Way better than me - im jelaous!! I Scouted 3 days in feb - each day a different spot. 2/3 days were bust but one day found a bucks bedroom on NF. I’ll scout that spot from afar during season to see how he moves. But once I find a spot, i just plan to hunt accordingly. Id say some years I scout days, some a day and get lucky. I scout a lot when hunting for intel next year. I take Dan infalts approach in checking key spots now vs checking all over. But ive been doing this for years…
 
Nope, life happened and I didn't scout at all last year or this year. It'll still be a fun season.

Even if I had time, I don't scout (outside of the season) the 300 acres of private I have permission to hunt. It is owned by 4 siblings, and I work with one of them. There is bad blood between siblings, focused on the one that lives right near the property and sees me go in to hunt (their husband and son also hunt a little). It is a great spot, and I don't feel in danger, but I limit my presence to the bare minimum so as not to cause irritation and have me end up losing my hunting privileges due to some drama.

edit: I hunt public about half the time, and love to scout it when I have time in the late winter/ early spring. I learn more scouting early season than I do hunting.
 
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It doesn’t matter how much I scout, mid season plans seem to change, that’s the beauty of being mobile.. adapt in a second, go where the action is today and not where it seemed to be in the offseason while scouting, having a system that is light and dialed in, something your proficient with, compact, organized, and packs well. I go in blind almost everywhere, hunt my way in, sure I have a few proven spots, but most of the time I’m scouting while I hunt, I don’t stop walking until the sign is so hot, big, and super fresh that I’m forced to hunt it. If that day is a blank, depending my research that evening with ONX, I mite go back in and change it up a bit, or move on to something else, with the option of coming back at a later date. My favorite time to do traditional scouting is immediately after season, or if I’m tagged out during season, and on snow is the best.
 
For the last few years I kept trying to find someone to do a boat-in trip on public land to get away from the pressure. I scouted it three years ago and forgot my GPS to mark any spots. Didn’t find much anyway and this year I found someone that wanted to go but they just told me. We plan to hike in a few miles to the area bird hunting with the dog sometime over the next few weeks and scouting along the way but we are basically going in blind. We have it narrowed down to two areas about 2 square miles each location accessible by boat but a few miles from any access by car…. One day of bird hunting we hope to find something promising but that’s a lot of ground to cover just to get into the areas we are looking at. Wish I would have known a year in advance and I would have spent some time over the summer scouting
 
0% scouting, until I walk into the woods....or I should say walk around the woods. :) I try to find where they're walking in and out of the woods, for me to know where to setup for a good ambush site.

Should I have an area that doesn't seem to have any sign of deer in the area, I'll wait for a real windy day and walk around more to check things out and I'm not as likely to alert the deer.
 
For the last few years I kept trying to find someone to do a boat-in trip on public land to get away from the pressure. I scouted it three years ago and forgot my GPS to mark any spots. Didn’t find much anyway and this year I found someone that wanted to go but they just told me. We plan to hike in a few miles to the area bird hunting with the dog sometime over the next few weeks and scouting along the way but we are basically going in blind. We have it narrowed down to two areas about 2 square miles each location accessible by boat but a few miles from any access by car…. One day of bird hunting we hope to find something promising but that’s a lot of ground to cover just to get into the areas we are looking at. Wish I would have known a year in advance and I would have spent some time over the summer scouting

My mid-life crisis hunt is to find the perfect location to kayak into in the pre-dawn mist and kill bambi’s dad.

My real-life hunt reminds me that I can breathe sufficiently to climb a tree.


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My mid-life crisis hunt is to find the perfect location to kayak into in the pre-dawn mist and kill bambi’s dad.

My real-life hunt reminds me that I can breathe sufficiently to climb a tree.


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I do know it’s hard to find lakes in MN… hopefully one day you find that secret spot. I do have a few spots up there from when I lived there along the Mississippi that I have hunted and I would share with you. Great for ducks, not sure about the deer… but pre-dawn mist it does have.
 
Yikes...that kind of stress around permission would almost suck the fun out of hunting for me

Going in and out is a little stressful if I see one of the family members that don't get along with my co-worker. We don't talk or anything. Once in the tree, I forget about all that. It's a great place to hunt. A lot of people would donate an organ to hunt here. So, I'm not leaving until someone kicks me out!
 
It’s always eating at me that now that I have the knowledge of a good process, with young kids I simply don’t have the time allowed to fully execute. I hunt my family farm about an hour and a half away, I learn more every year, I have great food plots and chestnut trees, and it is still very very hard to get on a target buck with limited hunts. I run 11 cell cameras on 100 acres and it’s STILL only faint clues no completely reliable patterns (no corn feeders). This is my third year hunting the same buck and his primary bedding is still a mystery to me, so that is my #1 scouting failure, but I have tried. Even a deer that is right under your nose can be real tricky. If I lived there it would be a different story but everybody has to hunt within the constraints of their life situation. I love it and I hate it, 10,000 acres of public or 50 acres of private, there are places that hunt easy there are places that hunt hard, but more often than not it ain’t easy!
 
Did a little bit of scouting this off-season. A couple days in March and a handful July and august. Glassed a bean field the night before the opener in a place I walked a couple times and got more intel there. Took about 4 sits over that field before I was successful but only a couple to realize how they where accessing it every time. The scouting helped but it didn’t give me the full picture like those sits did. I try and learn something every time I’m out and just keep putting together the puzzle pieces.
 
It’s always eating at me that now that I have the knowledge of a good process, with young kids I simply don’t have the time allowed to fully execute. I hunt my family farm about an hour and a half away, I learn more every year, I have great food plots and chestnut trees, and it is still very very hard to get on a target buck with limited hunts. I run 11 cell cameras on 100 acres and it’s STILL only faint clues no completely reliable patterns (no corn feeders). This is my third year hunting the same buck and his primary bedding is still a mystery to me, so that is my #1 scouting failure, but I have tried. Even a deer that is right under your nose can be real tricky. If I lived there it would be a different story but everybody has to hunt within the constraints of their life situation. I love it and I hate it, 10,000 acres of public or 50 acres of private, there are places that hunt easy there are places that hunt hard, but more often than not it ain’t easy!
SAME!!!!!
 
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