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Post Season Scouting

F

Flyerzfan10

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 31, 2018
Messages
446
Location
Wapwallopen, PA
Last day of gun season here in Pa. Let the post season scouting begin. What do you look for most? A lot of the heavy trails will be beaten to the dirt. There will still be a few active scrapes around. Do you put cameras out to see what made it through the orange army? Post up what you do this time of year.
 
Flyerzfan10 said:
Last day of gun season here in Pa. Let the post season scouting begin. What do you look for most? A lot of the heavy trails will be beaten to the dirt. There will still be a few active scrapes around. Do you put cameras out to see what made it through the orange army? Post up what you do this time of year.
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Just the usual for me. I mark OnX and even diagram cover types and edges on it and mark everything of interest and go back and edit on a computer later (easier) and take notes. A small tablet with a screen stylus would help in field but I use a phone.

I mainly look for habitat features, food, trails, rubs, and scrapes. I leave the tracking feature on OnX so I can remember where I've been already. One thing I keep in mind is that certain areas (soil type and soil moisture) hold sign more. Deer walking on a well-drained ridge top with eroded soils will not leave the same heavy cow path trail as they will in a valley, etc. It's also never too early to be marking out trees and examining wind direction. I have a limited number of cameras, so I put them up after I've scouted so they are spread out well and in hot spots. It helps to take a pic of a good tree or area and link to a point on the map because GPS is only accurate within plus minus some distance. Months later you probably can't use OnX to walk right to a tree you barely remember.

Interested in what others do also.

A goal this year is to get better at identifying and marking food sources. There really is a lot to think about. I'll be scanning for rubs and realize "I haven't been looking for white oaks or other food much the last hour or so".
 
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I’m going out today to put some trail cams up in spots I want to hang for late season archery. Once that goes out of season I plan on doing some more serious scouting. I’m in Allegheny county so I’m hunting small parcels, I plan on going in and bumping deer on purpose to find some bedding areas, and then from there try to figure out how they enter and exit them.
 
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