Good evening all,
This is my second season hunting, and I could use a little help identifying what is important and what isn't in what I scouted today in SE PA on public land. I am still searching for my first deer. Yes, I know I am scouting in season. Most times when I scout I don't see anything of note, it seems it's taking me a long time to figure all this out. Do any of the below pos
First up is a saddle, with a pond in the middle of it. No oak trees to speak of, but I located two patches of bare dirt that seemed scraped over. One had a branch right above it and the other had what looked like a little tree stripped and bit off. How can you tell if it's a deer scrape or just a patch of dirt? Last year I called in a deer here, during the rut, but it was beyond what I was comfortable to shoot at. I did a morning sit here yesterday and saw nothing. I found both "scrapes" yesterday. Coming back today, one looked a bit more scuffed up since then, the other looks the same. Each is maybe two feet in diameter.
Second up is an area of oak trees. I did not find any deer poop, the bedding symbol is where I found some hay bent down encircled by small pine trees, no poop there either. One tree had more tops than full acorns. There is a tree near here that I think I can SRT out of. About 100 yards east of here I spooked two deer in this really tight grouping of small trees as I was walking out at dusk. I only saw tails so no idea if they were bucks. How can you tell if deer are eating a particular acorn?
This is the only oak tree where I saw acorns, tops of acorns without the acorn, and poop. Just south of this is a steep slope of game trails and sticker bushes. I spooked two bucks out of there last year. This is where I got stuck in a tree last year, lol. The trees are gnarly here, with no straight lines. I found one tree I could SRT out of about 30 yards away, but it's right up against the slope of beds and game trails. I found far less deer poop here this year compared to last year. If I get lucky and shoot one and it gets into that sticker slope, my goodness it'll be a mess to drag it out. It's gotta be 200 yards of sticker bushes down that hill. If I take a gamble and hunt this how do you hunt a bed this close to a food source?
Lastly,
Last weekend I did some scouting in Central PA. I decided to take a long walk along a tiny creek (4-6 feet wide) I found an area of lots of deer poop and three areas of what seem to be scrapes. These are just below a funnel. This forest has fenced-in plots for tree studies so it's essentially a funnel from the top down to the valley bottom. I tested out a 2TC system here as all of the trees here have no branches until 60-80 feet up. The wind switches often in this valley, so I have no idea how to hunt this.
This is my second season hunting, and I could use a little help identifying what is important and what isn't in what I scouted today in SE PA on public land. I am still searching for my first deer. Yes, I know I am scouting in season. Most times when I scout I don't see anything of note, it seems it's taking me a long time to figure all this out. Do any of the below pos
First up is a saddle, with a pond in the middle of it. No oak trees to speak of, but I located two patches of bare dirt that seemed scraped over. One had a branch right above it and the other had what looked like a little tree stripped and bit off. How can you tell if it's a deer scrape or just a patch of dirt? Last year I called in a deer here, during the rut, but it was beyond what I was comfortable to shoot at. I did a morning sit here yesterday and saw nothing. I found both "scrapes" yesterday. Coming back today, one looked a bit more scuffed up since then, the other looks the same. Each is maybe two feet in diameter.
Second up is an area of oak trees. I did not find any deer poop, the bedding symbol is where I found some hay bent down encircled by small pine trees, no poop there either. One tree had more tops than full acorns. There is a tree near here that I think I can SRT out of. About 100 yards east of here I spooked two deer in this really tight grouping of small trees as I was walking out at dusk. I only saw tails so no idea if they were bucks. How can you tell if deer are eating a particular acorn?
This is the only oak tree where I saw acorns, tops of acorns without the acorn, and poop. Just south of this is a steep slope of game trails and sticker bushes. I spooked two bucks out of there last year. This is where I got stuck in a tree last year, lol. The trees are gnarly here, with no straight lines. I found one tree I could SRT out of about 30 yards away, but it's right up against the slope of beds and game trails. I found far less deer poop here this year compared to last year. If I get lucky and shoot one and it gets into that sticker slope, my goodness it'll be a mess to drag it out. It's gotta be 200 yards of sticker bushes down that hill. If I take a gamble and hunt this how do you hunt a bed this close to a food source?
Lastly,
Last weekend I did some scouting in Central PA. I decided to take a long walk along a tiny creek (4-6 feet wide) I found an area of lots of deer poop and three areas of what seem to be scrapes. These are just below a funnel. This forest has fenced-in plots for tree studies so it's essentially a funnel from the top down to the valley bottom. I tested out a 2TC system here as all of the trees here have no branches until 60-80 feet up. The wind switches often in this valley, so I have no idea how to hunt this.
Last edited: