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"Speed" scouting

Hardly_Hangin

Hardly_Hangin

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2019
Messages
426
Location
Jasper, Ga
Im conflicted. My whole hunting career. Ive been tought to ease and slip through the woods - take my time, observe, and dont make too much noise. The hunt started when i got in the woods.

In the world of YT and podcasts we live in, i see guys "speed scouting" where they arent concerned with sneaking and are just looking to cover ground.

What are yalls thoughts? I spent all day on the opener easing across a ridge and never found the sign i was looking for, but i only covered about a mile and a half because i was going slow. Should i be covering more ground until i find sign, then hunker down and hope i didnt bugger anything off?
 
Hardly_Hangin said:
Im conflicted. My whole hunting career. Ive been tought to ease and slip through the woods - take my time, observe, and dont make too much noise. The hunt started when i got in the woods.

In the world of YT and podcasts we live in, i see guys "speed scouting" where they arent concerned with sneaking and are just looking to cover ground.

What are yalls thoughts? I spent all day on the opener easing across a ridge and never found the sign i was looking for, but i only covered about a mile and a half because i was going slow. Should i be covering more ground until i find sign, then hunker down and hope i didnt bugger anything off?
Click to expand...
How much/long are you hunting the area, how pressired is it, and how many other places do you have to hunt? What are your objectives, and what are theirs?
 
mattsteg said:
How much/long are you hunting the area, how pressired is it, and how many other places do you have to hunt? What are your objectives, and what are theirs?
Click to expand...
Yep. "It depends" is almost always the answer. ;)

I have speed scouted 2 years running on lightly pressured SOA hunts where I had 3 days to get it done and then I was out whether I killed or not. Might as well give it heck.

At my lease? No thanks. I've got all year to figure it out, and that's been the case for a decade. No pressure to put pressure on the deer in that scenario.
 
mattsteg said:
How much/long are you hunting the area, how pressired is it, and how many other places do you have to hunt? What are your objectives, and what are theirs?
Click to expand...

Good question, I was being to general.

Specifically towards public land, length varies by hunt type but most gun hunts (what i care about right now) are 3-4 days at a time, usually once a month. Pressure varies, usually the steep terrain deters other hunters so not an incredible amount.

Im in a 700 acre lease that is pretty new to me, so scouting is necessary but i dont want to blow it out.

I hear things like, daily in season scouting is a must. And i agree my best hunts have been over sign i found recently to that spot. But i cant blister through these areas every week checking out whats new?
 
Nutterbuster said:
Yep. "It depends" is almost always the answer. ;)

I have speed scouted 2 years running on lightly pressured SOA hunts where I had 3 days to get it done and then I was out whether I killed or not. Might as well give it heck.

At my lease? No thanks. I've got all year to figure it out, and that's been the case for a decade. No pressure to put pressure on the deer in that scenario.
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Lets say you spent a day scouting, and bumped some deer off that spot.

The scouting worked cause you found them, wether they were bedded or feeding. But can you go hunt there? Is the disturbance too recent?
 
I would speed scout before the season but not during it. I also don't crawl through the woods on tip toes or you'll never get anywhere (unless I saw deer or knew where I was going etc). I think there is an optimal speed where you can cover ground but aren't a bull in a china closet.
 
Hardly_Hangin said:
Lets say you spent a day scouting, and bumped some deer off that spot.

The scouting worked cause you found them, wether they were bedded or feeding. But can you go hunt there? Is the disturbance too recent?
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What's the terrain, the season, and how are you hunting? Alone? In a group? Looking for meat, P&Y, something in between? How many days do you have to hunt total (and in that area). What's the local deer density? What's your preferred hunting style, and how flexible are you in that regard? What are your other options? Did they smell you, see you, or just get pushed out by noise?

I'll say 2 things:
1) the first sit is the best sit
2) anyone who's been hunting for a while has probably done something like spooked deer at the start of a sit, and connected later on.

There's no cut and dry answer, only odds (that shift depending on your circumstance and goals). And if you're going in with a rifle you've got a much different killing radius than the guy with a trad bow.

If you were those deer, and thought like a deer...what would you have done? Where do you think they're eatin' and beddin'?

Might be worth reading this parallel conversation (and book suggested by @kyler1945 )

When/how to scout freshest sign?

For you weekend warrior Dads like myself that only hunt public land and get one sit a weekend at best...when and how to you scout to try and setup on fresh sign? That’s the major perk of a saddle (mobility) so how do you take advantage of that? Do you hunt afternoons and go in early/blind and...
saddlehunter.com
 
I think to cover ground you need to walk faster and "speed scout" for fresh sign. Once you get to fresh sign, then comes slowing it down and taking everything in before you bump deer.
 
Hardly_Hangin said:
One doe.
Click to expand...

Then my advice is to prioritize covering every square inch of the property you think you want to hunt. I'd prioritize that over internet scouting, gear buying/messing, bow shooting, drinking beer at the deer camp, and especially over sitting in a tree. Do it in offseason if that makes you feel better. But If it's me, I'm walking all day every day until I know where all the deer are, and why they're there.
 
kyler1945 said:
Then my advice is to prioritize covering every square inch of the property you think you want to hunt. I'd prioritize that over internet scouting, gear buying/messing, bow shooting, drinking beer at the deer camp, and especially over sitting in a tree. Do it in offseason if that makes you feel better. But If it's me, I'm walking all day every day until I know where all the deer are, and why they're there.
Click to expand...

This is a great way to learn, prioritize knowing one property very well. Even climb through the really thick stuff. You'll often find it opens up and there's a hidden world.
 
For me I see speed scouting as a way to learn the lay of the land. I hate going into areas blind and not knowing what the area is like. A lot of the times I’ll speed scout preseason or during season and may scout the spot multiple times and then give it almost a full season to rest. This is will by my first year to have more than 3 or 4 spots open that I know that I’ve scouted and now how most of the area lays out. But for me being in a flatland area were a topo map is a blank piece of paper it’s a lot easier for me to cover a lot of ground very quick. A big thing for me is that when I speed scout that I really mark and pay attention to every fine detail and really go in without a stand but size up good trees and mark them on GPS to find them in the dark and quicker.
 
I find if u skip it mimicks the more natural sounds in the forest vs walking.....can't speak for the rest of the country but around here a speedy skip scout will beat a brisk walk everytime
 
Go watch THP's hunt and dump video from yesterday. It is the perfect example of bumping a deer and capitalizing on it the following day. They might move a little but typically not that far.
 
I would scout portions of the the area and not walk the entire property at one time. To get a better understanding of the details just focus on breaking up the property into sections. It also helps if you bump deer you can still mentally hunt without having it in the back of your mind. Deer get bumped all the time and if your not shooting at them or stalking them I think we over analyze. Yes be as careful as you can with scent but have a plan before you go in. Look at Google Earth and use the timeline to see the property from the past. It will give you details from when no leaves are on trees. Use topo maps and look for the areas you want to take a closer look at. Boots on the ground is how you understand the property. Relax, enjoy and don't focus on the negative. You bump deer ok not ideal but you also just may have learned why they were there. WInd terrain etc. It's a marathon not a sprint.
 
I think deer are more spooked if you sneak up on them and bump them from 50 yards than if they hear you comin from 2-300 yards and have a chance to get out. Pretty likely they’ll come back to that bed soon since they know they can get away.
 
Along the lines of my post in the other thread related to this, will "speed scouting" work sometimes? Sure. But IMHO I don't think you can effectively speed scout the places where deer like to hide on public land. They typically go for the thickest, most out of the way areas. You can definitely speed scout edges and then hunt them successfully, but I don't think you can speed scout through a briar thicket. You might need to be inside the briar thicket to catch daylight deer movement.

There is just no right answer for a lot of this stuff. Sometimes something will work. Sometimes it won't. Everyone doing podcasts and youtube right now is looking for their claim to fame and certain buzzwords catch on.

My personal opinion is to spend as much time in the woods as you can scouting. The more you spend in the offseason, the more prepared you'll be for the season. If your plans for the season aren't panning out, go scout and try something different. Deer are wild animals and they run into pressure every day, whether it be humans, bears or coyotes. If you go scouting and you bump deer, they will come back. There were there for a reason. Now if you come back and hunt that spot every day for a week they are going to figure out something is up.
 
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