Went out to a new piece of public land in the Appalachian Mountains today to scout areas I marked using LiDAR data on CalTopo and stuff I’ve picked up from forums like these. Understanding it’s out of season and deer migrate/sign changes, it was nice to see some of the e-scouting pay off, as I believe I found a trail of old and new rubs guided by fresh deer tracks and ultimately leading to a nice sized single bed towards the higher elevations of a southeastern slope. Several elevation bands lower, there were a ton of doe beds and scat all through mountain laurel. It’s cool to see the sign, I just need to get out more and try and figure how to put it all together.
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Winter Scout Session
- Thread starter 515Raven
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2022
- Messages
- 4,240
The more you get out the more it will all make sense. Woodsmanship is a skill that never ends and there is an opportunity to learn something new every time you get out. The best part of scouting immediately after the season is that you can find last fall's rut sign before it gets covered over by the green up for spring. This is a much better indicator of what deer will be doing and where they will be during the actual season as opposed to where you may see them in the summer months.
Thanks, I agree. I’m itching to get back out as much as I can this month and next, if nothing else than to familiarize with the area and get a sense of what their patterns may be and how I can approach without spooking. The mountains bring the challenge of added vantage for the deer and sometimes limited access dealing with sheer cliffs and thick laurel/conifers in some places.
Another area I’d like to improve is identifying the oaks and other food sources on sight and what they’re dropping. I know the leaves, I know the rule of thumb with white/red oaks concerning their bark differences and etc but it’s different reading about it and watching it on YouTube and ground truthing it.
Another area I’d like to improve is identifying the oaks and other food sources on sight and what they’re dropping. I know the leaves, I know the rule of thumb with white/red oaks concerning their bark differences and etc but it’s different reading about it and watching it on YouTube and ground truthing it.