Scouting?
- Thread starter 1_pointer
- Start date
Ithaca 37
New member
If I were new in an area I'd be scouting all year long to learn the roads, terrain, good vantage points, buck hangouts, doe hangouts, deer trails, and anything else that might help when hunting season starts. I'd be questioning people about the deers yearly habits and where they'd most likely be in the Fall. I'd be picking the best areas and have back up options. I'd check with the local F&G people for advice and I'd check with headquarters to see if they have records of big bucks taken in my area and if they do, I'd contact the hunters who got them to see if they'd give any advice.
Before I even considered an area I'd know whether it produced big bucks in the recent past.
Before I even considered an area I'd know whether it produced big bucks in the recent past.
Delw
Member
Most of my scouting is done after I get drawn for a unit.. I do hunt coyotes in places I put in for though....
Up in the kaibab I have been going there since 1982 so I know the whole area pretty good....
Delw
Up in the kaibab I have been going there since 1982 so I know the whole area pretty good....
Delw
KC
New member
1_pointer:
I'm really not a deer hunter. I'm an elk hunter and I buy a deer tag too. I can't pattern a single elk like you can a whitetail. Rather I hunt the elk herds.
I start scouting elk in the middle of the winter when I spot them way down in the bottoms, on their winter range. Elk migrate vertically annually. So now they can be found in the foothills. I've followed the routes by which they got from the bottoms to the foothills.
Soon they will casually wander to higher elevations. I follow them to see where they spend the summer and try to find the routes by which they get from the foothills to timber line and montane zone summer range. I try to predict how & where they will try to hide and flee when the first hunters appear during the early seasons.
I hunt in the late season and try to ambush them on their fall migration routes, which I hope is the reverse of the spring route. Sometimes it works
and sometimes it doesn't 
. It all depends on the weather.
KC
I'm really not a deer hunter. I'm an elk hunter and I buy a deer tag too. I can't pattern a single elk like you can a whitetail. Rather I hunt the elk herds.
I start scouting elk in the middle of the winter when I spot them way down in the bottoms, on their winter range. Elk migrate vertically annually. So now they can be found in the foothills. I've followed the routes by which they got from the bottoms to the foothills.
Soon they will casually wander to higher elevations. I follow them to see where they spend the summer and try to find the routes by which they get from the foothills to timber line and montane zone summer range. I try to predict how & where they will try to hide and flee when the first hunters appear during the early seasons.
I hunt in the late season and try to ambush them on their fall migration routes, which I hope is the reverse of the spring route. Sometimes it works
. It all depends on the weather.KC
