John's Journal...

Keys to Scouting for Successful Deer Hunting

More Keys to Successful Scouting

Click to enlargeEditor’s Note: No matter how expert the hunter, how much he knows about deer, or what type of terrain he hunts, fate always can deal him a hand that will make him unsuccessful. But a consistently-successful hunter sets up in a place when and where deer most often will show up. To pinpoint such a place, you need to learn the keys to scouting success.Click to enlarge

Key No. VI:
Finding traditional scrapes and rubs before the season tells you where a buck lives. Although scientists don’t know for certain what rubs mean, they have learned that bucks often mark their territories or let other bucks in the region know of their presence by rubbing the bark off small trees and bushes. You can differentiate scrapes from rubs, because there's often pawed-up earth under a low-hanging limb where the buck leaves the scent from his eyes and mouth on the limb and urinates in the scrape to signal to an estrous doe that he's in the area and will return to this same place to search for her ifClick to enlarge she needs to be bred. 

Key No.  VII:
Identifying sanctuaries by studying aerial photos while scouting will help you predict where and when the hunters will apply the most hunting pressure to the proClick to enlargeperty. A deer will respond to hunting pressure by holding in thick cover or hiding out in a site where no one hunts. Some sanctuaries include islands in the middles of creeks or swampy places that require a hunter to use a boat to reach them, impenetrable thickets andclearcuts, areas behind a clubhouse in a plum thicket no one ever checks, off the shoulder of the road on the way to the clubhouse where few people ever stop, near a farmhouse with a barking dog chained to the back steps that lets no one get close, in the middle of a cotton field where you never expect to see a deer, in a fencerow between two large fields that don't appear to have enough cover to hide a deer and in the middle of a sage field.

Tomorrow: Successful Scouting Tools


Check back each day this week for more about "Keys to Scouting for Successful Deer Hunting"

Day 1: Keys for Successful Scouting
Day 2: Two More Keys to Successful Scouting
Day 3: More Keys to Successful Scouting
Day 4: Successful Scouting Tools
Day 5: Scout When You Sleep, and Lay Your Hunt Plan Out by the Stars

 

 

Entry 417, Day 3