I grew up in Northern Indiana, mere minutes from the Michigan line. I can remember many a time when I was younger always taking shortcuts on my scouting…or so I thought. I was introduced to hunting whitetail deer like many of us in the woods of the Midwest…hunting the elusive bushy tailed fox squirrel. To be honest I never really scouted much for deer like I do now or should I say are starting to now. I only hunted one chunk of ground. It was roughly 8 acres of my parent’s property and a few adjoining smaller parcels of land which altogether didn’t equal 15 total acres. I spent countless hours slinking my way through our creek bottom or standing like a statue by a huge shaggy hickory we had…all to get a shot at a squirrel.
Now you may be asking yourself, why is he talking about squirrel hunting? Well, squirrel hunting taught me a lot of the techniques I now use while scouting. As a matter of fact by squirrel hunting I got to know our property so well and encounter deer so many times I finally traded in my .22 for a 12-gauge and started hunting them. By this point I’d squirrel hunted for 3+ years and had learned the ins and outs of our property, something many whitetail hunters never learn about their hunting grounds. Now don’t get me wrong many of them claim to know, but they’re simply blowing smoke based upon only what they’ve seen while up a treestand in one or two locations. They haven’t tightened up their belt, put on some good rubber boots and hoofed it out.
Let me state it right now, walking the property one time in a circle doesn’t constitute proper scouting…it merely helped you burn some calories. Whether you have 5 acres or 80 acres to hunt, you must know it. Why? Because you can bet Ol’ Mossy Horns, you know the one that’s eluded you time and time again, knows your property like the back of his hoof. It’s true you’ll never be on a level playing field with a trophy whitetail buck when it comes to smell, sight and even instincts…however our mind is our greatest tool. By learning about your property and studying it you can analyze it and possible by your smarts begin to see it as a trophy buck does, the crazy thing is he does it instinctively. He senses and instinctively will move his bedding area with the wind/thermal directions on your property. He will instinctively use that shallow lip that runs along the creek on your property, knowing it blocks some of his movements.
You need to get out and study your property; look for spots if you were being hunted you would hideout in or around. That open tall grassy knoll now appears to have great coverage and sight line if bedded down, instead of the hill you always saw as a pointless endeavor. Notice not only where the heavy deer trails are, but now search for that secondary trail that runs parallel to it that bucks love to use. This trail isn’t always going to be visible but look closer, notice an old rub here or a spot that has slightly less ground vegetation growing on; this could be because a buck or bucks are using this trail some. It was these things that I started to see the more and more as I snuck around quietly looking for squirrels...little did I know all this data was leading me to be an educated whitetail hunter.
Pay very close attention to the elevation changes on your property, this is one of the most crucial things to pay attention to while scouting. An example of this from my own hunting experience came with my very first hunting experiences in our woods. My first time deer hunting, I was a little naïve and didn’t completely listen to all I’d seen in my years hunting squirrels. I decided to put my treestand up a sycamore which was dead center on our property. My thinking was if I hunt that spot I’ll increase my chances because I’d be surrounded by “huntable” ground. Well it shouldn’t have surprised me that it didn’t take long to notice a lot of the deer I was seeing was along our northern property line (outside my range then). I should have seen this coming because right on the Northeast corner of our property is a significant hill which sticks up a good 60-70 feet from its base. Obviously this makes quite the barrier which deer don’t cross and come south a lot of the time. Instead the deer would skirt around it and follow the path of least resistance on our northern most border.
That first year I harvested just a small doe that happen to come and nibble on some bean pods dropped by the thorn trees all around my stand. The next year however I moved my stand location to the Northwestern corner of our property, and picked up a bow for the first time ever. Here I didn’t have nearly as much “huntable” ground around me and could only shoot roughly 20-30 yards in front of me (due to property line) but it was a much better spot. This was one of the primary trail lines that ran from that hillside and down the very gradual decline into the marsh which was now about 100 yards down in front of me on a neighboring property. That year I shot what I thought for sure would be the biggest buck of my life. It was a 140 inch 4x5 with stickers that pushed it to an 11 pointer (bottom right photo up in the title). I was most definitely spoiled for my first bow harvest and buck harvest ever.
Knowing the property, looking for signs and calculating where deer should be allowed me to harvest that buck. I’ve learned since then, and that treestand has treated me quite nicely…as a matter of fact it’s been the location for every single buck I’ve harvested. Part of that is due to up until recently I’ve only really had that spot to hunt. I’ve added some stand locations over the years and I can now hunt that area that has the marsh on it, but the other stands just haven’t yielded results yet. I suspect they will though, and possibly soon (which you will learn if they do!).
Knowing your ground is important though and never over look that! Don’t just use binoculars from the truck one night watching your property; get out and leg it! Learn each trail, each bedding area, all the escape routes out of the bedding area and study the elevations you have. By simply doing this a couple of times you’ll have begun down the path that will end with antlers in your hands!
~Be sure to check back for the next article on using Trail Cameras to even further scout your property.
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