Scouting is very important to any hunter who wants to be successful.   Before scouting you must pick a piece of land you want to hunt.  If you are new to an area you will most likely be hunting public land.  To find land to hunt, first go to the state, province, or country web page.  They will have all the information that you will need to find public land which is available to hunt.  Next you will go to Google to see the satellite image of the land you want to hunt.  This will cut down on the amount of walking you will have to do in the woods.   We have covered this in past articles. Click here to read past articles.

When you are in the woods you will have to keep your eyes open.  You are looking for any deer sign.  You should be looking for deer droppings, tracks, beds, and rubs.  As deer move through the woods they leave lots of sign. When you find deer sign you have to determine if it is a buck or doe sign. Rubs are the easiest way to tell if a buck is in an area. In late summer the bucks are not rubbing so any rubs you find are from last year.  Finding rubs are not a guarantee that bucks are in the area.  Fresh sign is more important than last years mating sign. I know that my heart starts beating a little harder when I see a big rub. Finding footprints is the best way to establish what deer are in an area. A good rule of hand is the bigger the tracks and droppings are. the bigger the deer.  Finding deer prints can tell you how many deer are in an area and how often the deer walk by.

So we not only want to find the deer sign but we also want to find those big deer.  One area that I look for deer are funnels.  This can be any area where the deer have to move through to get from one place to another.  Using a map can be a good place to start looking.  Funnels can be made by hills, rivers, brooks, and ponds.  A funnel is anything that makes a deer walk around it. I have hunted a lot of small funnels and have made a few of my own. I have created a funnel by moving fallen trees so that they point at the spot that I’m going to hunt.  The deer will not step over the logs unless there is a reason.  This can be a good way to force deer to move by your hunting spot.

In the past I found a fast way to set up a funnel is to use a rope and ribbons.  Deer tend to walk along the rope instead of jumping over it.  I like making funnels going downhill.  I will have a big spool of rope and while going downhill I will wrap the rope around trees so it angles to my ambush spot.   You want the rope to be in a straight line from the top of the hill to the ambush spot.  If the line is not straight the deer will get trapped where the rope curves and the deer will simply jump over it.  I will also have ribbons hanging off the rope to make more of an obstacle. You don’t want a situation where the deer can get tangled in your rope and possibly get hurt.  Use rope or twine that is easy to break. There are some drawbacks to this method.  The biggest drawback is that any hunter that is in the woods will easily find your ambush spot.  The other is that unlike trees, a rope can be cut very easily.

Anther spot I like to look at is river crossings.  River crossings can be very hard to hunt.  Deer know that they are vulnerable to attack as they leave the river.  You have to be very careful with your scent. Water will keep your scent in the air.  If you have to cross the river do not cross upwind or at the same spot as the deer are going to cross. The deer will smell you easily. 

When looking for deer sign one thing I like to look for is old rotten logs on the ground.  As the log gets soft the deer will crush them as they step on it.  This will show you exactly where the deer are walking.  This will give you an idea where travel routes are.  I have found that when the deer are in funnel areas most of the logs show signs of deer stepping on them.

There are tools that can help you with you scouting.  A new technology that has become very cheap is digital trail cameras.   Trail cameras will show you the deer that are out in the woods.  This will give you a good idea of what deer are in the woods and when they are walking by this spot.  The cost of the trail cameras has come down a lot.  There are trail cameras that cost around 50 bucks. 

One thing that everyone should know is that deer must walk right in front of the trail cameras to take a photo.  This may seem obvious but I have done this myself. As we sit in the tree stand, we can look 360 degrees around.  A trail camera will only take photos of deer that walk right in front of the camera and 10 degrees on either side of the camera.  The sensor in the camera has a limitation of how far it will sense the deer and take a photo of it.   I have setup the camera and gone back a week later and have no photos.  If I turn the camera 90 degrees and return a week later, I may get 100 photos in a week.  Depending on the camera you may be able to set it up pointing down the trail.  I have also found that setting up the camera pointing south is very bad.  You get a lot of photos of the sun.  It can also interfere with taking photos of deer.  If you are going to use a trail camera you also have to be prepared to have it stolen.  This is unfortunate but a fact of life.  I camouflage mine so other hunters don’t see it.  With that said, I have taken photos of people walking through the woods and they have left my camera alone.

Scoutings will never hurt you.  If you see no deer sign, at least you know that is not a good place to hunt.

Good luck

Sean