Scouting critical to success

During the pre-rut, bucks often travel in bachelor groups. As the rut kicks in these bucks will fight each other for a receptive doe.
During the pre-rut, bucks often travel in bachelor groups. As the rut kicks in these bucks will fight each other for a receptive doe.

When doing your scouting, try these tricks:

• Change your arrival and departure time: Get in the stand a half-hour earlier, and hunt through mid-afternoon, or stay all day.

• Use a different trail: Deer pattern hunters just as we pattern them. They remember where they see hunters, and will look for them each time they pass through that area.

• Let other hunters drive deer to you: Some hunters just can’t remain in a stand for more than a few hours, before boredom, hunger, or an appointment causes them to leave the woods. If you know where other hunters are, and have an idea when they leave the woods, pay attention for deer they spook in your direction.

In the end, it is not the rifle or the bow, the broad heads or bullets that will guarantee the harvest of organic protein and antlers. Rather, it is scouting, walking andfinding those areas where deer live and move.

Sadly, woodsmanship is becoming a lost art to those who wish to sit in a shoot house overlooking a food plot all day.

About David Hawkins 195 Articles
David Hawkins is a freelance writer living in Forest. He can be reached at hawkins2209@att.net.

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