Scouting for deer is a major part of successfully filling deer tags. Locating and tracking whitetail bucks is no simple endeavor, though. Finding buck tracks, tracking deer, and learning how to track a whitetail deer is required for effective scouting. Here’s your guide for scouting with apps, maps, boots, optics, cameras, drones, and more.
Scouting with Apps and Maps
The 21st century deer hunter has tools available hunters didn’t dream of before. Now, modern hunters spend ample time scouting digitally with apps and maps. Available tools make finding and patterning deer more attainable.
“It really depends on the terrain,” said Blake Shelby, a Whitetail Properties Land Specialist in Arkansas. “In places with a lot of ridges and valleys — those places are easier to use online mapping to find pinch-points, ridges, and other key land features. These tools can minimize your scouting time, too. Then, know where the deer are going to be, and put your stands up during the off-season. That way, when you go in there, you're just slipping in and getting in the stand."
Scouting with Boots on the Ground
Once in the field, it’s important to implement traditional scouting methods. The oldest, most-used, and most-proven scouting method in the history of deer hunting? Putting boots, such as your Lacrosse Ursa pair on the ground. Searching for deer sign. Finding rubs, scrapes, tracks, trails, droppings, and more.
“Obviously, deer sign is important," said Chip Camp, a Whitetail Properties Land Specialist in North Carolina. “The scrapes and rubs show where the bucks are moving this time of year. It helps hunters get in the swing of things. For example, here, the rut isn’t full-bore yet, but it’s cranking up. But, you know, tracking the bucks becomes easier when we observe that key sign in the field.”
Scouting with Glassing from Afar
Glassing from afar is another effective scouting method. It’s especially popular in areas with more open settings. Places like the Plains, Midwest, West, and even parts of the Southeast and Northeast, have fields and open, early successional habitat types that are conducive to glassing longer distances.
Rustin Hayes, a Whitetail Properties Land Specialist in Oklahoma, says prairie deer retreat to oddball locations, especially when pressure mounts or bucks push estrus does away from the herd. Regardless, it requires effective glassing techniques.
“We use a lot of what we call ‘pick-up glass’,” Hayes said. “We're covering such big country that we have different spots where you can glass hundreds of acres, or thousands of acres, from one knob in the pickup. Here, we try to cover a lot more acres faster. So, we drive from one hill to another, picking things apart, finding an ear flicker, and finding an antler shining in a plum ticket.”
Then, once they find a deer of interest, they exit the vehicle. With a stalking route planned, they start the approach to get in position for a shot opportunity.
When glassing, it’s important to do so the right way, though. Many hunters make the mistake of moving their glass while scanning their surroundings. They look with their glass moving, rather than keeping the glass still. The right way to glass is keeping the optics stationary and searching for movement with your eyes while remaining motionless.
“Fill the glass full of everything you can,” Hayes said. “Sit and stare at one spot at a time for 30 seconds. Try to pick everything apart. That sounds crazy, but when covering this much country, you can sit there and pick it apart. If you look toward a bedded deer long enough, you’ll pick up that movement. In contrast, constantly scanning makes it more difficult to see game.”
Scouting with Trail Cameras
Trail cameras revolutionized the way hunters scouted whitetails. As Matt Glander, a Whitetail Properties Land Specialist in Georgia says, these are very impactful tools.
“Most of the time, we start in late summer and put cameras out,” he said. “We’ll conduct camera surveys and see what deer are in the area. We’ll set the lineup for the upcoming season. During the season, we monitor scrapes and mock scrapes.”
In Georgia, Glander can run Banks deer feeders. He can also post Reconyx cell cameras to monitor the deer herd.
“We use some feeders that we put cameras on just to monitor the activity,” Glander said. “We’ll place these in travel corridors and main trails to know what's going on. But we certainly use summer and fall efforts to see what kind of deer we have on the property at the time, and what deer are likely to use the property during the season.
“Overall, my advice is to use cell cameras year-round,” Glander continued. “That way, throughout the entire season, you can see deer activity on the property. You can see how to improve things, like correcting buck-to-doe ratios.”
Scouting with Thermal Drones
From a scouting perspective, it’s incredibly beneficial to implement scouting via drone. Of course, where legal, this should be done during the off-season. It’s a very useful tool to estimate herd numbers, determine more populated areas of a property, and more. Today, there are businesses, such as Drone Deer Recovery, that offer this service.
“We implemented this at The Buck Factory two or three years ago,” said Dave Skinner, a Whitetail Properties Land Specialist in Kentucky. “It’s 1,000 acres, and we had two drones in the air. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was pretty eye-opening how many deer were living on the farm after the season. It gave us such a good baseline.”
This tool also assists with other tasks, such as analyzing buck-to-doe ratios. This was another objective completed at The Buck Factory.
“After the season, we had like a 1:2.5 buck-to-doe ratio,” Skinner said. “And we didn't even kill any does — only bucks — because we bought the farm late in the year and never got around to killing any does. It opened our eyes to how many deer we had — and we had no idea how many deer we had on that thousand acres.
“Most people don't have a clue how many deer they have,” he continued. “It'll open your eyes, because you're going to count them all. You will absolutely see every deer. We even saw crazy stuff, like a coyote licking himself and even an armadillo. You can see and learn so much about your deer.”
Of course, deer behave differently, and inhabit different spots, in the post-season versus early bow season or the rut. That said, you can still learn generalizations about deer activity on the property, and these are certainly relevant for late-season hunting the next season.
“Where are they bedding on the property?” Skinner noted. “A lot of people have no idea where their deer bed. They might think they know. But they truly don't. We learned a lot of that stuff — information on where we thought the deer might be versus where they actually were. Plus, you learn positioning and where these deer are located based on food sources.”
Many of these modern drones, especially the high-end thermal drones, give you such good imagery. You can even identify unique bucks. That’s powerful scouting.
Editor’s Note: As previously noted, follow all state and local drone laws in relation to scouting whitetails.
Balancing Efficient Scouting with Too Much Scouting and Pressuring Deer
One of the most important elements of scouting is balancing enough scouting to learn what you need to know with scouting too much and having a negative impact on the local deer herd. Without question, there is a fine line between effective scouting and scouting too much (or improperly) and having a negative impact on the property.
“Some of the great advantages we have include cellular cameras, which offer long-term, long-distance scouting without having to get in and put scent down,” Shelby said. “You can have a low impact on your property, and we are very fortunate to have means of getting close to deer without having to go in there and put boots on the ground all of the time.
“If done strategically, I establish a sanctuary area that I never go in no matter what, though,” Shelby continued. “I don't care what I think I could find in that area. I don't go in there, and it’s usually bedding areas.”
Instead, he creates parallel roads around the exterior of the property and leaves the interior of that property alone. This is a significant advantage.
“Even if the deer know you're around, they know they have a safe place to go,” Shelby said. “But as far as the actual scouting, I use as much long-range scouting as possible. Glassing and cameras have a minimal impact on deer.”
When you effectively combine all methods outlined above, it’s the ultimate scouting experience with highly desirable results. Using deer tracking to identify prime hunting locations is possible. Good luck this deer season.
