Scouting deer on public ground isn’t going to be all trail-cam pictures of big bucks and digiscoping giants in a green field. Here’s your preseason reality check
Much of the preseason scouting content out there (some of it published on this site) is overly optimistic in comparison to the real-world scenarios that most public-land hunters face this time of year.
Sure, your social media feed might be full of people posting trail-camera photos of big bucks in velvet. But I’m betting that most of those photos and videos were taken on private beanfields. While the master plan of patterning one mature buck and then killing him on opening day is challenging even on great private properties, doing it on public ground is like pulling Excalibur from its stone.
In the eastern half of the country, a lot of this has to do with the habitat mature bucks are using (or not using) right now. Mature bucks, still in their bachelor groups, will gravitate to green agricultural fields. They won’t be frequenting the marshes and thickets on public ground, which a lot of us like to hunt.
So while you might not get a big buck on camera early, that doesn’t mean you can’t scout effectively on public land early. I recently scouted a few public land spots with veteran hunter Shane Simpson. He broke down how he goes about digital scouting public parcels with onX, and showed me what he looks for in the field. These are my takeaways.
Digital Scouting Is Mandatory
Simpson spends a ton of time scouting properties digitally through onX. His approach is part science and part art. He looks for transition lines through habitat, like where a clear-cut meets timber or marsh borders a hardwood flat. He also pays close attention to creeks, which act as natural corridors for wildlife. And like another great public land whitetail hunter, Dan Infalt, Simpson loves to target cattail marshes and wetlands. There’s usually great bedding cover around these areas and other hunters are less willing to wade into them.
In general, he’s searching for overlooked spots, which might be close to a road, or hard to reach spots that other hunters will stay out of.
Simpson spends hours each offseason picking apart different properties digitally until he finds a few key areas he likes. Then when he goes to see these areas in person, he moves through prime spots slowly. Instead of trying to speed scout his way through the entire property, he’ll spend hours scouring the key areas he scouted on onX.
You’ll Need to Rely on Old-School Woodsmanship
Simpson no longer runs trail cameras (more on this in a minute) so he puts full faith into his digital scouting and in-person scouting in the field. Watching him scout an area is a lesson in paying attention to the small details. Like the rest of us, he looks for trails, tracks, old rubs, and likely food sources. But he also applies an extra level of scrutiny that helps uncover clues about if and how deer are using an area. Are those fresh tracks buck tracks, or tracks from a doe with fawns? Great — you spotted a stand of oaks. Now, what subspecies of oak are they, and are they loaded with acorns that will be dropping in a few weeks? (Simpson brings a small pair of binoculars with him to spot acorns in the canopy.)
While scouting, Simpson also takes careful notes in onX for potential stand sites that work for certain wind directions. He takes phone pictures of good trees for stands and good hides for ground hunts, and saves them to each location. That way when he comes back to hunt, he knows exactly where to set up. He also scouts entry and exit routes. There’s no use in finding a good spot if you can’t get into and out of it without spooking deer.
You’re (Probably) Not Going to Get a Mature Buck on Camera Early
Simpson gave up on using trail cameras because of the expense and the work required to hang and check them. Plus, he noticed that he’d get too hung up on specific bucks he’d capture on camera and never see in the field. Or he’d give up on good spots if he wasn’t getting trail camera pictures, even though he knew there were bucks in the area. Lastly, he just wanted to be surprised by what he saw in the woods each fall.
If you do decide to hang trail cams on public land during the preseason, don’t be surprised if you don’t get a ton of great buck pictures. As you can see in the video above, we hung several cameras at three different spots on a property in the Upper Midwest, and we recorded a ton of doe and fawn photos – but zero buck pictures over the course of three weeks in August.
But Simpson maintains that the areas in which we hung the cameras are still good spots. They might be home to only does and fawns now, but once bucks go hard-horned and break from their bachelor groups, crops on the surrounding property start to get cut, and acorns start to fall, bucks will hit these public-land haunts. So if you’re just getting a bunch of doe pictures right now, it’s a positive sign that you’ve located a good spot for the fall.
No Matter Where You Go, You’re Going to Encounter Other Hunters
One spot Simpson had identified as a good place to hang a camera already had a camera. Instead of getting frustrated, Simpson wrote his name and number on a note in his phone and then displayed it in front of the camera, asking the other hunter to call him.
Simpson figures that it’s better to let the other guy know he’s in the area, too, and maybe they can share information. He once tried this trick on public land and the person called to let Simpson know that he wasn’t hunting, he was just a wildlife photographer trying to capture trail camera pictures of critters crossing a stream. He shared that he had even gotten some shots of a nice buck.
The point is, almost anywhere you go on public land, you’re bound to bump into hunters at some point. It’s part of the game. So don’t let it get you down and ruin your hunt. Also, don’t be afraid to talk to your fellow public-land hunters. They could end up helping you out one day.
It’s Going to Take Many Seasons to Master
Simpson says it’s taken about 20 years for him to be able to look at a map, visualize what the place will look like, and then accurately make predictions about the deer activity there. You can help short-cut this learning curve by watching content like the video above. But the truth is there’s only one way to get good at public land scouting, and that’s to spend lots of time doing it.
The more hours you put into digital scouting followed by in-person scouting, the better you’ll be able to understand how a map correlates with deer activity. So scout lots of different properties, both digitally and in person. Even if you don’t intend to hunt them all, that time in the woods (and on onX) will help you read the habitat much better.
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