Scouting For Trophy Deer

Scouting Tips For Hunting Whitetail Trophy Deer

  For you to become a successful whitetail trophy deer hunter; you need to be scouting for trophy deer year round. A trophy deer hunter needs to know and understand the movements and habits of the game they hunt. To do this you have to be dedicated to the art of scouting for whitetail deer. I say “art of scouting for deer” because you can’t randomly go through your hunting land disturbing everything in sight. If you do this in your deer scouting; it may take month’s before that whitetail trophy deer is comfortable enough to return. Yes, many hunter’s can and do hunt the same area and home range of whitetail deer, year after year, with no scouting or work involved. Some hunter’s are successful doing this. But if whitetail trophy deer hunting has become a passion for you; then you need to get into a trophy deer’s head and start thinking like one. Once you do this, you can scout for deer and not ruin your hunting area for months with sloppy deer scouting techniques. Scout early; the summer is a great time to scout for trophy deer.

Most of your scouting for trophy deer should be done by the time the deer hunting season starts. You don’t want to be leaving your scent throughout your deer hunting area when you should be hunting.

Scout For Deer Like Your Hunting Them

Here are a couple of deer hunting tips you can and should use. When you go out scouting for deer in your hunting area, use scent control practices just as you would when archery hunting for trophy deer. Wear rubber hunting boots and scent free clothing. If you have scouted a hunting area and want to prepare a hunting stand site; do it with as little disturbance as possible. If your deer scouting leads you to believe you need to trim and cut shooting lanes; do not cut openings big enough to drive a truck through, OK? Trim only what is needed. Leave as little a mark on the hunting area as possible. Would you like a couple more deer hunting tips? Do your scouting at mid-day when most trophy deer are bedded. Do not do a lot of activity and make a lot of noise that deer are not accustomed to. When deer scouting; get in, find out what you need to, and get out. Then let the deer hunting area rest.

Scouting A Trophy Deer’s Home

It starts with scouting a trophy deer’s home and the area he lives in. For me, trophy deer scouting starts (or I should say continues) the moment my hunting season is over. In other words, I am continuously scouting and trying to understand whitetail deer and their behavior. Why do they do what they do, at the time that they do it? And will they do it again tomorrow or the next day? Maybe. Again, I said it’s a passion. Whitetail deer live and stay in an area that can be as small as 1/2 square mile and usually not much larger than 1-1/2 square miles. During the rut, a buck may travel twice that much of an area, or more in pursuit of does to breed. When scouting, note well used deer trails, buck scrapes on and around them, rubs on trees, droppings, bedding and feeding areas and other sign. Want some more deer hunting tips? Try these if your wallet is deep enough.

Use A Trail Camera

A scouting technique that is fairly recent, is the use of trail cameras. Some will even allow you to text mail your images through a cell phone service, check it out. The new digital scouting cameras with infrared night flashes are a great deer scouting tool since most whitetail trophy deer activity is done at night. It is said by some that “no flash equals no spooked deer.” I have taken flash pictures of deer in the dark and had no reaction by them. They weren’t concerned; I think it may have to do with them experiencing lightening flashes. But, you may want to look into one of these infrared no-flash cameras. They are not cheap, but what passionate hobby is. In this picture I’m using a “Moultree” camera and a “Moultree” solar battery charger. This charger cost about $22.00, but saves me that in less than 2 months of camera use. Note; the camera is between the 2 birch trees to the left of the solar package cover.

This infrared trail camera is set up next to one of my food plots.  When using one, don’t be surprised to get a lot of pictures with deer feeding.  Many times you will pictures of their noses as they check out the shutter.  Many new digital cameras can take well over a thousand pictures on a 1 or 2 GB SD card.  The nice thing is that you only have to keep the pictures you want.  Just delete the rest.

Here a potentially nice buck in velvet is sniffing the trail camera.  He probably seen the auto focusing light or heard the shutter snap when a picture was taken.  He is just to curious; it’s like he is saying to other deer, “Hey guys, check this out – anybody know what it is?”

This is a good example of an Infrared night picture.  Note temperature, moon phase, date, and time imprinted on the photo.  This information over time can add quite a bit of scouting information.

This nice 8-pointer was filmed at night just before Halloween in October of 2008. Note how thick his body is. This is a nice 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 year old Buck. I’ll be looking for him next bow season. This picture was taken not 400 yards from my house.

Another trail camera setup with a solar charger attached that recharges batteries. 

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