E scouting for deer

[Mariano20]

Hello all,
I was wondering what ways people are using Escouting for deer. Mr. Newberg has many videos on scouting for elk but not much on deer. I know the concepts are the same but would like to start scouting for my upcoming Colorado deer hunt. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[Finngo]

First

 

[Deleted member 16014]

I walked hundreds of miles and glassed a lot year after year in order to figure out the kind of habitat that bucks like in the mountains. Then I looked at some of those places on google earth and tried to find others that were similar. When I go to those other places I tend to find bucks. Or you could just wait for someone to make a youtube video.

I think GoHunt has a general deer e-scouting thing they did a few years ago for some different habitat types.

 

[3855WIN]

Hello all,
I was wondering what ways people are using Escouting for deer. Mr. Newberg has many videos on scouting for elk but not much on deer. I know the concepts are the same but would like to start scouting for my upcoming Colorado deer hunt. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

What season and what elevation/habitat?

 

[Flatlander3]

Hello all,
I was wondering what ways people are using Escouting for deer. Mr. Newberg has many videos on scouting for elk but not much on deer. I know the concepts are the same but would like to start scouting for my upcoming Colorado deer hunt. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

This! I comment this on all of there e scouting videos in hopes the produce a deer video.

 

[Mariano20]

What season and what elevation/habitat?

It’s Colorado 2nd season last 2 weeks of October. Mix of timber and sage flats. It’s a unit we have hunted many years before but last year just not the numbers of deer we normally see. Want to try new areas of the unit but wanted to get an idea of the area and what to look for

 

[Heyjbales]

It’s Colorado 2nd season last 2 weeks of October. Mix of timber and sage flats. It’s a unit we have hunted many years before but last year just not the numbers of deer we normally see. Want to try new areas of the unit but wanted to get an idea of the area and what to look for

What dates do you get to work with? How many days can you hunt?

If you had the ability, I would want to have some deer found the day or two in the lower country before the season starts since it's usually the first rifle deer hunt of the year and that would help put you on deer without doing your snow dance and hoping for nasty weather. I think one can always gamble going high in that season, especially if you're looking for a giant, but if you want to see deer for sure, I'd be lower than the timber. Something else to consider is that if snow DOES come, there definitely won't be fewer deer in the low country.

For e-scouting, I use all the tools I can get my hands on. OnX Maps, Google Earth, Hill Maps, and use them to paint the best picture as possible for an area with lower hunting pressure and good feed.

 

[BrentD]

Heybales,
I don't disagree with your suggestions, but most of the recommendations for mule deer seem to revolve around high country populations.

So, just as a hypothetical, suppose you have a tag for a lower elevation unit. Not much if any timber. Zero alpine. Basically grassland/badland stuff - great antelope country.

You can't scout in person, 'cuz it's 1000 miles one way.

You know where the water is, that's easy. And the does and immature bucks are there. But where are the mature bucks? (They definitely are not with the does).

I can't speak for Mariano20, but like him, I am wondering what to look for via e-scouting. I can find all the "remote" places, but in these types of units, nothing is really all that remote.

In the last weekend in October, are the bucks still 10s if not hundreds of miles away in alpine high country or are they lurking somewhere not so far away? And if the latter, what things should one look for that can be seen by e-scouting. And, just for the heck of it, what things (besides hoof prints) should we be looking for in our boots?

 

[Heyjbales]

Heybales,
I don't disagree with your suggestions, but most of the recommendations for mule deer seem to revolve around high country populations.

So, just as a hypothetical, suppose you have a tag for a lower elevation unit. Not much if any timber. Zero alpine. Basically grassland/badland stuff - great antelope country.

You can't scout in person, 'cuz it's 1000 miles one way.

You know where the water is, that's easy. And the does and immature bucks are there. But where are the mature bucks? (They definitely are not with the does).

I can't speak for Mariano20, but like him, I am wondering what to look for via e-scouting. I can find all the "remote" places, but in these types of units, nothing is really all that remote.

In the last weekend in October, are the bucks still 10s if not hundreds of miles away in alpine high country or are they lurking somewhere not so far away? And if the latter, what things should one look for that can be seen by e-scouting. And, just for the heck of it, what things (besides hoof prints) should we be looking for in our boots?

You're so right! We often get into the mindset that all the populations are migratory, but there are some major populations down low that have nothing to do with the mountains.

I won't tell you I'm an expert or big buck aficionado, but I've killed a couple bucks and really have dove into the science of this stuff. Maybe this will help.

Step 1: Find good feed and good cover near by. I shot a buck in a cliff-banded sage hill about 500' and a mile back from an alfalfa field. Extrapolate that scenario for wherever you're hunting. Sometimes that's a water source with junipers nearby, aspen pockets near antelope bitterbrush, etc. That's a good place to start while using e-scouting tools.

Step 2: Try to get away from pressure or use it to your advantage by playing private/public boundaries and/or features (cliffs, canyons, or rivers) that separate good habitat from other more accessible areas.

Step 3: Back up and glass. For e-scouting, that means picking good vantage points on the map. There won't be deer in every drainage, so the more country you can look at from a high spot the better. Once you find deer, whether it's 2 miles out or 500 yards out, then put your stalk on. If there's great habitat that should hold deer, but you have to get on a vantage point a mile away and glass across private land and a river, do that. It's better than just walking around in the good habitat and hoping to get lucky by bumping a buck out of its bed. Especially in thicker cover in October, that likely won't happen.

 

[BrentD]

Heybales, you are more expert than me by a long shot. I think this is probably all good advice. But will the bucks really be that close to ag fields?

Maybe it would be fun to take a unit and dissect it. For instance, I hunted unit 124 in the Bighorn Basin last year. We were mostly north of Dry Creek, and we were definitely away from the pressure AND away from the deer. We saw exactly and precisely 1 fork horn buck. I have no idea where we should have been but I can say with authority were we should NOT have been.

 

[Heyjbales]

Heybales, you are more expert than me by a long shot. I think this is probably all good advice. But will the bucks really be that close to ag fields?

Maybe it would be fun to take a unit and dissect it. For instance, I hunted unit 124 in the Bighorn Basin last year. We were mostly north of Dry Creek, and we were definitely away from the pressure AND away from the deer. We saw exactly and precisely 1 fork horn buck. I have no idea where we should have been but I can say with authority were we should NOT have been.

It's so unit/terrain/hunter numbers dependent. I'll PM you and explain my thoughts on that one in particular.

 

[rustednuts]

Deer need same types of things as elk; water, food, shelter, breeding, low disturbance. Their differences in what they eat, what they use for shelter, and breeding season are how you choose a deer vs elk, vs antelope location. In lower country, water browse and contour lines for shelter would be the big three I'd focus on. You'll also want to map out the road access, look at hunting pressure, and make a plan.

 

[BrentD]

Here is a place in 124 that we chose. It was the second choice after we discovered that our first choice was full of hunters (and I mean FULL). However, they weren't shooting much at all and the deer were mostly whitetails.

Anyway, so we moved to this spot feeling that, via e-scouting, it was the best place in 124. We saw 1 forky. If you were hunting 124 (because that's the tag you could draw), then where would you go that looks better and why?

https://huntsmarter.app.link/lGNPAMDTl7

 

[Hunting Wife]

Here is a place in 124 that we chose. It was the second choice after we discovered that our first choice was full of hunters (and I mean FULL). However, they weren't shooting much at all and the deer were mostly whitetails.

Anyway, so we moved to this spot feeling that, via e-scouting, it was the best place in 124. We saw 1 forky. If you were hunting 124 (because that's the tag you could draw), then where would you go that looks better and why?

https://huntsmarter.app.link/lGNPAMDTl7

I don’t kill many big bucks, but I do manage to kill some old ones, so maybe that counts for something

Based solely on your map, some of the fringe areas near the boundaries of that unit look best to me- the west end and the north point. Broken country for cover, drainages that probably have little water holes. Once you hit the ground, try to find the good pockets of grass/forbs. If you aren’t hunting where deer have access to ag fields, good forage on public can vary drastically from year to year, and is pretty much impossible to scout from the computer. So I guess if I was going in blind, I’d look at those first.

 

[BrentD]

Hunting Wife,
I get it that you have a "class" of deer that you specialize on. I'm a baby killer myself. Not by choice but because that's what I see over and over and finally, well something goes in the pot. I also have a habit of filling my tag in the last hours or even seconds of the season.

I use OnX to find basically "rough ground" of whatever sort is around. North and east facing slopes. Access roads, and isolated locations. Water. That's about all I can think to do with escouting Randy makes a 5 or 10 part video out of escouting for elk, but I just don't find that I'm smart enough to do much more than that.

 

[DirtyMedic]

Trying to figure out more about this myself. I’ve got a two day hunt in December and trying to figure out the best spots to hit up to glass from starting out. Think I’m going to go up higher in areas I’ve heard of people seeing them in passing and try to nail their habits down as best I can. Then pray that nobody else shows up in the same spots as me when the day comes!

 

[NR_Hunter]

I too, am currently looking doing some e-scouting for deer. It seems pretty easy for white-tail in the midwest, where seeing funnels, choke-points, and food sources is pretty easy, but in a more homogeneous landscape west of the MO river, its seems hard to really pinpoint areas of focus, especially in a more roaded area.

 

[NullPointerException]

I'm a noob, but I've found that muleys will be able to thrive in just about any environment. I think that's why you can find them in deserts and above the treeline and just about everything else in between.

In terms of e-scouting, I look for areas that I can hunt effectively. Sure they might be in the dark timber, but spotting them before they spot you could be a challenge and unless you are 99% sure they are in a patch of timber its probably not the best use of your time to slowly work your way through said timber. I tend to look for things like clearings with good food (knee high grass) that are close to a water source and some cover. From there I tend to pack on a ton of miles looking for sign and setting up trail cams. Some areas that look good will be a bust, so I just move on from there.