Deer season is coming to an end and many hunters are singing the blues as they have months to wait till deer season comes back around. Hopefully, this past season was a success but now is the time to get a jump on next seasons hunt by beginning to scout.
Even though deer season has come to an end, now is one of the best times to get out and scout to see what deer have been up to where you hunt. Scouting for deer now is much less disturbing to the deer than waiting till the season is about to begin and if you do happen to spook deer they have plenty of time to forget about you in the coming months.
TRAILS
This time of year makes it easy to locate trails that deer often use to get from feeding to bedding grounds no matter how dense the area might be. These trails could change as the food sources change in the summer, but the trails they use to leave their bedding grounds will not change, and eventually the trails to the food sources will come back around to their fall patterns.
Trails are still bare of leaves and other debris. They stand out will this time of the year. Especially if there is snow on the ground, or if the ground is muddy. Later in the spring and summer, the new growth throughout the woods will make deer trails a little harder to locate.
Not only are trails more visible, but so are buck rubs. Bucks leave good sign behind as they polish their antlers and get in some practice fights with small saplings. A rub tells a lot about the bucks in the area and their routine.
RUBS
Rubs are one time size does matter. The bigger the diameter of the tree the rub is on, the bigger the buck that made that rub. Big bucks will rub small trees, but small bucks do not rub big trees. When you find a tree of at least 6-inches in diameter, you can be sure a mature buck made that rub.
Bucks are known to rub trees in the same area from one year to the next. Often, bucks rub the same tree year after year. Hunters who know where rubs were located in previous seasons can use this to their advantage. As long as the buck who made the rub is still alive. Hang a stand along a rub line, and start hunting it before bucks begin to rub. You might just be able to ambush an unsuspecting buck add he begins to create his rub line for the year.
By learning to interpret rubs, hunters will be able to tell where bucks are eating and sleeping. If the shiny side of a rub is facing a dense thicket, this is more than likely where the bucks are breeding. If the shiny side of the rub is facing a food plot, clover field or other source of food, this is probably where they spend the night eating. Set up and hunt accordingly.
SCRAPES
Out of nowhere scrapes magically appear overnight. One element of a good scrape location is a good licking branch hanging over a scrape. Scrapes are often found along logging roads, ridgelines, and edge of swamps, creeks and riverbeds.
Chance are that if you locate scrapes or a scrape line now from the previous season, new ones will be constructed very near the same area the following season.
If I can find where an active primary scrape line intercepts with a doe trail, I begin to act like a kid in a candy store. I will hang a stand downwind of where the scrape line crosses the doe trail. This will likely be a stand I do not hunt until the rut begins. I do not want to ruin this stand by hunting it too early in the season
SHED HUNTING
Another thing that can be done this time of year is looking for shed antlers. Finding sheds will give you a good idea of what deer survived the season as well as the winter. Not only is it a good scouting tool, but also fun.
Around February, whitetail bucks begin drooping their antlers they grew for the fall rut. The exact timing varies from year to year, and from place to place, but if they are not already, you can be sure they will be on the ground very soon. Looking for them puts you in touch with nature. If you are a deer hunter, it could also provide clues to the location and habits of bucks that survived the hunting season.
CONCLUSION
There is a lot of sign still visible this time of year. Take the information from what you see, and what you learned from the past deer season, and use it to your advantage. It is not too early to think about hanging your treestands, and cutting shooting lanes.
