Early Season Scouting Tips

Take advantage of the final days of the pre-season to scout your hunting area and add some potential targets to your hit list.

Get Glassing

Before bucks go nocturnal and become tougher to locate, spend hours glassing for your next target. Set up on a high spot and focus your spotting scope or binos on fields. Take inventory of bucks in the area, take note of patterns, and determine how the deer are entering and exiting those areas. Be sure to invest in high-quality optics so you can rely on your glass.

Use Cellular Trail Cams

Some areas simply aren’t accessible to glassing and shouldn’t be repeatedly trudged through just weeks before the early season. Cellular trail cameras make an excellent low-impact strategy for gathering intel without disrupting deer to pull memory cards every few days. Position them along deer trails, along field edges, and by food or water sources. In areas where legal, you can also use minerals or other attractants to draw deer to your cameras.

Put Boots on the Ground

Long-distance glassing and trail cam photos are great, but they only show you part of the total picture. Head into the field to gather more information and locate new stand sites as soon as possible. Scout for sign. Determine how deer are traveling from food sources to bedding areas via tracks, trails, and other markers. Use aerial maps and scouting apps to guide you and search for water sources which can be great spots to focus on during the balmy early season. But always minimize your impact through scent control.

With the early season ramping up in some states and just around the corner in others, now is the time to nail down your fall hunting strategy and get in some last-minute scouting in search of your next trophy.