Quick & Dirty Scouting Methods

[YosemiteSam]

Looking for quick & dirty scouting methods for the upcoming August archery season in the Sierras.  The area is a 2-hour drive from the house + a mile or hike before I get to the first location.  So I figure I can get up some July evening, crash at the trailhead & be up scouting for most of the next day.  The deer are migratory mulies/blacktails so although I'll be checking last year's locations, there's no guarantees that they'll be in the same spots.  They also don't pattern well (or maybe I'm just not very good at it).  Landscape is typical of the high sierras -- rugged mountains, deep wooded pine forest, small aspen groves, manzanita, large & small meadows, prolific streams, dense brushy hillsides, etc.  Miles of public land wilderness in all directions.  No roads in -- only quads allowed are the ones God gave me, as they say.

Buck only hunt.  If you had only 12 hours to scout a familiar area, how would you approach it?  Treat it like a weaponless hunt by taking a stand in the morning & quietly searching throughout the day?  Set up on a mountain top & glass openings in the brush all day?  Walk & search for sign all day?  I'm open to some new ideas.

[Michael Arnette]

Seems arid...have you tried water?

[monterey]

I'm a walk and search for sign Guy.  If your deer are like our Colorado deer they bed on higher ground than they feed at and tend to travel ridge line's or ridge sides and cross gully's and valleys on the diagonal.

[yaderehey]

If it were me I'd scout it about pretty much like I'd hunt it August.  Definitely on a high point glassing early in the morning. Hopefully you'll be seeing some deer.  I'd stick with the glassing as long as I was seeing deer and movement and I'd be noting locations.  If things got really slow later in the day when they start bedding down and disappearing I'd begin still-hunting (scouting) through the aspens and pines looking for sign/deer. I'd probably be moving quite a bit faster scouting than I would be when hunting in order to cover more area.

[YosemiteSam]

Originally posted by Michael Arnette:
Seems arid...have you tried water?

Sorry.  Was that a joke?  Not arid in the least.

[YosemiteSam]

Originally posted by yaderehey:
If it were me I'd scout it about pretty much like I'd hunt it August.  Definitely on a high point glassing early in the morning. Hopefully you'll be seeing some deer.  I'd stick with the glassing as long as I was seeing deer and movement and I'd be noting locations.  If things got really slow later in the day when they start bedding down and disappearing I'd begin still-hunting (scouting) through the aspens and pines looking for sign/deer. I'd probably be moving quite a bit faster scouting than I would be when hunting in order to cover more area.

I need to learn more about glassing.  I've done a little but all I ever see are trees, bushes and birds.  Might be a prime opportunity to take along some good binocs for a change.  I usually leave them at home for hunting to keep my pack weight down.

[YosemiteSam]

Originally posted by monterey:
I'm a walk and search for sign Guy.  If your deer are like our Colorado deer they bed on higher ground than they feed at and tend to travel ridge line's or ridge sides and cross gully's and valleys on the diagonal.

Indeed, the one buck I've taken from this area was walking down the hillside from the top of a ridge at around 5pm.  I was hiking in but just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

[Roadkill]

I do a map search for water sources. I work ridges above those for sign.  Binos save shoe leather. Does do not equate to bucks out here as you know. You can watch does for days without ever seein a buck. The Sierra on the Mono county side seems to have lots of water so far-in fact the Walker may flood downstream. Do not know how it is on your side.
I had a single tree above my house that had a buck under it often.  I went up one day and that buck just kicked his way around that tree to stay in the shade-looked like someone had dug a trench.  Day after day he stayed in the shade and came out at dusk.  Taught me to look carefully under single trees on slopes-he was safe out in that open hillside, but under his tree.

[Roadkill]

I do a map search for water sources. I work ridges above those for sign.  Binos save shoe leather. Does do not equate to bucks out here as you know. You can watch does for days without ever seein a buck. The Sierra on the Mono county side seems to have lots of water so far-in fact the Walker may flood downstream. Do not know how it is on your side.
I had a single tree above my house that had a buck under it often.  I went up one day and that buck just kicked his way around that tree to stay in the shade-looked like someone had dug a trench.  Day after day he stayed in the shade and came out at dusk.  Taught me to look carefully under single trees on slopes-he was safe out in that open hillside, but under his tree.

[longbow fanatic 1]

I think I would hike in to the highest point and glass. I'd spend a couple days glassing early and evening hours. Seems like the lowest impact, highest return.

[Walt Francis]

Get high with powerful optics and watch at first light, mid-day, and the evenings.  Mule deer get up and browse for 10-30 minutes mid day.  When I lived in Idaho, I saw a lot of the deer then.  And most important, you don't disturb the animals until you are hunting them.

Dwight Schuh wrote a book called Hunting Open Country Mule Deer about 30 years ago, it has the information, in detail, that you need.

[yaderehey]

"I usually leave them at home for hunting to keep my pack weight down."

I remember some famous hunter commenting that good optics cost nothing and weigh nothing.  I wouldn't think of hunting/scouting an area like you're describing without good binoculars.  The key word here is good.  I started hunting out west with a $75 pair of binoculars.  I'd start to get a headache within 10 minutes of continuous glassing.  They were next to worthless.  I now have a $750 pair that I can glass with for hours.  Best money I ever spent.

[BWallace10327]

$75? Next to worthless? $750? That's what would give me the headache.    

[yaderehey]

Originally posted by BWallace10327:
$75? Next to worthless? $750? That's what would give me the headache.      

Guess it's a good thing I didn't buy a pair of high end Swarovski or Zeiss....  

[monterey]

I paid $16 for mine.

They work great cause I rarely use them.  Mostly just leave them in the car or in camp.

[Gdpolk]

I would take this in sections.

First: Look at aerial and topography maps of the areas before scouting.  Identify the following as best you can so you can have a planned attack for scouting in person:  

• high spots for glassing, particularly over areas of interest or areas that offer more than one view
• Water sources - these will attract all wildlife to some degree
• topography features that may channel movement such as a saddle in a ridgeline or a nice ridgeline between bedding and feeding areas
• changes in vegetation/cover that may provide an indication of a possible bedding vs feeding vs "no go" area that you aren't likely to find animals

 
When you get there I'd spend peak activity times glassing on a high point with both quality binoculars and if possible a spotting scope.  This will give you a visual confirmation of what's happening without you moving into your area and busting yourself or blowing out the area.  During the non-peak times for game movement, I would use that time to move around and see what you can find.

When the hunt starts, I'd spend time in the areas that seem most promising from previous scouting and if something is wrong move around between spots only during the times less likely to see game movement.  As I moved I would go slow and continue scouting my way into position.

[YosemiteSam]

This is as open as it gets for long-range viewing.  Are some of you able to consistently spot deer in this patchy stuff?  I had lunch here one afternoon last year.  I had taken a buck near here before but last year, all the sign was very old.  Some of the green patches that look like grass on the hillside are actually brush that is about 4-6' tall.  Down further, deeper into the woods, I jumped a bear.  Couldn't see more than 20 yards in any direction when it bolted.  I was trying to get to what I thought was a meadow down lower but it was surrounded by 8' tall brush on all sides.  I know there's something to find in all that but it's difficult to see and travel through.

*Trying to add more photos of the more typical areas but it's only posting links.
   

[YosemiteSam]

This is a meadow where I spotted 3 does on my first day of the archery opener.  The photo was later in the season.  After seeing those does, I didn't see any deer or sign in the handful of times I went back last season.  Typical of the area, there's a marshy creek in the middle of this that flows out of a small lake about 1/4 mile away.  That flows for a few miles until it links up with a bigger creek and that creek into another and eventually to a larger river about 10-20 miles away.  Creeks, marshes, puddles and small lakes are everywhere.  It's part of what makes this such a beautiful place to be and why the deer come back every summer.

  http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh488/mandbwhite/IMG_0887_zpsuy2l6ocr.jpg  

This is how most of it looks on the ground.  This is near the end of the season after a little dusting of snow.  Most of the deer I've spotted have been in deeper woods like this -- especially after the gunshots start going off.  As far as brush density and the proliferation of water, it's not unlike what I saw hunting in the Arkansas riverbottoms, minus the oaks and plus the mountains.

  http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh488/mandbwhite/IMG_0913_zps6k0step9.jpg  

Serious question: would you opt for trying a spot n stalk approach over still hunting in this kind of area?