Well it’s that time of year again. Time to get out and hit the trail looking for deer sign here in Missouri. This is when I like to start looking for tracks and those ever elusive buck trails. You know the ones, hidden off the beaten path usually ten to 15-yards away. These are the ones that get me excited when the only tracks you see are that of a big buck. When I first started hunting years ago I only focused on the well-beaten paths with tracks every where, just trying to get meat for the freezer which by the way I still do but now most of the time I’m looking for that mature buck. Not necessarily a big rack although that would be nice but mainly that old mature sagging back and big headed buck one with a lot of age.

I usually hunt the same public land in one area I hunt to the north. But, to the south of where I live there is a whole new area to explore with over 10,000 acres in which a lot of the upcoming days before fall will be spent there, scouting. I usually spend the first few trips to a new area watching from the truck early in the morning and late afternoon with a good spotting scope just to see where they coming out of and going to. After that I usually start looking for those main travel corridors. To me, the most important part of this search is locating the creek crossings. I have found more useful sign in these crossings than anywhere else.

I will travel down these creeks and wet weather ditches looking for the main crossings first and at the same time looking for trails along the creeks edge I usually take along my GPS. This is one tool that has become an important part of my scouting. Marking trails on these things are a lot easier than remembering every location and you can easily find your way back to keep an eye on their pattern. What’s really awesome about GPS scouting, is that once you put in your entries when you get home you can almost connect the dots to see their movements from bedding areas to their feeding spots. You don’t need to buy the most high dollar unit out there either. The one I bought is an $89 Explorist 200 GPS made by Magellan and it gets the job done just fine. I always pull up aerial photos on line and you can pretty much match your markings on your GPS with the aerial photos it really is one great tool.

After locating main trails on the creeks and ditches I then go back and start following them back to see what other valuable sign I can find. Such as, last years scrapes and rubs, deer droppings and bedding areas. The bedding area is one of the most important places to find in my opinion because this is one place you need to stay away from as much as possible during your scouting. This is true especially once the season starts because once these deer get bumped a few times they’re more apt to leave the area.

Next, once I have found my hot spots I start looking for those perfect trees to use my climber or a place to perch a hang-on stand. While I don’t tree stand hunt very often any more I still like to have the option of using this method. I am sometimes forced to do just that especially if there are quite a few hunters in the area when I am hunting small parcels of public land. I do this because I do not want to ruin their hunt while stalking through the timber and brush. This a tactic I usually save for the bigger tracks of public land I hunt or while hunting out west. I like a climbing stand the most but have found that sometimes the hang on is the only option or possibly a good ground blind this just varies because of the types of trees in a area or the lay of the land.

So as soon as you can, get out and enjoy some spring and summer scouting deer season is just around the corner.