The temperatures are finally starting to rise and ole man winter seems to have gone for most of the country by now. Now is the time to tune up the lawnmower, start getting the yardwork done, clean out the garage and maybe help the wife out with the spring cleaning. Better yet, now can be a great time to cure that cabin fever and start scouting for that buck you plan to hunt this fall. Spring can be a great time to get out in your favorite whitetail hunting spot to see what is going on. The foliage has only started to grow, much of the ground cover is still dead from winter. Things can be a little easier to spot this time of year. This can make finding deer sign pretty easy.
One of the first things I tend to look for this time of year is droppings. I want to know if the deer are wintering on the land I intend to hunt this fall. The more concentrations of droppings I can find the better I like my odds. If the cover and food source on the land is enough to hold deer all winter, odds are they won't be to far when I am ready to hunt. Once I have found large concentrations of droppings, I am pretty sure I have just keyed in on the core wintering grounds. From here I want to look for food sources. This could be browes from the local vegitation or left over crops in a nearby farm field. I also want to look for potential food sources in that area. In the upper midwest we begin bow hunting in the middle of September. This is usually the time the acorns begin to drop. My efforts to find a food source would include looking for a white oak in the area that I can count on being there come fall. Other areas for potential food sources would be along the edges of agricultural fields. The run off of fertilizers can make the field edges very lush with plenty of potential food for a hungry deer herd and there are the farm fields themselves. If I plan on hunting near the fields this is when I pay attention to what was in the field last year. If the field is full of soy bean stubble odds are the yearly crop rotation will have corn in it come this year. By September the bean fields are usually getting pretty brown and dried out at the same time the corn is starting to get sweet. This is the time we generally notice the deer giving up on the young tender bean sprouts for the corn. By now I should have a very good clue as to where the deer are feeding and what food sources I can count on when fall comes.
Now I want to look for buck sign. Most of the sign I will be looking at is from last year but that is Ok. Like I mentioned earlier, this is an easy time of year to find sign because it is just easier to spot while everything is still dead from winter and looking at old sign can give me alot of information on where to expect the deer to be this year. Usually I start looking for last seasons rub lines. I won't pay as much attention to the occasional one here and there. I want to find and key in on the ones that are more concentrated to one local area. When I find these I know I'm also finding the bucks core hang out.Then I will tend to look for secondary trails parallel to the main trails, with hopes of finding the bedding area. Maybe even a shed antler to clue me in on what size buck was using the area. There are many opinions on going into the main bedding area, should you or shouldn't you? For me this is the only time of year I will venture in there. At this point if I spook off a nice buck I know it will be months before I come back to hunt and the damage is minimal. Once I have found the bedding area, it's back to the trails leading to and from it. Again looking for the food.
If I can determine at this time of year the travel routes from the bedding area to the food source, I am that much closer to being ahead of the game come fall. As I am scouting the trails between the food source and the bedding area, now I also want to be looking for potential stand locations. I will be looking for areas that funnel or pinch the deer down to a smaller area. This can be a low spot between two hills or an area of timber that narrows down between to food sources causing a bottle neck. One of my favorite areas to look for is to find where trails to and from the food source intersect. If I can find three or four trails that intersect one another in the same general area, then I just increased my odds. It is more productive to watch four trails at once then just sitting on one and hoping it is the right one. While looking for stand sites I also want to pay attention to the wind. Can I get in here quietly and more important can I do it without having every deer on the property smelling me. I will be better off trying to pick out several different stand sites along these travel routes. One to keep from over hunting a location and second to have a back up if the wind is wrong for one particular stand. This is better then calling the hunt off or spooking the deer.
To help aide in finding bottle necks or saddles on the property you are hunting, arial photos or topographical maps can be a great help. By using the maps you can pin point areas that look like they have the potential key features before ever setting foot in the field. This can greatly reduce the amount of time you need to spend scouting and looking for the hot spots. It also reduces the amount of foot traffic in your favorite hunting land, making it less likely you will spook the deer onto the neighbors land. By now you should have a good idea of where the deer spent the winter and how they are moving from the bedding areas to food sources. You should also have a few stand sites already picked out. This information will go a long way in our next trip.
