With the ever increasing competition that Whitetail hunters have to face in the form of higher land and lease prices and other hunters, finding ways to locate local trophy bucks is very important. Here are three unconventional ways to locate deer that are often overlooked.
Find and talk to mail carriers and newspaper deliverers in your targeted rural areas. Chances are good that newspaper deliverers cover a lot of ground and they do it very early in the morning. Early in the morning is an awesome time for seeing mature bucks return to their living areas after a night of feeding and these newspaper people might have the info you are looking for.
Mail carriers tend to operate during business hours and they can offer a different point of view at different times than the newspaper carriers can. With regular daytime runs, the mail carriers can see what bucks are moving during the day and they can also give you a report on how many hunters might be out and about, as well as, what possible bucks are harvested and when.
Find your local wild game processor. I like to promote talking to game processors a lot because they are the most knowledgeable people around when it comes to knowing what bucks are being seen and taken, and where bucks are seen and taken.
Hunters like to brag and show off their trophies and most hunters figure their info is safe with a butcher since he or she is far removed from actual hunting while they toil away in their meat-cutting shops. Processors have replaced traditional barber shops when it comes to one-stop shopping of local deer information. Utilize this valuable resource.
Hit the water. If any of your potential hunting property is bordered by water, or contains a decent body of water, find a way to get on that water and canoe your way to an awesome scouting session. You can see stuff from the water that you can never see from land and there is no better method of low-impact scouting.
Scent contamination is a huge no-no as hunting season approaches and water will help you avoid stinking up any area. Besides the obvious scent control, quietly paddling a small boat will help you keep quiet and stealthy, which is practically a deer scouting requirement.
Thinking outside of the scouting box is over-hyped, but thinking big inside of the scouting box is often overlooked and it could give you just the edge you need to have a great hunting season.
