How many folks only hunt areas that you have recently scouted? Who all hunts areas that have been good in the past without scouting them before hunting? Who just always goes in blind and just finds a place that looks good?

I have a 100 acres to hunt so no need to scout. I hunt funnels, edges and the occasional field. In the past on leases I've scouted during the summer but during the season any scouting is done with a climber on my back. When I find something I like I'll sit it. No need in trampling all over the woods during the season.

X2, just lease 700 acres. I know where they'll be after hunting it for 5 years. I will take a quick look at different acorn trees, but that's it.

I guess I do a little scouting with a game cam, but I'm too busy to just walk around on a day off.

1... Yes
2... Yes
3... Never

Go in blind in the AM and scout my way out. But same spots for 30 years.

I've been hunting the same properties for 25+ years so I never scout preseason. I have a pine tree on one property that can be hunted with anything but an east wind. I usually take my climber in on opening morning and climb the pine. I've hunted that tree enough to know that, during bow season, it is a deer magnet.

One of my favorite tactics is to go into an area I know has contained deer in the past about noon. Find good sign, hunt it. ``

I rarely have time to scout so this year I bought a few time lapse game cams. The plan is to deploy them in open areas to try and identify movement patterns so I don't stomp all over a potentially good spot.

Of course I scout. I thought all serious hunters did.

Yes
Yes
Rarely, most of the times I'm on a new property hunting.

When I use to scout I did it in Feb. and March. I do pay attention to the woods while I am bush hogging in the fall.

As a new hunter last year I spent somewhere on the order of 200 hours during the year scouting 4 different public land areas. It paid off for me with 3 deer for the season. I am dropping one of those 4 areas and picking up another this year. I am still scouting the 3 areas from last year a little bit but by the time the season arrives I will have spent the majority of my time scouting the new area. I can see how it would get easier each year for places you know

no
yes
no

I've hunted the same properties for many years, I'll take a couple of walkabouts pre-rut, if I find something I like I'll hunt there. If I don't find anything that's gets my heart racing, I'll stand hop old reliable places when the rut starts rockin'. Both tactics seem to work, but I know my areas and deer very well.

Gone in blind in the past and 9/10 times it doesn't work out. Climb the wrong tree for the wind or too far from where the trails are, make too much noise going in and spread my scent around looking, or spot just turns out to be a dud. Needless to say I don't go in blind anymore.

^^This

I can see though how it would vary from situation to situation. For bowhunting, no way on earth I'd waste 2 seconds of hunting time in a place I haven't strongly scouted. I refuse to "play the odds game" of just blindly walking in to a place and hoping a deer gets within bow range. Then again, where I hunt we're hunting specific white oak trees usually, so scouting primarily works like this for me:
1) Early in Fall checking trees with binos to see if there are acorns at all.
2) Just prior to season, and during season, to see which trees have poop under them. If there ain't no poop, there ain't no deer! I don't care if they were smokin' that area last year, if there ain't no poop this year, you're just sittin' in a tree where it had been good in the past.
Now, for gun hunting, nah, I don't scout hardly any (if at all). When I gun hunt I want to hunt places where I can see as much as possible---cutovers, powerlines, BIG hardwood ridges, etc. I'm not trying to get exactly where the deer are coming to, so it really doesn't matter if the deer are "right here" when I can shoot as far as I can see. Or, I know good and well there are bucks bedded in that cutover, so I'm just gonna climb where I can cover the best part of it. I wouldn't walk that cutover "scouting" before I hunted it, if that makes sense.

It is funny how, year after year, good deer can & will be killed within 100-150 yards of a particular spot. Hunt a property long enough & you'll identify those areas. It took scouting initially at some point in the past... but when you find "that spot" then you know it.