This time of year, deer sign is very easy to find when you're out in the woods. Whether it be antler rubs such as this one, scrape areas, or used trails leading to a food source or bedding area, this is value information that you can use to your advantage when trying to find next fall's big buck hot spots.
April 21, 2025
By Alex Gyllstrom
Post-season scouting in the late winter and spring months is my most impactful time in the woods. The sign is fresh; the landscape is a 3-D map; it's time to wear out the boot leather. With time and sign visibility on your side, finding bedding, primary scrape areas, and secluded staging areas where bucks spend most of their time in daylight has drastically improved my success rates in the fall. Now is the time to dive in deep, forget pressure, get dirty, go where you're not "supposed" to go and learn more about the bucks in the areas you hunt than ever before.
Spokes on a Wheel The "Spokes on a Wheel" concept is simple yet incredibly effective. It's foundational for finding mature buck hiding places and carrying out my post-season scouting efforts. The theory centers around buck bedding, where they spend most of their time during daylight. Imagine a bicycle wheel where the hub of the wheel is a buck's bedding area or security cover where he spends most daylight hours, and the spokes are trails or access routes leading to and from the cover. The "spokes" leading to the "hub" need to be understood because they're crucial to determining how close to the "hub" you can get to hunt the bucks on your property.
I try to consider every reason why a deer might be using a particular route. Terrain, wind, and sight advantage are important questions and scenarios to consider throughout the backtracking process. If I haven't spent much time on the property to identify these hubs/bedding areas in the offseason, I like to start with the most likely security cover and the best concentration of sign. Then, I work my way outward, backtracking to the perimeter. Even though it's fun to see beat-down, intersecting trails and high-traffic areas, the further you get from the bedding area, the less the sign really matters for hunting situations. Sure, you can find some great ambush spots in and around the rut, but I spend most of my time looking for this sign around the thicker cover. This cover allows bucks to follow and scent check doe groups around the rut and offers them security throughout the season.
Bedding Areas and Maximum Daylight Hours Studying how and where mature bucks bed is one of my favorite aspects of chasing whitetails. It's a total mental game. Carefully consider every detail; there's no better time to tackle it than early spring. We could talk for days about buck bedding and related strategies, but in terms of post-season scouting, bedding areas are the most vital piece to the puzzle. Scouting this time of year is as good as it gets. It's our one free pass to dive in and over-turn every leaf and blade of grass to understand how and when mature bucks are using their beds. What the habitat and terrain provide for desirable locations, how the wind determines likely positioning within a bedding area, and how bucks navigate to and from bedding are all essential to getting close. Yes, it's a lot, but don't let it be overwhelming. Take it slow; keep it as simple as possible, and enjoy the process.
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Mature bucks love to bed in thick cover, which means there will be a transition type at the edge of the bedding area. Start at the transition line where the thick cover meets more open habitat. Work along the transition looking for buck sign and big tracks. Once you find a trail correlating with this sign, follow it into the bedding area. The goal here is to find individual or clusters of beds. When you find a bed, kneel or sit in it. See what the buck sees from his perspective. Pay attention to how far he can see; this is key for approach and stand height. You want to be just out of sight of the buck's bed. It can vary by terrain and habitat type, but bucks commonly bed with thicker cover to their back. Their strategy for a bed location is cover to their back with the wind blowing from behind them. This situation allows them to smell behind them and use their eyesight to scan in front of them. Of course, it's not an exact science and deer are wild animals that do things we can't explain, but this is a consistent scenario I have seen for years.
Take your time and study how bucks enter and exit these bedding areas. Access is almost always wind-based. They often circle and approach the bed downwind and enter with the wind in their face to confirm the bed is safe. When they exit, the wind is less critical depending on cover. Depending on how long they stay bedded and how often they use a bed or bedding area, they will be more confident leaving it for some distance. This security bubble around the transition or edge of a bedding area as they enter or exit is your zone of opportunity. This zone is where you want to set up for your ambush. Find the routes in and out of the bedding area with the best sign and start hunting them down.
Identify stand options based on wind directions and the access routes you've already determined from working your way into the bedding areas. Mark these locations so you can continue to analyze and understand them from your map. Once you've selected your stand sites, stay out until it's time to hunt. Your presence and pressure from multiple visits only decrease the frequency bucks will use it. The goal is to establish as many of these setups for different bedding areas as you can for the season. You probably won't get more than a hunt or two at each one before he's on to you, so stay adaptable.
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Studying maps is incredibly productive, but nothing replaces physical boots on the ground. Miles of walking and hands-on learning with no risk of bumping deer during these post-season months is the best education deer hunters can get. Read the sign from last season, keep careful notes and put serious time in now. You'll be amazed how taking your approach to the next level for next year's buck months ahead of the season can yield incredible success.
Food Sources and Seasonal Shifts Start by identifying a few main trails leading to the food source, preferably from the predominant downwind side. Backtrack these trails to determine where they came from. If the property you hunt doesn't have food, try to determine the nearest food source in relation to your location and start with the travel routes leading to it, backtracking them from there. Along the way, drop pins or make note of rubs, scrapes and locations where trails intersect. These aren't necessarily ideal locations to hunt, but it's essential to identify which specific routes have bucks using them.
Once you determine the best or most used trails for travel, I start excluding the ones mature bucks are least likely to use. I discard trails in the open that offer little security cover or potential terrain advantages for thermals and wind to a traveling buck. An effective way to save time and boot soles once the direction of travel is determined is to pull up your map app of choice and look ahead of your route to see if it leads to any thick transitions, cover or potential bedding areas. Identifying these from a map isn't always possible, so you will need to walk some out completely, but it is an effective way to narrow your search.
It's important to consider and note the current food source types and changes you need to consider for the upcoming season. For crop fields, think about crop rotations and how they can shift the desirable time of year. Note preferred natural vegetation types and heavy concentration of browse. If there are oaks or other mast-producing trees, remember how wet or dry the approaching spring and summer are. It will be imperative to check back and see if they will produce later in the summer. Once you've determined the most likely preferred travel routes with good transitional cover and sign, track them all right to the bedding areas. Now, it's time to slow down and analyze all the details.
Factoring in Hunting Pressure Hunting pressure influences deer behavior more than any other factor in the woods. As you post season scout for deer sign and behavior, whether on private or public property, keeping track of sign from other hunters is equally important. If you're hunting public land, take note of worn trails, access routes, tree tacks, bright eyes or flagging that indicate a hunter is using an area. If you're sharing a piece of private or have neighbors that hunt, keep track of any treestands or blinds that may have been left or are close to the property line.
Try to stay away from these exact spots. Think about how you may be able to use their impact to your advantage in terms of deer travel and be on the receiving end of other hunters pushing deer to you or affecting the way deer navigate the property.
The Payoff of Post-Season Scouting Success in deer hunting isn't just about showing up at the start of the season. It's about the work put in during the months prior. Post-season scouting is the foundation of a well-thought-out hunting strategy. By analyzing last season's sign, mapping out travel patterns, and planning stand locations precisely, you can confidently enter the next season.
The best way to learn about deer is to immerse yourself where they live. Get out there, put boots on the ground, and take the time to break down the landscape. Every trail, rub, and bed tells a story. A story that, when pieced together correctly, can lead to the moment of truth next fall.
