Arizona Hunting Club & Outdoor Adventure Group

Planning a Scouting Trip
Complete with Predefined GPS Routes

Once you have used topographic maps and satellite aerial photos to research the areas you want to hunt and have defined a list of watering holes, feeding areas and elevated benches and bedding areas with the best potential, it is time to add these waypoints into your GPS and create a scouting trip or discovery route. Discovery routes can be programmed into the topographic software program then downloaded into your GPS.

Unlike many places, Arizona is very hot and very dry. Always start with water. My discovery routes for scouting trips always start with water. I will find 10 stock tanks that are located away from roads, near grassy meadows and close to large hills or mountains where animals like to bed down. If I can find saddles, draws or drainages that connect these areas, the hunt is on.

For each tank, I will program GPS waypoints into my topo software that looks like I am drawing a picture of the sun. I zig zap away from the tank and back again until I have walked an entire circle around its perimeter. You should stay within a 1/4 to 1/2 mile from the tank.

When walking, I look for hillsides that animals like to use for surveillance of the tank; drainages that animals will use to get to the back door of the tank without being seen, and grassy meadows that are protected by heavy timber. I like to look for dense clumps of oak trees and pine trees. These clumps are made up of 50-100 young trees that provide the perfect camouflage for elk and deer that will see you and hear you coming long before you ever see them (unless you are glassing them first).

Leading to these various areas you will usually find heavily worn game trails usually started by cattle, but heavily used by wildlife too. Also, look for lots of hoof prints making trails through the leaves and/or pine needles. You will come across lots of trails, but you are looking for the super highways. They will be obvious. If you can find these types of trails, follow them in the direction going away from known water.

These game trails will show signs of heavy grazing on the grass and bushes beside the trail and lot of GREEN droppings. If you can, follow the grazing until you find a ton of droppings located in close proximity to each other. These areas are known as staging areas where the whole herd stops, feeds and waits for it to get dark. These areas will have so much sign, that it will be hard for you to walk without stepping in it.

Another tell tale sign of hard to find game trails are rubs and scrapes. When looking at the scrapes, the rubbed or scrapped side of trees will lead back to the animal's core bedding areas. The non-scrapped side leads toward water and food. This is because most deer and elk will kill time waiting for it to get dark by leaving a trail of rubs on their way to to water and feed at night. In the morning, they are usually in a hurry to get back to their bedrooms and don't mess around with making rubs.

If you are crazy and have plenty of time before the hunting season, take a leak on these scrapes. Don't touch them, just pee on them. Many hunting guides claim that any pee on a scrape with testosterone in it achieves the same objective as putting out bull and buck urine. Doing so will brand your scent as a competing buck or bull in the area.

You should be following your predefined scouting route using your GPS, but if you see something that looks good or you smell the sweet musky smell of elk beds. Go find them. Take a notebook with you to jot down notes and a digital camera to take pictures. When taking notes, always pay attention to the time of day, season and which way the wind is blowing.

Always take a pair of binoculars and look ahead to see where you are going. Many times you will see both elk and deer. When you see them, you will notice that they are already watching you to see if you will get close enough to make them move. Always walk around them if possible. Or for fun, if it is early in the season, walk up on them and note how quickly 50 elk can vacate the premises without making a sound. Make a note of their escape routes and see if it matches your predicted getaways. Later in the season, hide in these areas and let dumb hunters push the deer and elk right to you.

Another thing I love to find are large puddles in the forest away from roads. They might be deep pools in creek beds or ruts made by old roads. Animals will visit these puddles often because very few hunters know where they are and the hunting pressure is very low in these locations. Even though a puddle may be dry, animals will check to see if these puddles have any new water in them. If they are close enough, 2-3 weeks prior to the season, haul your own water in and keep them full. Sometimes all it takes is a couple of water bottles to wet the soil. They will come to the smell of damp earth.

If you really want to get their attention and train them to come to a tree stand location, add a mined salt rock, chop up some apples and leave a bale of alfalfa hay or alfalfa pellets. This is a good way to get them accustomed to your visiting your stand and learning what you smell like. If it is early in the season, leave a camo t-shirt with your scent on a tree nearby. They will get used to your smell and associate it with food and water. DON'T do this unless you have more than a month. It will take them some time to get accustomed to your scent.

When scouting always record what you see on paper as well as your GPS. It takes a lot of time, but filling out a scouting report for every area and stock tank that you scout will become more and more valuable over time. Always include the time of day, wind direction and the month. If you see any animals, mark down where they were, and which way they departed.