Effective Scouting - Part 1

The first key in the location element is selecting the right spot through proper scouting.

The Critical Importance Of Proper Scouting

Scouting is one of the most important steps in the process of becoming a consistently successful waterfowl hunter.

You see, the more time you spend properly scouting, the less time you'll spend frustrated sitting or lying in your blind empty handed, and the more time you'll spend sharing pictures and stories with your friends about your many successful waterfowl hunts throughout the hunting season.

Yet far too few waterfowl hunters take the time to scout and even fewer understand how to properly scout.

Learning to properly scout is not that difficult. It just takes:

Time

Yes, it does take time. In fact, it may take away from some of your hunting time. But let me ask you this, "If you had to invest two hours of your "hunting time" in exchange for "scouting time" and the two hours spent scouting helped put you in the spot that the birds wanted, would that be a fair trade?"

If you answered, "Yes" to the question then you're on the right track.

If you answered, "No", I'd like to ask, "Why"?

Maybe you're like we once were. You see, we used to believe that scouting took away from our hunting time and you certainly couldn't shoot ducks or geese sitting in a pickup staring out the window with a pair of binoculars trying to decide where to hunt. But what we came to realize (later rather than sooner) was that the waterfowl hunters who were the most successful in the areas that we hunted spent a lot of time scouting. The time they spent scouting helped them pinpoint the exact location the ducks or geese wanted to be. So when they took the field, their success ratio was consistently very high.

And the more time they scouted the less time they spent in the field to shoot a limit of birds, which let them spend more time scouting and their success circle continued.

Patience

In the beginning this was a tough one for us and it seems to be for most waterfowl hunters. What we came to realize was the fact that scouting wasn't "a waste of valuable time"; instead it was an investment that would pay huge dividends.

Two years ago I sat in my pickup during the height of hunting season and scouted the same location from 7am to 12:30 pm. Although there were ducks moving throughout the area, the overall success was ratio was very poor. I talked to numerous hunting parties as they came back into the parking lot and everyone of them told me the same thing, "Go home. It's terrible. You'll just waste your time if you go out."

But my patience paid off. From 12 - 12:30 I pinpointed a spot that the ducks were using. I gave a friend a call and by the time I had the boat in the water and ready to go, he was in the parking lot. We were set up by 1:30 pm and finished with our limit of greenheads in less than 30 minutes.

If you haven't already identified the right spot by your previous scouting ventures, try a little patience. You might be surprised at the results you'll achieve.

Effort

Yeah, you won't always be able to sit in your vehicle and pinpoint a "hotspot". Sometimes (a lot of times) it's going to take good old fashion hard work and leg power. There are going to be times when you're just going to have to work your butt off to find the right spot. But, if you want to succeed as badly as we do, it's definitely worth the effort.

Perception

Perception is all about paying attention.

How many of us, as we were growing up, weren't told by our mom, dad, teacher, or coach: "PAY ATTENTION." Well, we're here to tell you the same thing when you're out hunting, hey, "PAY ATTENTION."

Now you may be asking yourself, "Pay attention? Pay attention to what?" Well, for starters, pay attention to the details. You know the little things most other hunters don't pay any attention to. Such as:

You get the point.

Desire

Scouting does take desire. It takes a desire to always want to hunt the best spot you can and a commitment to spend the time necessary to ensure that it happens. But in the end, we guarantee you will find very few areas where your time will be better spent than when you scout.

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