Scouting New Hunting Ground: Finding Deer Sign & Setting Trail Cameras | Post-season deer scouting

David Harris

Feb 94 min read

Two people dressed warmly stand outdoors near a parked truck; leafless trees and grass surround them under a cloudy sky. — My son and I out on our first Post-Season deer scout

The weekend is here, and deer season is over—time to start preparing for the next one. Yesterday marked my first post-season deer scouting trip, and while I haven’t done much of this before, I’ve been watching plenty of YouTube videos and reading articles to understand what to look for. My main goal was to find well-worn trails and bedding areas. Since I wouldn’t be hunting, I decided there was no need to leave before sunrise. Instead, I took my time and hit the woods around 8 AM.

Bringing My Son Along for the Post-season deer scout

Since it was the weekend, I invited my 17-year-old son to join me. He’s been hunting with me a few times and is showing more interest in it. He enjoys getting outdoors, and this was a great opportunity to teach him more about scouting. We layered up for the 25-degree weather, grabbed breakfast to fuel the adventure, and set out.

Keeping It Light on Gear

I wanted to travel light since we’d be covering multiple miles. I packed two trail cameras, binoculars, a first aid kit, and my new Insta360 X4 camera to capture some footage. Given the muddy conditions, we both wore our hunting boots, ensuring we had good traction for navigating the terrain.

Scouting the South Corner

We arrived at the property about an hour later. This is private land in Southern Ohio that my family has hunted for about 20 years. The land is divided into three main sections:

Top Side – A ridgeline with a small cabin, open fields, and established treestands.
South Corner – A challenging section with steep draws, a creek, and thick timber.
Bottom Side – A hilltop with steep spurs leading to a creek bottom.

This trip was focused on the South Corner, an area we hadn’t hunted before. After pulling into the property, my son hopped out to open the gate. Right away, we ran into our first mistake—I hadn’t packed enough batteries. I thought each camera took eight AA batteries, but they actually required 16. That meant we could only set up one camera instead of two. Lesson learned!

Finding Sign & Setting Up the Camera

We began by walking the edge where the field meets the tree line, searching for deer sign before pushing deeper into the woods. It didn’t take long—we found a well-worn trail with fresh droppings. Following the trail downhill, we soon discovered an area covered in deer droppings with disturbed leaf litter. A broken branch caught my eye—it looked like a licking branch, but the ground didn’t resemble a traditional scrape. After analyzing the area, my son and I concluded that deer were likely feeding here. We marked it as a potential feeding zone.

From there, we followed two trails leading out:

Northward Trail – This led down to the creek at the property boundary. We noted it as a potential crossing point but couldn’t follow it further.
Northwest Trail – This followed the creek along a downhill slope and was loaded with deer droppings. As we moved along, we spotted small rubs—an exciting first for my son.

Eventually, the trail led us to a steep draw. As expected, the deer trail crossed at the very tip of the draw, confirming what I had read about deer preferring high crossing points. We marked it in OnX and pushed forward.

Brown and orange autumn leaves scattered on the forest floor, mixed with small twigs. Dark deer droppings visible among the leaves. — Deer droppings

Discovering a Bedding Area

After battling briars and brush, we reached a steep overlook above the creek. Catching my breath, I scanned the ground and noticed small, oval depressions in the leaves—deer beds! I climbed into one and found white deer hair, confirming it was an active bedding area. This was a major win—I’d never found a deer bed before, and it reinforced what I had read about bedding behavior.

Forest floor covered in dry brown leaves with scattered twigs and small branches. Deer beds present — One of the deer beds we found with hair in it

However, there was one issue—a tree stand was positioned just north of the beds, meaning another hunter had already claimed this area. At first, I was disappointed, but then we had an idea. If another hunter is in this bedding area, the deer will likely flee south toward the feeding zone we had discovered earlier. Since we hadn’t seen signs of other hunters there, it seemed like a great place to set up our trail camera.

We retraced our steps and placed the camera in the feeding zone, hoping to gather valuable intel on deer movement over the next few weeks.

Man securing a trail camera to a tree with a strap in a leaf-covered forest. He wears a camo jacket and sunglasses, creating an outdoor vibe. — Setting up our trail camera over the feeding area

Wrapping Up

After setting up the camera, we scouted briefly on the Bottom Side but were too exhausted to do much. We did, however, come across a working oil pump, which my son found fascinating. He took some photos and videos before we called it a day.

Rusty oil pumpjack in a grassy field under a cloudy sky, surrounded by sparse trees and fencing, creating a desolate, industrial mood. — Active oil pumpjack

Key Takeaways

Deer don’t always bed in the thickest cover. This bedding area was in a small clearing with great visibility and sound advantage.
Always double-check your gear. Running out of batteries limited the number of cameras we could place.
Deer movement is predictable. We now have a solid theory on how deer travel between feeding and bedding areas on this property.

This scouting trip was a huge success, and I’m excited to see what our trail camera captures. Have you done any post-season scouting? What have you learned from your experiences? Drop a comment—I’d love to hear your insights!