Most hunters think that the deer season is just a few weeks long. And maybe with a little luck, they’ll get a shot at a buck -- if only they can be at the right place at the right time.

If that description fits you, you’re going to need all the luck you can get.

To become one of the relatively few hunters who fill their freezers with tasty steaks, sausage and hamburger meat each year, you have to work at it all year long. Hunting mule deer -- and big game in general -- requires a good off-season as well.

What am I talking about? Scouting, of course.

The term “scouting” gets thrown around kind of loosely these days. Many hunters think that before the season, all you need to do is take a walk in the woods, find some tracks here and there, maybe a few deer droppings, and -- presto! -- you know there must be deer in the area.

Well, that used to describe me, too. I knew from the sign that deer were in the area. But year after year, I couldn’t understand why success failed to come my way.

Then I began to consider how I prepared myself for upcoming seasons, and soon concluded that I had no idea what I was doing. As with any other sport, hunting has an off-season -- and I was ignoring it. During their off-season, most of the successful hunters I knew spent as much time as possible getting to know every mile of the unit they intended to hunt, even if that meant spending more time scouting than actually hunting during the season.

Think about it. A baseball pitcher doesn’t start throwing a ball on opening day. So what made me think I could be successful by starting to hunt on opening day?

I know what you’re thinking: You can’t be expected to spend all that time in the woods when as it is, you can hardly get away a few days during the hunting season.

And I agree with you! However, if you can learn a few skills such as map-reading and interpreting what deer sign means, you’ll be well on the way to being one of those 5 percent of hunters who kill deer every single year.

Let’s take a look at some scouting techniques you can employ now for this coming fall.

BASIC SIGN
For most hunters, tracks and droppings are the first signs they look for when scouting for deer. And for the most part, that’s as good a place to start as any. Tracks indicate that deer are in the area, and droppings mean there’s a food source nearby that they like and are making use of.

Unless a track is smokin’ hot -- meaning from that morning or at most, the night before -- the best you can do is make an educated guess as to when the deer made it. After time and experience, most hunters can tell whether a track is days or weeks old.

The best way I can tell a track’s age is from its overall appearance. A track less than 24 hours old has a very clean look to it. The edges will be sharp, and the imprint itself will be free of any debris.