How to pick a glassing location when E-Scouting?

[Battlehunter]

Alright everybody, as a guy from Michigan that has only hunted out west once, I'm trying to figure out the best way to e-scout for glassing locations. Everything I've found online tells me to get good glass and grid in certain ways, but there isn't much that I've found on how to pick a glassing spot when you're E-Scouting. I'm not worried about shooting a monster elk/mule deer, so my plan is using a set of 10s on a tripod. Any help or personal experiences are much appreciated.

1. What distance are you trying to glass from with 10s? What is too close/far away for the main areas that you are glassing?

2. Would you choose different glassing locations if you were hunting elk vs. mule deer?

3. Are 10's good enough if you don't care how big the antlers are?

4. What are the attributes of a good glassing location?

5. Is there already a good recourse that explains all of this?

6. Attached is a random topo, what locations look like a good place to glass from and why? Each leg of the red line is 1 mile long.

Again, thanks for your time!

 

[Newtosavage]

Google globe view works best for me. You can pan and tilt and rotate the landscape and really get a great idea of what you will actually be able to see from any given point. I've used it with excellent success the past three seasons. Damn near like cheating compared to the old "hike and hope" I used to do.

Last year, I did nearly all my glassing with 8's. The 10's I had didn't show me any more detail than my 8's did, and the 8's brought in more light early and late. But I've used 10's in the past and probably will again. My rule of thumb is generally 10's for the truck and 8's around my neck.

I've spotted elk as far as 2.5 miles with 10's on a good mount. I've spotted mule deer up to 2 miles with 10's on a good mount. The "good mount" is the key here. That's imperative. Without it, it doesn't matter what you're using, you're not going to spot much of anything beyond 1/2 mile or so.

10's are all you need if you're not worried about scoring a critter on the hoof. However, there are places and situations where you need to determine how many points an animal has so you know whether it's legal or not. For example, my buddy went after a group of bulls last year after we determined from our camp 2.3 miles away, that there was at least one four-point bull in the group. I did that with my little Nikon ED50 spotter. We could count the tines on one side of two different bulls. Once we knew both were legal, he set out there the next afternoon and killed one of those bulls (turned out it was a 6x6). Without the spotter, we could tell they were bulls, but not whether they were legal. So that spotter might have saved him a half day of hiking and hunting, and on opening day, being able to save a half day could mean the difference between filling a tag or not.

 

[Napperm4]

Pretty much what he said above. There are some videos from Randy Newberg on e scouting that might help you out.

What I look for is a high area that faces into several drainages and North facing slopes as that’s where most animals will tend to bed down.

I want the areas I’m glassing to be within walking distance generally and near the other need zones of the animals obviously. No quality or power of glass is going to make an animal appear where they don’t frequent.

I am pretty effective at glassing with 10x42 EL’s out to +\- 1.5 miles with them mounted on a good, solid tripod. I can get an idea of body / antler frame size but not counting points after about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile with binos only. I’ve been mountain hunting 25 years which has given me a lot of practice at finding game and knowing what to look for that I can’t really explain.

For me, Mule deer is a 6 year draw and trophy hunt. Elk is OTC annually but needs to be 3-6 point or better depending on WMU. For those I’m carrying a spotter to make sure I can count tines from my vantage point. Has saved me many many miles of unnecessary hiking.

X is most likely where I’d set up depending on wind direction of the given day. The circle using the same scale as your lines would be the max effective area I would be able to glass with 10’s and determine if something was a buck / bull. I can do a lot of scouting in every direction from there out.

Elk 101 university has a pretty good chapter on glassing locations and techniques from what I recall.

 

[BluMtn]

I can't remember how to access it, but there is a way to pick a viewing spot on google earth and it will shadow the areas that you will not be able to view from the spot. Its been awhile since I have used it and I can't find how to do it on the net.

 

[Tod osier]

I can't remember how to access it, but there is a way to pick a viewing spot on google earth and it will shadow the areas that you will not be able to view from the spot. Its been awhile since I have used it and I can't find how to do it on the net.

Viewshed.

 

[jdubrr]

look up jay scott outdoors on IG he has some great glassing tips, and also good info on his podcast

 

[Dos Perros]

I pick points and draw 3 mile radius circles. I've spotted elk with 10's at 3 miles before. I've spotted elk with 80mm spotting scope over 4 miles, but I knew where to look. You pick the highest points in the county you can. You don't get to design your glassing spot or your country so you take the best that's given to you. If your "glassing spot" is a long timbered ridge looking across a large basin you might have to move up and down that ridge to get different vantages. If your spot is like a pyramid mound with views of all the surrounding country you could probably plop there all day if you'd like. It's nice to get out of the wind if you can. It's nice to not look directly into the sun if you can. If I glassed country and looked over good parts of it and didn't find a reason to stay and there was another knob out there 2 miles or 4 miles away I'd go over there and have a looksee.

 

[justin84]

All solid advice above. Only thing I'd add from my experience is that everything looks bigger in person compared to Google Earth. I've had lots of spots picked out in previous years that looked great and when I got there it was overwhelming. I would guess some of that feeling goes away with more experience. My personal preference is to choose good vantages where I'm looking less than a mile.

 

[rino]

Remember....some of the best eScouted glassing spots are foiled by 100 foot trees. Don't discount where you sit in relation to the trees.

 

[Battlehunter]

Last year, I did nearly all my glassing with 8's. The 10's I had didn't show me any more detail than my 8's did, and the 8's brought in more light early and late. But I've used 10's in the past and probably will again. My rule of thumb is generally 10's for the truck and 8's around my neck.

Awesome stuff, thanks for the reply. If you were going to fly to a different state and were only bringing one pair for mule deer, would it be 8's or 10's?

X is most likely where I’d set up depending on wind direction of the given day.

How do you use wind direction when choosing a spot to set up?

I can't remember how to access it, but there is a way to pick a viewing spot on google earth and it will shadow the areas that you will not be able to view from the spot. Its been awhile since I have used it and I can't find how to do it on the net.

Tod Osier for the win - Viewshed!

Viewshed.

This is sweet, thanks!

Attached are the viewsheds from a few spots in that area. Looks like it can glitch out in certain areas, but definitely helps you visualize it all.

If you were going to camp at the truck and hike in every morning, how far is too far to a glassing point?

 

[Battlehunter]

All solid advice above. Only thing I'd add from my experience is that everything looks bigger in person compared to Google Earth. I've had lots of spots picked out in previous years that looked great and when I got there it was overwhelming. I would guess some of that feeling goes away with more experience. My personal preference is to choose good vantages where I'm looking less than a mile.

Yeah, I definitely felt overwhelmed the only time I've been out hunting in Colorado. How do you decide if something is too high/far before you go out there? Do you backpack in to an area or have a base camp?

 

[Newtosavage]

Good luck getting to that glassing point in the dark.

Something you need to consider is whether trees will block your view. The best position based on these tools is still useless if you are covered in trees.

To answer your question about 8's or 10's, the answer is the better of the two pairs. You won't spend enough time behind glass you don't enjoy looking through.

 

[Newtosavage]

Do you backpack in to an area or have a base camp?

Yes to both.

 

[justin84]

Yeah, I definitely felt overwhelmed the only time I've been out hunting in Colorado. How do you decide if something is too high/far before you go out there? Do you backpack in to an area or have a base camp?

Sometimes you won't know until you are there. Once you've e-scouted an area, and stepped foot in the same area, you start to get a feeling for what will be worth a trip in the future. When I returned from my WY trip in 2019, I immediately went back to my onx maps and deleted a number of waypoints, and added new ones.

Both, some places are better for an overnight camp (like a nice vantage that takes too long to walk to in the dark) and some places are easy to access from the road.

In a nutshell, there's no shortcut or easy answer. Experience is the best thing you can have. Sometimes hunting trips just end up being scouting trips for next year.

 

[Justin_the_EDG]

While the gentlemen above were commenting on 1.5-2mi spotting with 10s. I'll point out that I don't think anyone will tell you spotting over a mile with 10s is the "ideal" distance. I'd say out to 800yds is probably the sweet spot for most folks. Over that your stretching it and can make it work if your careful and good. I am not the latter, and have yet to spot anything other than moo-cows at over 1k yards. I wondered if that was my issue as a newer hunter, but have had experienced hunters (including the aforementioned Jay Scott) confirm that as reasonable, with 1000+ being something that is doable and will likely come with more time in the field. Under 300yds feels kinda pointless to use glass for, though it really isn't depending on cover and animal movement.

Again, 1.5 miles and even farther definitely can be done, but I wouldn't set that as your initial expectation for how you want to e-search for glassing points.