What do all you folks do to scout online for deer or grouse hunting in the BW? Surely its as difficult for you as it is for me to get up there and do boots on the ground scouting. What map services do you recommend? Are you looking at burn maps or topo? Does anyone subscribe to any particular region of the BW over another?

I do a lot of scouting on bing maps and google maps. Its worth looking at both as they have satellite images taken at different times and different times of year.

I haven't done much aerial scouting of the BWCA for hunting but I have other areas. It helps if you can pick a general area you're thinking about first. Then what I do for deer hunting is I start looking for areas in the terrain that create natural funnels. Might be a narrow funnel between 2 lakes or swamps. Might be a funnel created by steep hills or cliffs, rivers/streams, etc.

I will also try to identify food sources if possible. If you're thinking of hunting a recent burn area which can be good try to figure out where they are accessing the burn area. Are there funnels around the burn that might funnel deer to one area over another, if so that's a spot to check out. In a burn area you may be lucky enough to see game trails on the sat images. That can give you a clue as to their direction of travel. Try to determine where they might be heading. Is there cover they might be using to bed down in? Water source? Alternate food source etc.

Online scouting just gives you a very rough idea of where to start your search. The real search begins when you take that online scouting and use it to direct your boots on the ground scouting. Hopefully you've got the time to get up before the season to scout, otherwise you'll have to hunt and scout on the fly which really makes it difficult and cuts into your hunting time.