I think the charter-type hunters are probably a statistic irrelevance in hunting in general, but unfortunately, money speaks, even when you don't want it to speak.
I'm mostly on board with you but what kind of "scouting" are you thinking of here? When I talk about scouting before a hunt, I'm talking about wandering around the countryside, looking for animals, looking for scat, etc.
There are some people that believe hunting should just be go to the woods, with your rifle or bow, and start walking around looking for deer. They are opposed to things like setting up feed piles of corn or apples, having cameras set up to find common paths for deer, etc. I suspect the latter where someone spend pre-season effort to find where they are is what's meant by scouting.
A personal note on that - I've done those things for years, seen big bucks on trail cams, bought bags of feed corn, watched them eating them on the trail cam, then gone to that spot and never seen deer in hunting season. :)
I’m curious too. Perhaps they mean getting others to do all the scouting to near guarantee a successful hunt?
I spend a ton of time in the woods reading sign and just generally being aware & learning. Ton of hours and boot leather burned, I don’t think that works for the “pay to win” crowd
You've got hunters whose goal is the challenge and experience.
And then you've got the assholes only interested in "How much do I have to spend to guarantee I kill a ____?"
The latter leads to baiting, driving, scouting, and all the other activities that turn "hunting" into a single trigger pull.
Unsurprisingly, those people tend to have a lot less respect for land, environment, and animal populations. No effort, no respect.