By Alex Comstock
It’s been awhile since I’ve come out with a new blog post. When WhitetailDNA first started 5 years ago, I had been publishing multiple blog posts per week. As the years went on, I transitioned to focusing most of my attention on YouTube, and publishing as many new videos as possible. As I did that, blog posts fell to the wayside for the most part. From here on out, I’m aiming to get back into publishing new blog posts weekly while I continue to pump out YouTube videos. So, whether you enjoy to watch videos or read (or both!) there will be the best of both worlds. Today, I want to focus on five summer tips for deer hunters and some things you can be doing over the next few months to help benefit what you accomplish in the fall.
1. Trail Camera Work
Trail cameras are fun to run, no matter the time of year. In the summer though, they can be helpful for a variety of reasons. I want to start with exercising a bit of caution though. Trail cameras aren’t meant to be relied on, and during the summer the information you gather from them may or may not be directly useful to you come fall. It’s your job to assess the information you get and determine how it will apply to fall. What I love so much particularly about trail cameras in the summer is gathering inventory of bucks. Some of those bucks may not be around to hunt in the fall as some will shift home ranges, but some will stay in the area. Those that shift their home ranges can always show back up during the rut as well.
As you hunt a given property year after year, you should be able to start identifying bucks from previous years and if you can do so, you should be able to plan for which ones will stick around and which ones may move off come September/October. Overall, I’d highly recommend running trail cameras during the summer.
Trail cameras can no doubt help you during the summer. Pictured here is an Exodus Render Cell Cam being put to work early in the summer.
2. Treestand Work
In a perfect world, you’re able to hang your treestands in the spring. It allows you to get your treestand work done without fear of spooking deer and the weather conditions are usually much more comfortable. But, often times you may simply not be able to get to that in the spring and it’s left for you to accomplish in the summer. If you can have treestands up before season (some public land you can’t even leave stands overnight during the fall) I’d recommend getting it done as early in the summer as possible.
The earlier in the summer you get treestands up, the less you’ll have to worry about boogering a spot for fall. A good general recommendation I like to go by is to have everything done one month before your opener. If I can avoid even going into the timber the last month leading up to season, that’s how I prefer things to go. It may not always happen that way, but if I were you, that’s what I’d shoot for.
3. Look For New Hunting Ground
The summer months can be one of my favorite times to look for new hunting ground. This can be done through a combination of driving backroads, physically looking for ground and through E-scouting, which I primarily do on my OnX Hunt App. OnX is great for many reasons, but when it comes to looking for new hunting ground, its value shines. I’ll go on OnX and mark waypoints on a variety of properties that I think look worth hunting. I’ll then go try and check them out in person, even if it’s just driving by them. If I think there’s potential there, or if I think it looks the way I thought it would when marking it on OnX, I’ll go ask permission. Every summer, I try to add more permission pieces to my arsenal as it can never hurt to have too many spots to hunt.
4. Summer Archery Practice
If there’s one thing you don’t want to neglect during the summer months, it’s to be as consistent as possible shooting your bow. For me, you can never practice enough. I’m all about creating that muscle memory, as when the moment of truth is staring you in the face, and you want to make that perfect shot on a whitetail, the last thing you want to do is to be actually thinking about it. You want that muscle memory to take over, and have everything be second nature. This only comes with practice. So, with that said, don’t forget about shooting your bow in the months leading up to opening day.
5. Long Distance Scouting
Easily one of my favorite things to do late in the summer and that’s long distance scouting. Obviously you either have to live or travel somewhere where there’s some type of agriculture or fields of some sort to do this successfully. For me personally, when I travel to North Dakota, this is where I spend time glassing bean fields in the evening during my scouting trips. It’s an invaluable form of scouting as you can get a read on exactly where bucks are entering a field, how they’re feeding though it, etc. It’s going to serve most advantageous if you can hunt that area early in the fall. In North Dakota, I’ll be glassing fields in late August, just weeks (or even sooner) before opening day. Heck, some years North Dakota opens the last week of August. I can use that most recent information to help formulate my game plan for opening week. If you have the ability to do this, I’d highly recommend it!
Long distance scouting is a great way to learn about deer in the summer.
Conclusion
In closing, there are a lot of things you can be doing throughout the summer to help improve your chances of knocking down a good buck or two come fall. But these five particular things are at the top of my list and they will only help you down the road.
