By Ryan Fair
After shed season I’m sure the average whitetail hunter turns his attention to hitting the lake or getting his camper ready for the summer trips. While deer season may seem like a long way off, as a dedicated whitetail hunter you should still have deer on your mind.
Sure, food plots are planted, and you did your spring scouting but there are a few things you could be doing this summer to better your odds for the fall.
Hang Your Stands
Let’s start with tree stands. The reason I choose this first is because as the summer wears on the hotter it gets and the more bugs you will encounter. While this may not bother some guys, I prefer to have all my stands hung by the first of July. Shooting lanes trimmed and ready for the first sit of the year. This keeps the pressure off my deer and allows them to stay on a normal pattern all summer long. It is also cool enough most mornings to keep the bugs and sweat to a minimum.
We all have that buddy that calls the weekend before season wanting help hanging a tree stand, and we all dread that trip. Then the same buddy calls the following weekend wondering why he didn’t see any deer. Don’t be that guy! Get your stands hung early, it's one less thing you need to worry about come fall.
Get Permission
Next, I want to cover permission. I feel summer is a great time to gain permission for new places to hunt. There are a few reasons I feel this way, let me explain. The first is that just like hanging tree stands, most guys wait until the last minute to ask permission to hunt. This leads to a large number of people asking the same landowner’s permission which I feel can be a nuisance to them. I have also been told when I ask permission that they only allow one or two guys to hunt. Asking permission while the other guys are worried about vacations guarantees me that spot and gives the farmer an out when he has several other people asking. Lastly, I feel that it shows the landowner that I take my deer hunting seriously. It also allows me to offer a hand to the farmer whether it be cutting up some downed trees or help replacing a fence. Offering to help can lead to sole permission to some of the best spots to hunt.
Summer Trail Camera Strategies
Between the heat and the bugs, summer can be a rough time to be a deer hunter, especially when you must head into the timber. But any diehard whitetail enthusiast will tell you summer is just as important as the fall in the whitetail game. Here are a few tips to make the most of those summer trail cam sets to help paint the picture needed to tag your trophy buck. Let’s start with the camera itself. I recommend only using cell cameras that allow you to monitor activity as well as battery life. Here at Working Class Hunter, we rely on Tactacam cell cameras all year long, but especially in the summer months because they minimize those dreaded trips to the timber. When hanging your cameras, it is best to clean up any close branches and brush that may cause false triggers. Depending on where you hang your cameras it may be best to spray the area with roundup to prevent anything from growing up.
As far as where to hang your cameras, there are 3 hot spots that will show you every deer in the area. The first is a good mineral site. Our Trophy Rock mineral sites are a daily stop for every deer in the area as they use the minerals to balance out their diet. Next is near a watering hole. Whether it’s man-made or in a creek off a heavy trail. Deer need water just like everything else. Lastly is a summer food source. Our Rakk Fuel food plots are always the preferred food source for the local deer in our area. This makes them a great spot to get inventory pictures all summer long.
Locate Your Buck Now
As summer inches closer and closer to fall the bucks will start to show what kind of headgear they will be sporting this hunting season. I believe this is the best time to locate and pattern a specific buck. Let me explain why mature bucks are so hard to find. They are not behind every tree in the timber, there may only be one or two in your hunting location. So summer is when I like to put all the pieces together. I get permission, hang my cameras, and scout. If I am having trouble locating a target buck, I like to cast a large net. I hang cameras in every place I can get permission. This allows me to scout those hard to see places. I then put my Vortex Optics spotting scope to work. I will cruise back roads scanning bean fields looking for the next target. As soon as I find a target buck that I can hunt, I will spend my summer evenings trying to pattern him from a distance. I do this so that as soon as opening day comes; I can make my first sit count.
