Let the Games Begin… Pre Season Deer Scouting MN

Well…. it has officially begun for this Hunter. What you asked?? Everything that I wait all year for!! This past weekend Stacie and I headed down to the “Honey Hole” down by Madelia to officially kick off the deer season by hanging some cameras, checks stands, clear shooting lanes, etc. When we arrived down there, I was a lil’ disappointed in what we observed. A field that I thought would have beans next to one of our stands, instead had corn. Having beans at this field makes this stand a great early season stand. This was a farm we were going to focus on during the early season due to all the trespassers that arrive with the opening of the pheasant season. My guess is we may see a lot of corn fields this and the following few years. With the high demand for corn lately and with the flooding in Iowa there might be a lot of corn out there this Fall. So Stacie and I get out of the truck and get our hunting camo clothes on and spray down to eliminate as much scent as possible on this Hot July day. As we leave our rev’d up lab Rufus at the truck as he knows where he is at. He is whimpering from the excitement and can’t believe we are not taking him with us.

We get to our number one stand location check on both of the stands we have hung for different winds and the shooting lanes indeed need to be cleaned up. Stacie gets in the tree and directs me around through our shooting lanes and what to snip and what to leave. We freshened up our mineral lick area and also put a camera out. I sometimes like to put a camera close to my stand for a few reasons and this stand is one of those stands. One of the reasons is I know what time deer are using this trail and if it is a better am or pm stand. I find these times change depending on the crop that is near by. Secondly, I will not check this camera again until opening day. I have it set up so I need to take about 15 steps from my stand location to check it and do not have to cross any trails. Thus, making it very easy and low impact to check the camera when I get down out of the stand in the morning as I’m as scent free as I’m going to get. Upon retrieving my SD card and sliding a new one in, I then spray down the camera housing to again minimize my impact in this sanctuary. We proceed to the other end of the tree line to again check both stands that we have for different winds. Except now the sun is high and the July heat is beating down on us. We freshen up the mineral lick, trim shooting lanes and put out our camera in a spot I scouted late season last year that had quite a few decent tracks on the trail. A real thick area that I’m sure the bucks use. We impacted this area a little more then I would like to, but I’m hoping that 48 days is enough to let things settle back down and return to normal. We then hurried up to get home as we had a family gathering we were attending Saturday afternoon/evening.

I often get asked many questions on how & when I do these activities. I often like to initially get these cameras out, hang stands, clear shooting lanes, & etc. sometime near the end of July. This allows ample time to let things settle back down and let the deer get accustomed to anything I may have changed. The time of day I do these activities is from 10 am – 2 pm. I pick this time in hopes that deer activity and movement will be at the lowest and hopefully they will be bedded during this high heat period of mid day. I also try to make sure on a good wind to keep my scent out of their bedding areas. If I can be in there during a rain or real windy conditions that is even better. The rain helps to keep the scent knocked down and along with the wind keeps any noise hidden better. Before I even step foot in the woods when checking or putting cameras in, I go through my pre hunt ritual of eliminating scent on my body, clothes, boots etc. every single time I enter the woods to again keep my presence and impact to an absolute minimum. This is hard to do on hot July days in the field, but I spray down often with a scent eliminating spray and wear moisture wicking anti-microbial or silver threaded clothing like GAMEHIDE’s new Base Tech shirt in either long or short sleeve. I was amazed at how cool and dry this shirt kept me in the heat and activities this past Saturday. I know it is hard to fight the urge and want to know what is on the cameras, but I try to wait as long as I can before checking on the cameras. To help minimize the number of visits in the woods to the trial cameras, I invest in a 2 or 4 GB SD cards. This allows more memory (pictures) and more time in between checking the cameras. I will not check these cameras I put out this past weekend until I sit there on opener. This piece of property does not have a super high volume of deer so I am able to do this. Otherwise, I try to wait at least a 2 weeks in between checking cameras to keep my impact as minimal as possible.

The height I place my cameras on the tree varies as shown in the pic with Stacie and myself. The one Stacie is placing is less then a foot off the ground and aimed perpendicular to the trail. In her scenario the 2 trails that camera is covering is on a down hill slope thus forcing us to mount it lower on the up hill tree. I typically try to aim the camera so it would hit the trail at about crotch height. Remember the deer’s center of mass is not that far off the ground. This camera aiming is made easy is with the laser sighting and setting on my Moultire cameras. The camera I’m setting on the pic above is actually is mounted up pretty high and aimed at the ground on the trail from over head. This camera point directly down the trail and I aimed the laser so it hit the ground approximately 25 feet away. So the amount of different ways to mount a trail camera are endless. Especially now days with all the different camera mounts and tripods you can buy. Heck, now days you don’t even need a tree. There are only two ways I will put anything to attract deer to a camera sight. The first being a mineral lick. This is something that is a legal in all the states I hunt and does not need a lot of attention. Depending on soil and deer activity these mineral lick sites need to be refreshed only a few times a year, again keeping my impact in this area to a bare minimum. Once the season starts I will sometimes hang a camera overlooking a mock or real scrape depending on the set up. I do this for a few reasons. One reason is trying to see what bucks are visiting or using the scrape or area. But more importantly when I’m hunting the pre rut and view my trail camera pics, they will tell me if the bucks are up and searching during day time hours. Using this information, it helps me determine if all day sits are worth my time. We all know vacation time and time in general is a precious thiung now days. Lastly, I keep all my trail camera pics of deer for at least until the end of hunting season. During the season I keep separate folders (file) on my computer for each of the different farms I hunt. At the end of the season I will delete most of the pics of does, but keep all the buck pics, no matter how big or small they are. I like to go back and try to figure out their patterns, see if a buck is local or a roamer and if I can figure out if I have seen him the year(s) prior. That’s just a lil insight of how I go about things in the trail camera deer world.

To top off the weekend my brother Rich came over Sunday night as Stacie, Rich and I shot our Mathews and got them dialed in for the highly anticipated bow season. Prior to that I watched the Outdoor Channel from 5-8 pm and saw some awesome deer hunts, just to get me even further wound up. I don’t ever recall being this jacked up so early in the Summer. My sleepless nights started almost a month ago, but with all the activity this weekend I hardly slept a wink last night. Next on the list is the Families property up North of McGregor. I will be re planting a food plot along with creating a new one. I keep telling myself that July and August is not the time to be clearing trees and trying to establish a food plot like I did last year. The 90 degree days and bugs are enough to kill ya and I ain’t getting any younger. I promising myself that I will do it in March next year. How about everyone else?? What is everyone else doing to get the upper hand on those elusive whitetails?

Until next time happy scouting!

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