What To Do After Deer Season
The period of time between the end of deer season and the start of the next year’s hunting season can be torture for many outdoorsmen. For the hardcore deer hunters, however, there is no better time to hone their skills and prepare for the next hunt. The most successful deer hunters will use this season of downtime in order to begin their scouting.
Scouting is easily the most important step in killing a big buck. Not just big mature bucks, but any deer really. It is extremely difficult to blindly walk into an area that you have never been before and find success in killing a deer. This is why the hunters that always seem to kill the most deer will spend more time actually scouting and preparing for a hunt rather than on the hunt itself. In order to find more luck in the woods this next season, you need to spend more time during the season of scouting!
Getting Started Early
Many pro deer hunters prefer to start scouting during the summer, long before the bucks have finished growing their antlers. At this time of year, you can learn which food sources the deer are frequenting and how many are in a given area. This is a great time to start putting out trail cameras and learning the habits of the deer. As you begin to get this dialed in, you can start to watch the bucks in your area grow, and which ones will be worth targeting for the upcoming hunting season.
The trail cameras should also show you how little the deer actually move during the summer months. As the bucks start to finish growing their antlers and the first hunting season approaches, you will start to notice them change their habits. As this starts to happen, don’t forget to move your trail cameras to actively used trails and corridors in order to keep an eye on your bucks that you have selected.
Scouting After Hunting Season
Scouting after the hunt ends may seem a little pointless but think about it. Scouting after a hunting season makes perfect sense as it is much less intrusive, and you have the benefit of seeing all of the active signs of deer during that time of year. For example, deer behave very differently during the rut, and scouting after the season will show you where you can focus your efforts during the rut of the upcoming hunting season.
Putting in work after the hunting season has come to an end will grant you plenty of new information that preseason scouting cannot. While it may seem like a waste of time, the amount of information you gain might just surprise you!
Final Thoughts
The scouting season is easily the biggest factor that separates successful deer hunters and those who go home empty-handed. If you spend the time between your hunting seasons and view it as a season of scouting, you are guaranteed to see a major difference in your next hunting season.
