Our Summer Scouting Plans
Posted By
Bill Winke
at
7/20/2009 12:00:00 AM
Filed under:
journal
Todd Stone, who will be producing the Indiana series of Midwest Whitetail this fall, had a few of his local pro staff help him put together a short, fast-paced and thoroughly entertaining video about how to scout during the summer. You can watch the Summer Scouting Video right here.
I think you can see that Todd will do a great job for us this fall. I can't wait to watch the Indiana shows.
The second half of July and the first half of August afford a great opportunity to see, film or photograph the biggest bucks in your hunting area. At no time of the year are your bucks more visible than they are in the middle of the summer.
They will be coming to clover, alfalfa and beans with daily consistency that you will never see again. They seem almost tame and dare I say, patternable, by comparison to the way they will act in a couple of months.
What You Can't Learn
Summer scouting is very fun to be sure, but it is only moderately valuable because a certain percentage of the bucks you see will move to a different fall range once rising testosterone levels cause the bucks to shed their velvet, get ornery and disperse to their fall ranges. So as you are doing your summer scouting, just keep that in mind. Not all of the bucks you see will still be in that area come opening day. How far they move seems to depend on the situation (the habitat) and the bucks. They are all individuals but here in typical Midwestern habitat they don't usually disperse miles. Most will be within a mile during the season, but that can be across several property lines.
What You Can Learn
Summer scouting gives you a starting point for your serious pre-season scouting and trail camera surveys that should come after the bucks shed their velvet and settle into their new ranges. In most areas of the Midwest, the bucks have roughly settled into their fall ranges by mid-to-late September. If you get a buck on a trail cam in late September or early October there is a pretty chance he will be somewhere nearby most of the fall. Start your fall scouting where you saw the best summer bucks but be flexible. Trail cameras are the easiest way to take inventory. Don't overlook other areas nearby where the bucks may have dispersed to.
How to Do It
The key to summer scouting is to keep a low profile. Rule number one: do no harm. You don't want to pressure the bucks to the point where they change their habits. While it is not the end of the world if you bump a few bucks in July, there is also no reason to do so. You are not hunting them, so you can rely on good optics to watch and learn from the distance.
