Busiest time outside of actual hunting...

I cringe every singe year when people tell me in September about how many stands they just hung, paths blocked with cuttings or how great their scouting trips were. That is the absolute wrong time for all of those things. Yes slipping in a few weeks before the season to make sure lanes are still open and stands are secure is going to happen, I do it, however your human 'stamp' on the woods should be as minimal as possible at this time...you never know what buck you bump out just prior to the season could end up on another hunter's wall.

A prime example of this is actually my 2011 buck, Trident. Trident was a buck we'd gotten photos of for months across a county road just a mile to our north and along a river bottom my father hunts. We thought for sure if either of us we're going to get him it would be my father. However, my dad finds out that another guy who hunts the property hung a stand just a few weeks out from the season right along one of the spots we'd been getting images of him almost daily...and the landowner decided cutting up some trees would be a good idea as well.

Needless to say, Trident, disappeared. Only to come up on the bad end of my arrow October 15th coming out of his new bedroom, the briars just across the road from his old bedroom...which just so happened to butt up to my father's 10 acres I primarily hunt...which the stands had been hung around the same time planting and fertilizing food plots occured (July/August).

Believe it or not in a mere week or two is the proper time to start that scouting. I will do 80% of my scouting this January after snow has set for a few days, 15% of it just making observations while putting in food plots and then 5% finalizing stands and lanes in early September. Atleast that's always the goal, and the snow I stated for January is key. The great thing about snow is it's like a carbon copy of the days activities. It'll show you whether deer were walking, running or browsing. It'll show you where they're sleeping, eating and staging. Pretty much January is going to show you where some of the best bedding is because trails are going to be going predominately to and from them to food sources. The biggest thing I'm looking for is locating the secondary trails which I overlook when snow wasn't on the ground. Yes, winter trails can differ some from fall but deer have certain trails they're going to use predominately...and locating those secondary and sometimes barely used trails can be the thing that puts you on a wiley old buck.

So get out there now! Don't waste the prime time to scout deer as they have not switched to their summer feeding patterns (which you observe when scouting in August and September) and you have the assistance of the snow on the ground.*

***TONIGHT I WILL BE POSTING A VIDEO BLOG ABOUT WHAT STEPS I RECOMMENDED TO A FELLOW HUNTER WITH ABOUT 70-80 ACRES OF WOODS ALONG A RIVER AND CROP FIELDS. EVERYTHING I RECOMMEND CAN AND IN MY CASE HAS  OR WILL BE DONE WITH MY OWN HUNTING GROUNDS.

**I will be posting about the hinge-cutting process at a later date as we (father and I) video ourselves doing them on our own hunting ground.

*If you live somewhere that snow is rare, this is still the right time to get out there for the reason stated above. You want to get out there while they are still in their winter/fall eating patterns, scouting summer feeding patterns are not nearly as valuable!