Summer Deer Season Preparation

Summer Deer Season Preparation

By Aaron McKinney

It’s July and for bowhunters all across the state they will begin patterning summer deer and making plans for the upcoming bow season, youth season and early muzzleloader season. If you are like me, keeping low pressure on your hunting area is always a top priority. Mature deer do not tolerate much pressure and human intrusion. Too much human presence spooks deer, and they go and find a safer place (like the neighbor’s place) or they become active when you are not there and go back to nocturnal movement. There are sanctuaries on my favorite hunting areas that I try to leave alone. With that said, I try and keep my presence minimal, and experience has taught me that performing prep work early spooks less deer and gives them plenty of time to regain that feeling of safety before the season begins October 1st. July is a prime time to prep stands and blinds for the upcoming season.

Treestand Preparation
Since I’m actively involved at the Iowa Sportsman store, I get to swap hunting stories with the hunters that come in to the store. I have heard stories about straps on stands breaking and injuring hunters. It is scary, and it happens every year to hunters across the U.S. It is vital for hunters to check straps and chains on your stands. If you use screw-in steps, those need to be checked as well. Screw-in steps can become loose or deteriorate into the tree over time. You also need to check your harness and be sure it is in working order. Check your strap that attaches your harness to the tree to make sure it shows no wear marks or fraying. If you use lifelines, which I recommend, ensure your prusik knot is tied and the rope is in pristine condition as well. Now is the time to set your lifelines and tow straps up in your tree stands.

Squirrels can be hard on hunting equipment left outside, and seats are no exception. If you have treestands you have left up from last season, check your seat cushion; they may need to be replaced. Do a general check of your equipment. There is nothing more annoying than a squeaky stand. Check and fix these unwanted creaks and squeaks now rather than while trying to draw your bow back on your target buck.

Blinds
Hunting from a ground blind eliminates the risk of falling from an elevated height. Checking your blinds is not a matter of safety, but more of a matter of executing a smooth and successful hunting experience. Ground blind poles and hubs should be inspected. By setting up your blind in your backyard, you can get an idea about holes, leaks, and minor repairs that need to be made prior to the season. One of the most exciting things about ground blind hunting is the accessories available. While your blind is set up, make sure your chair(s) are at the proper height for shooting. It gets tiring holding a bow for several hours. Decide now whether you want a hanger that will hold your bow from a pole, or if you want your bow to sit on the ground.

Matthews & Hoyt make a couple of bow holders that clamp on to the limbs of the bows to hold the bow upright. This is a nice option and reduces the movement needed to grab your bow. Filming your hunting is becoming easier and easier, there are a few different camera arms that are made for self-filming your hunt out of a ground blind. There are several different blind accessories that make hunting from the ground smooth and enjoyable.

Site Selection
After you have your equipment inspected and ready, you now should plan your set-ups for early season, rut and late season stands. Right now, we can see visible trails, and some bucks become patternable. We can make a plan to set up an early season stand for these deer. By setting up stands now, we are letting our property rest before we intrude on the area again for hunting. Deer also seem to be more tolerant of an occasional interaction now rather than when hunting season arrives and encounter more hunters in the timbers. It is a little early to set up ground blinds, but it is not too early to find areas that are promising for a ground blind. If you have a plan in mind, it makes setting up and brushing in your blind a faster and smoother process.

Hunters need to think about thermals and how you will be hunting a location. In the mornings, the air is heating and rising, so your scent is wafting upwards in the air. Hunting a ground blind in a valley might not be a good idea for a morning hunt as your scent will travel uphill. In contrast, cooling heavier air will settle on valleys and bottom areas. You are at risk of deer below you smelling you as the air falls and disperses into valleys and creek bottoms. I do not like to be limited by wind direction, I try and have a stand or blind set up for different wind directions. Some blinds help combat human odor. For example, Grizzly makes a solid rotomolded design with sealed gaskets around windows and doors that aid in keeping human scent from escaping. They also have antimicrobial flooring that helps kill odor causing bacteria and ports for ozone machines. All these features work to aid in keeping deer from smelling you

The final important preparation to do right now is trim lanes. I go to all my treestands and blinds and trim out shooting lanes. You will have some growth between July and October, but you can get a lot of the important work done now. I would rather run a chainsaw in July than in October or during the rut. Chances are your shooting lanes have some new branches intruding on your shooting lanes. During season, you can take an extendable pole saw along and do some silent trimming if you can not do all of it now. However, you leave a lot of scent behind and doing it now, the deer will be less spooky.

Now is the time to get your stands and blinds ready for deer season. If you are like me, it seems like September is so busy and before you know October has arrived. If you do a little bit of prep work right now, you will be well prepared for deer season. A successful season starts now.