Ep. 807: Top 10 Pre-Season Tasks to Finish Before Opening Day

their camera for Conservation initiative. If you're not familiar, a portion of every sale of first Light Spectrum Cameo pattern, which is our white tail pattern, portion of every one of those sales goes to support the National Deer Association. That said, today, what I want to do is talk about summer prep and early fall prep, the last things

we need to do before hunting season. And the way I thought we'd do that is walk through what's on my to do list, walk through my final projects, the things that I need to get done before the season begins, and use those things as examples. Use those things to illustrate a number of different ideas, concepts, projects that you might want to add to your repertoire as we come down to these final weeks and months before the season starts.

So as we talk, it is, you know, as I record this, at least it's August twelfth, and my opening day in Michigan is October first, so we are less than two months away from that opening day. I know some people kick it off in September, so we might be less than a month out. For you, that means we're getting down to the wire. It's time to get serious about this stuff. It's time really to cram for the final exam because it's just about here. So that's

what I want to do here. I want to talk through things like, you know, getting ready with our shooting. I want to talk about some final habitat work. I want to talk about, you know, prepping tree stands and saddle sets and clearing access routes and some scouting advice and you know, cameras and glassing, getting access to new properties. All that kind of stuff is on the to do

list here today. And before we get to that, though, I want to give you a couple quick heads ups on things, a couple house cleaning items I think I've called it in the past. Number one, we do have that new first Light white tailed gear out as I mentioned at the top, on over to first light dot com to check it all out. There are three new kits that are part of the system. That's a jacket and bibcombo for kind of the early to mile type temperatures.

That's the Phase. Then there's the Core kit, which is that peak of the rock kind of laid Ouctober November kind of thing, very versatile. You could use it earlier, you could use it later. Then there's also the Thermic and that's the super late season, very very very cold weather kit. So check those out. I won't belabor the points, but they might be something you want to look into. The other heads up just another reminder Whitetail Edu Tony and I. We've got this educational video series over on

the meat eater Clips YouTube channel going over there. There's new videos coming out about mature buck travel. We had one that came out about scrapes, rubs, deer droppings, all sorts of stuff. If you want to level up your foundation of deer hunting knowledge before the season. This would be a good way to do it. Finally, if you listen to this one and you've got more kind of you know, you've got more energy, you're interested in kind

of scratching that whitetail edg some more. I wanted to give you two other episode recommendations that would be useful at this time of year. Number one, take a listen to number two ninety nine, so Wired to Hunt Podcast two hundred and ninety nine. It's titled locating the Best

Buck in Your Neighborhood with Adam Hayes. I think this one's particularly irrelevant right now because Adam, if you if you're not familiar, he's a tremendously successful deer hunter, and one of the things he's done very well in the past is he will not just stick with the same properties over and over. He will seek out the best buck around and then find a way to get access's where that buck lives, and then hunts that deer. So this is a very good time of year to do that.

If it's August or early September, you can go out there glass Fields, find the caliber deer you're interested in, and then you'll have time to try to get access in that area. So go on listen to episode two ninety nine if that sounds interesting to you. My second recommendation is episode number four forty nine, and this one's titled Mastering September with Sean Luckdel, David Skinner, Brendan Nating,

and Greg Godfrey. And this is like a compilation best of podcast featuring you know, a handful of different guys all giving their best advice for hunting in September. So September is knocking on the door. It's just about here. If you want to get ready for that one, go ahead and give episode number four forty nine to listen. So there's two more suggestions for you after this one, two ninety nine and forty nine. Check them out if this is if this one's wrapped up, or if you

listen to this here, Hey, I'm bored with Mark. I want to hear someone different. Go check out those two as well. So that's that's it for suggestions and we'll heads ups. Let's get to our top ten preseason tasks. Talk through what I'm up to right now. Why I am running around like a crazy person every year when August comes around, I just kind of know to wall off my calendar, evenings, weekend days, any little bit of spare time I have, I'm just going to be in

the field. There's a thousand things to do at this time of year. Even if I try to get stuff done the spring, which I do throughout the middle of the summer, it seems no matter what, there's always a pile of stuff to do here at the end of the year. And the reason why this piles up for me in August is because, as I alluded to at the beginning, my opening day in Michigan is October one,

and I set a one month out deadline. So by that I mean I don't want to go in the woods or hardly have to go in the woods at all, for at least one month before opening day. So that means all of my preseason projects need to be done by the end of August so that I can leave all of September for this area to be quiet and safe for deer, so that once opening day comes, I have deer that are feeling unpressured, unbothered, and are to

some degree vulnerable for an early season hunt. So I'm down, you know, two three ish weeks to get this stuff done here and I'm gonna give you my first piece of advice, and this is a simple thing I've talked about in the past, but it has been really powerful for me, and that is to write things down, actually build a list. I have two lists, or two sets of lists. I have a digital to do list, which is like my master list, my master deer hunting to

do list. And I break this list down by property, so each different property that I've access to, I will have a to do list, and then I will sometimes put like you know, date ranges when I want to do these things, or I'll put things in chronological order, like this property needs to get worked one first, this one, this one, this, and I do all of this. I write all this stuff down because if you keep all of the things that you need to get done up

in your head, it's stressful. It's nearly impossible to keep it all straight, and you have like latent stress, like wheels are turning the back of your mind when you're trying to keep all these balls up in the air. And that is stressful, that's exhausting, and it's an easy way to forget things. But as soon as you write it down, it's like taking weight off your shoulders, and it's also more effective. You're more likely to do these things.

You're more likely to get all the stuff done that you want to get done if you have a way to keep track of it and if you can actually also feel the good vibes of checking things off that list. So, as I mentioned, I have the master to do list. I use Google Docs for that. I break it down by property and I write everything down that I need to get done on each one of these properties. Then I have a I don't know where it is. I have a physical book right here which I personally use,

something called the Full Focused Planner. And this is a daily planner and weekly planner that my whole life revolves around, not just my deer hunting life, but this is something that allows me to keep track of things on a week to week basis and day day basis. So at the beginning of every week, Sunday night, I go and I actually have a seven day outlook. I can see my full seven days ahead and I can write in what I need to do on each one of these days.

And then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, there's a full two pages for each day in which I prioritize the top things I need to do for work, top things I need to do for my outside of work projects. And this is where my deer hunting stuff lives. So I have this master list online and then each week, especially this time of year in the summer, I am then looking at that master list when I do my weekly

planning in the physical book. And this is where I can say, Okay, this week, the week of August twelfth, am I going to try to get done? What am I going to take off my master digital list of to do list items? The thousand different deer hunting stuff I got to get done. Which of those things can I get done this week? And then I can actually pencil them into the days or the you know, the weekend days, whenever it might be when I can do

those things. And I'm telling you by actually scheduling this stuff, by putting it in a calendar of sorts, I know it sounds nerdy, I'm a nerd, I get it. But by writing this stuff down and scheduling it, stuff actually gets done. Like there's a saying in the business world like what's what gets what gets on the calendar and gets done, And that's very true, because life is chaotic

life is nuts. It's very easy for the chaos of the day to you know, just make it be react reactions, right, we react to this, we react to that, we get this kind of fire, drill taken care of me, run off, take up, take care of that errand, and we will never get the big stuff done that's important if we don't prioritize those things and actually find a place in our day to do that stuff. So for me, this two list system and this planner system. Again, I know

it's nerdy, but it works. You will get more stuff done if you plan to do that versus just thinking in your head, Oh, when I have time, I'll go get this project done, or okay, next Saturday, I'll do some stuff. Yeah, that might work some of the time.

But if you really want to check all the boxes, if you really want to do as good of a job as possible and be efficient so that you can get this stuff done in the allotted time and then be fully present and there for your family or friends the rest of the time, this system is a good way to do it. So consider the list system, whether it's digital or physical. Consider that. So that all said, that's how I'm organizing all these things. Now, what's on my list? What do I have on my master to

do list? What are the things I've been working through recently? What do I have coming up? Let's talk through that stuff. Number One, this is an ongoing one for me. Excuse me, but it is shooting. It's shooting my bow. It's continuing to get ready from that perspective for the upcoming year. That's something that starts for me in the spring and it continues through the summer, and it kind of gradually changes.

We've talked about this a lot in the past. I won't spend a lot of time on it, but I will just give you a couple quick updates when it comes to shooting and how my shooting regimen changes in these final weeks. So in the spring and summer, I'm basically in rep mode, Like I'm just trying to get reps in, just getting in, staying comfortable shooting my bow and making it feel like second nature. Now this year has been a little bit different for me because I

have switched bows. I switched this year to the Matthews Lift thirty three, and I'm using a new site, the Dialed ARCSOS. It's a single pin site, so new bo, new style site, a lot of new stuff. So I'm honestly still in the getting comfortable phase. I switched to this stuff early in the summer. Throughout the middle of the summer when I was home, I've been shooting. But now that I am kind of in this final sprint to the opening day, which for me is about two

months out, I'm shifting what I'm doing. So I'm shifting from just getting reps and just getting comfortable to now shifting into a more of a you know here in the you know, the next couple, next couple of weeks will be rep mode. And then once we get to about a month out, that's when I start getting a little bit more strategic with my shooting. That's when I start doing, you know, some of the stuff that Andy may talked about a few weeks ago. He's doing that

longer than I am. Admittedly, I start doing that about a month out. That's when I start, you know, shooting from different positions in my saddle. That's when I start shooting from weird wonky angles, or on my knees, or standing up on top of a hill shooting down at an awkward angle. I try to plan for the different pop scenarios you could find yourself in when bow hunting, I try to practice those. I will say that, you know,

I'm getting used to this new setup. Still it's not quite what I I'm having a hard time describe as I'm still getting comfortable, I suppose, so we're not there yet when it comes to getting strategic. I'm still trying to figure out the right way to make this bow set up work for me. As we talked about the spring, making changes, trying to figure out some new things, trying to reduce complexity and make my bow set up and

my shooting set up as simple as possible. So shorter range shots for me this year, single pin, trying to you know, learn when and how I want to adjust that single pin. So it's going to be an interesting year for me. I'm working through that stuff right now. But that's a key thing, and probably the most important thing when it comes to my shooting at this time of year, is that it has to be a daily routine.

Early in the winter, in the spring, honestly, I don't do it every day, but when it comes to the summer, every single night. This is a part of what I do and what works for me in my life is to put the kids down for bed, And as soon as the kids go down for bed, that's like the queue, all right, trying to go outside, grab my bow. And what's nice is that I've got my bow set up

at my barn. Everything's ready to go. I have an archery target set up in front of the house so that I can go in the barn, grab my bow and arrows, step out to the front of the house and I can shoot, you know, just shoot, zone out, do the things I want to do. It's cool in the evening, it's nice. There's some fields around me. I sometimes see deer outside. My binoculars out and kind of glass deer off in the distance. And it's a very

enjoyable way to end the day, kind of therapeutic. But by having this kind of locked in time frame that I'm doing it, I stick to it more often. Right. It goes back to the whole like putting things on the calendar. If I were to try to shoot just some random time that I find a few minutes, it'd be very easy not to do that. But when I have a locked in time like I'm going to do it every night after the kids go sleep. You stick

to that, you keep that time open. My significant other, my wife, knows that that's what's going to go on, so it's no surprise. She's not going to ask me to do something different. And these little things help me stay consistent and help me actually get the stuff done that I know I need to get done. So that's shooting. That's what I'm up to right now. That's what the routine looks like from here all the way to October. First, next up, I am doing some final habitat things. So

I hunt a variety of different kinds of places. I hunt some public I hunt some buy permission properties, and then I hunt some properties that I have management access in which I can actually do some habitat work. And so this time of year is always a scrambled trying to get that last habitat stuff done. I got a few things going on. I've got two different properties where I can plant food plots. One of them is our family deer camp. One of them is a property I

hunt in southern Michigan. So on the Southern Michigan piece, the first step has been spraying. I just got out there and sprayed these plots. And what I plant is a two two phase system. The last maybe three years I've been doing this, I've been planting seed from a company called Vitalize, and they have a spring planting and a fall planting, and the idea is to rotate these so spring planting then fall planting, and they each help

each other. So what you plant in the fall provides great deer attraction, and then in the spring it greens up early, keeps weeds from growing, and then when you knock that out and plant, you are spring planting. Your spring planting takes advantage of the organic material that's there

from the fall. It then builds up a bunch of nitrogen in the soil that when you knock that out and plant your fall planting, your fall planting basically uses the organic matter and the nitrogen from your spring planting as fertilizer to then grow. So this is like a constant, perpetual cycle that builds off of each other. The spring planting which I put in the ground this spring, that's in those plots right now included stuff like barley, forge peas, soybeans,

sun hemp, some clover, some sorghum. It's getting a lot of stuff. There's a lot of organic matter. Now, what I just did yesterday I believe it was, is I sprayed that stuff and it's going to knock out most of that competing vegetation. And then I've got a friend who's going to come in. It's the first time I've

done this. In the past, I've done a basically like a spray and spread where I have sprayed or I actually broadcasts the seed and then kill the vegetation, had that die on top of it, and then had basically a no till planting without any equipment. That's worked okay for me, but I would say my germination rate has not been as high as i'd like. So this year, I've got a friend who has a drill, a no till drill, who's going to come in and drill in

my fall planting. And so again I sprayed the old stuff, so there's a lot of growth that's going to die, provide organic material and kind of an armor on top of the soil. And then later this week, just before the rain, my buddy's then come in with a drill and he's going to drill in. He's going to plant what's called the carbon load, which is a bunch of grains at winter rye and wheat and oats, and then radishes and clover and turnips and all sorts of good

stuff like that. So a lot of attractive things for early, mid and late season for deer. It's a diverse blend. I'd like to have a lot of different things that provide attraction at different parts of the year. They're all going to help each other grow. Some are going to be fixing nitrogen, some of them will be using nitrogen, some of them will be providing organic material. Like I said earlier, some of these things will grain up next

year and provide food again in the spring. So diversity and not tilling up the soil so that I'm not getting erosion, so I'm not losing moisture, so I'm not killing the bio kind of the biology of the soil. That's why I'm taking this approach. So that's all happening, you know, over the coming days here, and then you don't need as much fertilizer when you use this method, because you know the organic material and the plants are doing that job for me. So I'm not needing to

use as much synthetic fertilizer. I don't need to spray often, so I've minimized my herbicide you significantly from what it used to be when I'd be spraying multiple, many, many times a year, trying to keep any weeds out of there, then disking everything up and then planting into that cut that down a pretty good bit. So the food plot project is underway here in southern Michigan. I'll be going up to northern Michigan here in the next week or

two and just managing a plot up there. We've got clover plots, and so in that case, I'm gonna be mowing and maybe spraying a selective herbicide to kill any grasses if that's a problem right right now, but really trying to manage there for efficiency, hopefully getting clover to take over here, take over very well. Up there, we can't visit as often, so having something that clover that just comes back a year after a year is a

great option. It's obviously very attractive to deer in other wildlife, and it's something that you know, you don't need to use a lot of chemical, you don't need to til it up every year, you don't need to use big equipment. It's simple, it's effective, and it's good for a lot of critters. So that's kind of our food plot approach. I'm relatively small scale, right, I'm not doing this on the scale like the Juries or someone you know, total I probably have I don't know, three acres of food

plots four acres across these two different places. So my system obviously is different than if I was doing this on a much larger scale. But that's my approach. Those are the things that I'm thinking about, and that's, you know,

something that does really help me. I'm not changing the world with these food plots, but I'm providing nutrition to a lot of different wildlife species and it does help me get deer to use the properties that I hunt in the places that's most beneficial for hunting in ways that I can access them. And again I can you know, some people give you a hard time about planting food plots and agricultural land because there's food everywhere, right, But what I think you can provide with food plots is

kind of like an ice cream stand. The major egg feels all around you, like that's your meat and potatoes, that's the main course that the deer feeding on. I try to provide them something different, something extra special. And

something very safe. So it's like if you are in a war zone and it's dangerous everywhere you go, but then there's one amazingly safe bunker with a bunch of ice cream in it, that's the spot you'd want to go to a lot, right, Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to provide the local deer in my area with these food plots. That's my approach. Number three. Another thing that I'm working on on the properties that I

do have the ability to do some management. This is nothing dramatic, this is nothing too crazy, but access routes. This is something that sometimes we can overlook. You want to have, if possible, cleared out quiet access routes on properties that you have the ability to do this. So for me, that looks like a couple of different number couple diff things. One just the other day, I've sprayed some of these trails that I have that you know,

over the course of the summer they get overgrown. I'll do one herbicide application just to knock down everything right now, and then I will do a mow here towards the end of the summer. Once that's done with a mowing in the spring, you've got a clear, low, quiet trail that you can access your tree stand locations, that you can access spots to change trail cameras, that you can drive your e bike or your UTV or whatever it is. Having those trails is super helpful. I do that with

the mower in places that that's possible. But something that I you know, I don't always do this as much as I should. I'm trying to do more and more of this every year. I'll try to create small, cleared

out trails to my actual stand locations too. And that's just as simple as going in with you know, for me like some pruners and pruning the branches, just clearing out branches or any brush on the ground, many downtry limbs or anything that are going to make it loud or difficult for you to get to the actual trees

that you want to hunt. So this is one of those things that if you can make the time, it can help you because, as we've talked about many times over the years, at least if you're trying to kill and hunt matured deer, the little things matter. The tiniest little mistake can be the thing that keeps you from getting that deer you know, stepping on that one branch or getting your backpack hung up in some bushes behind

you and making a bunch of noise. That might be the thing that spooks the buck that's bed at eighty five yards away. So any little thing, any little variable that you can control now will help you, because there's a whole lot of stuff come in the fall that you can't control. So that is the kind of thing that I'm looking for with this access route prep clearing those little trails, raking some vegetation out of the way, or spraying the grassy path so you can get into

there more quietly. Again, it's not a huge thing, but it can make a big difference in a few months. Number four scouting Summer scouting. This is something that I love. It's one of my favorite things for this time of year. But it's something that you have to look at with a grain of Salt's here's what I mean. Probably most of you know this, but I want to review it just in case you're relatively new to this, because it's

very very important. Seeing deer in the summer, feeding in fields or getting pictures of deer in the summer is a lot of fun. It can tell you some things, but it is not the end all be all, because there is a significant rain shift from the summer to the fall for many bucks. So if you see or get pictures of a deer right now, there might be a fifty percent chance that that deer is going to

relocate to a totally new zone one September hits. So I scout and I pay attention, but I'm doing all of it without getting overly excited and without drilling into the details of you know, if I saw a buck move into the corner of this field, I'm not going to be like, oh wow, I'm going to kill the deer in the corner of that field if I don't

have an early season opener. So if you have an early season opener in September, you know, first week or two of September, then yes, summer patterns might still be relevant and you can kill a deer doing the stuff you're seeing them do now in August. But if you are like me in your opening day is not until October first, it's going to be pretty different. That all said, there are a few things you can gain with summer scouting. There's a few things that I'm personally looking for when

I do this. Number One, you can assess the quality of deer in the general area, even if you know a given deer might not be on your property, that is on your property right now. If you are trying to figure out does this zone have mature bucks, your summer glassing and summer pictures can tell you that. You can also get confirmation of deer being back. You know, let's say you had a few bucks that you were hunting last year. Now's a great time to determine whether

or not they're still alive and whether they're around. Take a look at them, see how they're looking, See if they're as old as you think they are, See if there's new deer in the area. Again, we alluded to this at the very beginning, but you can also try to find a buck now that maybe isn't a totally new area, and then try to get permission in that zone. Now, be careful if you spot a buck in August, he might be somewhere different in September, So continue that kind

of surveillance into September. And that's a key thing I think we should remember is that usually most deer are losing their velvet the first week or so of September, and that is really when most rain shift happens, because you've got a major testostere rise happening this time of year, velvet's peeling off, and bucks are starting to relocate to their fall ranges. From my experience, I would say about a third ish of the bucks that I see in

the summer go somewhere else come September. But that still means two thirds are there. And I'm not hunting big properties. I don't have any properties I have access to that are more than like one hundred sum makers. So you know, maybe if I had a thousand acre swath, I could keep track of all of these deer. Maybe the deer that are here in August would just be down, you know, on the other side of my property comes September. But

I just don't have that scenario. So a third to maybe a little bit more than a third of the bucks I'm watching now I know are just going to be gone. But that's okay in my case. There are for example, in one of my main zones in Michigan, there are two bucks that last year I had been passing on when was a three year old. One was a four year old, and I was really hoping that they would make it to this year. Both of them did. One of these deer is a buck that my youngest

son named Bear Deer. He was just like a tall, mainframe eight pointer last year as a three year old with a big inside time, and you saw him a lot. Didn't try to kill him. He just showed back up within the last handful of weeks, maybe two three weeks ago, and he's big and tall, really nice tall bro. I mean, he's just a very very impressive deer, a big deep split in G two. He lost an inside time but now has a split G two, so he's on the list. He's a very cool deer and my son is very excited.

The bear deer is still around. So he's a deer that I'm getting pictures of and I'm trying to glass and get eyes on him, and that's that's purely for fun, you know, sometimes summer glassing is just a good time. I realize I'm not probably going to be able to pattern him in any kind of way because i can't hunt him now, but I just like watching deer and watching deer do deer stuff, so that's part of what

I'm doing now. The second buck in this zone that is back is a buck that my other son named Bulldozer, and he is a five year old. This year I passed a bunch of the three year old last year's a four year old passed him one time with the muzzle ludder muzzler season and then saw him a couple times but out of range, but he was always around. He's the oldest buck. He's the one five year old that I know of in this area, and we actually

found his match set of antlers. I found one antler close to this spot where I thought he betted, and then later found his other side and then went and got my youngest son brought him out and had him, you know, fine to himself. So so yeah, really cool story with that buck having his antlers, having seen him now, you know, for so many years, so those back. He's a big nine pointer, big old body, and blind in one eye, so it'll be interesting to see if that

will make him slightly more approachable. I guess I'm not sure what to you know, how much of a factor that'll be, but it'll be interesting to watch him. He was really really big bodied last year during the season, so I'm excited to see what he looks like as those testosterone levels start to rise and he really starts to get runted up, I think he'll be pretty darn impressive. So so yeah, I mentioned this, But there's there's two kinds of summer scouting that I'm doing. One is the glassing.

Any night that I can get out and sit on a hill or on the side of the road and glass some of these beanfields or alfalfa fields. I'm doing that one to try to see these bucks that I'm after and just see them, get some footage of them. That's just plain fun. But then I'm also trying to assess new areas and just get a sense of hey, is there a different neighborhood, a different area where there are some like spectacular deer that I should try to,

you know, somehow get permission on. That is a possibility, and that's something that I like to try to do. I'll just do like what I call a deer drive, where I'll just go drive around, drive the back roads. It's a good time and sometimes you can learn about a new honey hole that might be worth investigating further.

And then secondly, running trail cameras. I'm running these on all the properties I have access to that I've been hunting forever, and then I'm also putting trail cameras on new properties that I'm getting access to to try to assess like what's here, what's the area offer, and do I really need to double down on this spot? Which brings me back to or brings me to another one of these ideas or one of these kind of categories

that I'm working on, which is getting new access. And this is something you know that you can't these days. You almost never can stop doing this because if you don't own your own farm, if you're depending on permission or even leases, it's just so common to lose that permission,

to lose that access. There's just you know, land is changing hands, there's obviously a lot of demand for hunting access, and I just find myself, you know, every time I get something good and new that I'm excited about, it seems like it disappears in a year or two. So that happened to me this year. I picked up a really nice new property last year that I was excited about a couple hundred acres, and now already this year

I don't have access. So a major thing that I try to do all year round, but especially comes summer, especially right about now, is start checking in with the network and trying to find possible new opportunities for hunting locations.

I've kind of had a renewed urgency this summer because of losing that spot, and so I've just started like asking random friends who maybe have a family member that's a farm owner, or I bumped in to a neighbor the other day and just brought it up, just asked, hey, you know you happen to know of anyone you happen to have something, And you know, I've landed a couple of little spots, nothing big and extra special, but I'm now in a point where I'm just trying to stack

up little spots. So, for example, I talked to a farmer the other day who I've gotten to know over the years, and I knew he had a handful of different properties. I've never tried to get access to them in the past, but we developed a relationship over the years to a point where I thought, you know, maybe he'd be open to that now, and so I just mentioned, hey, you know lost some spots looking for a new location or two, I know you've got a property over an X y Z road or another one down that road.

Would you ever be you know open to me, you know, helping out with the dope problem there and hunting sometimes and lo and behold, got me permission on a couple

of these spots. And so that is my maybe biggest piece of advice when it comes to this, is just always always ask, you know, anytime there's someone who might know somebody or owns some land or has a family member that owns land, it can't hurt to ask, right The answer is no already if you ask, the worst case scenario is it's going to be no still, but maybe you will get a yes. And you never know where those kinds of conversations can go. And you can

never have enough hunting property, right. It's location. Location. Location is so much the name of the game when it comes to hunting deer. So I got permission on a few new spots. They're not, you know, amazing spots, but you never know that one little extra location might make all the difference next year. For example, one of these properties that I just got permission on is something like sixty or seventy acres, but it's almost all crop field.

There's just four acres of cover. Rest is standing corn, but the four acres of cover which is mixed grasses, some willows, various shrubs and stuff, and then some trees. This butts up and is adjacent to a really big swamp system. And the swamp system is one that I've known of in the past. I've driven around this area a lot during previous summers and I've seen a lot of deer all on the edges and all around it.

So I've just known, like, man, this spot holds a lot of deer, and some big deer like deer get old around these swamp systems in southern Michigan. And so when I knew or when I saw that I could get access to the edge of it, even though it was just four acres, it's still exciting. And so this is another one of my top ten things is doing this last minute scouting. I just went and did a quick speed scout of this new property yesterday. What I'm trying to achieve in this quick speed scout is twofold

number one. I want to get a lay of the land, just going out there quickly to get a sense of what's the access like where do I park, how do I get in these places, where will be the routes I can take in without spooking a bunch of deer. And then I want to figure out where's the food, where's the bedding, where's the travel? And you can figure that out relatively quickly, especially on a small property like this, right a four acres, you can relatively quickly figure out. Okay,

obviously there's deer feeding in this cornfield. Obviously there's deer betting on the edges of this swamp and inside the swamp in high spots. But as I walked this little swath of ground, I ran up on a buck that was standing in the standing corn feeding, bumped him. And then later I bumped a nice buck out of a bed kind of on the edge of this swampy area, and some like tall, grassy, willowy stuff. So right away

I'm just saying, okay, there's bucks in here. Right now, there's all sorts of sign all sorts of old rubs, old scrapes, beat down trails, all the good stuff you want to see. So I've done two things with this. I've figured out where the bedding is, where the feeding is. I've seen a bunch of the trails I identified a couple little pinch points. For example, there's like a like a canal or a channel, like a drainage ditch. I guess it'd be coming out of the swamp that butts

up right to the edge of the cornfield. So this drainage ditch is full of water, it's pretty wide, not easy for deer to get across, And then it comes right up to the edge of that cornfield and stops maybe five yards ahead of it, and you can just see how all the deer, you know, rather than crossing this big drainage ditch, they all funnel around the top of that ditch in the edge of the cornfield. So

here's a major travel pinch. Anything that wants to come from the north side and wants to get to the south side, a lot of these deer are going to move around this little corner. So right away I knew, Okay, this is a possible hunting location, and this is definitely a good spot for a camera. So I put a camera out and that's going to give me back to the summer scout that's going to help me assess the area.

So again I'm not necessarily trying to pattern a deer with these cameras right now, I'm just trying to get a sense like, hey, am I right? Are there some older deer in this area like I would expect given the swamp, given the habitat, you know, could there be something worth chasing even though there's just a little four acre window I have here. And then number two. As I do that, I'm also looking for spots that might

be worth coming back and hunting in the fall. So in this area, like for example, I found this pinch and then I started thinking, Okay, this is a great location. I can see this is like close to the bedding. It's this area that a lot of deer travel is going to want to be funneled through. Is there a tree around here I can hunt? And the answer to that was actually no, there's not a good tree to hunt.

So what could I do? Well? I got to thinking, man, I really think this would be a place worth hunting, but there's not a tree. So what could I make work on the ground? And what I came up with was that actually, there's so much deer activity in this area that the corn field was like mowed down, Like the corn most of it was eaten down to like

waste height. And I realized if I were to stand and hide in the standing corn about thirty yards back where it isn't mowed down by deer, you could actually hide on the ground in the standing corn and have a clear view right to the edge and where this water source butts up to it. So I went in there kind of found a perfect spot, marked a waypoint, and have a setup now where I know if I want to come back in here in October when the

season's open, I have a pre planned location. I mapped it out to make sure I could see like shooting lanes to the pinch point, to a couple other spots. I found that perfect spot marked a trail, so I can go and actually hunt from within the standing corn, aiming out towards this ditch and this cleared out area where the deer have already been feeding and mowing down

the corn. That's what I'm trying to do with this summer scouting is determine quality and like presence of deer with cameras, and then number two get some potential hunting locations planned out. I don't in most cases anymore going prep full tree stands anymore. Right, I'm a saddle hunter, ninety nine percent of the time on new spots. I like to be pretty mobile. I don't want to get committed to anyone location too much. So in this case, I just found a spot like this for the ground.

I found another spot where I found like probably this tree or that tree would be the ones, and I just marked those pins. So I didn't go in there and do any major prep work on the trees. I didn't go in there and hang a tree stand or a permanent set. I didn't trim a thousand tree limbs. I just marked a couple of trees. Now while I could walk around while I saw where the trails were. It'll make things a little bit easier for me if I do come back in October, I'll have like an

easy idea, a quick idea of where I want to go. Now, that's kind of what I will do on some of these newer properties where I'm not committed to anyone spot in a big way. If I were to be doing my prep work on a property that I know I'm going to hunt a lot, it would look a little bit different. And I'll get to that in a second, because I definitely am doing some more thorough prep work in other locations. But when it comes to this new stuff,

I'm trying to cover a bunch of ground. I'm trying to give myself a bunch of options, and so you know, this little four warker piece just eyeballed it. Took a quick walk, put two cameras out located to possible hunt locations, mark those, and now we're going to move on and wait and see what shows up there, and wait and see if it ends up being something i want to

spend more time on. I've got another property like this that I picked up access to that I'm going to go later this week and do the same thing too. There's a couple other pieces of public that I'm going to do something similar, so again not doing not making a huge investment into them yet because I'm casting a wide net. I don't want to get stuck on any

one piece. I want to cast a wide net, have a bunch of different options, and maybe the buckle pop on one of them but nothing on the other, or maybe I'll have time to hunt one more more than the other and I'll be able to spend more time prepping trees that or bounce around while I'm in hunting season and get to know it in that kind of way, but right now I'm just trying to get a sense of the place and have a starting point. Now, another one of these that'll be coming up is a pretty

exciting new situation down in Illinois. And this kind of goes back to like always be asking, always be thinking about new access. This kind of came up when I was spending time with my buddies Casey Smith and Tyler Jones from the Element last week at a work thing.

We were talking about how we really need to find a piece of ground that we can share and hunt together, and wouldn't it be great to be able to do some stuff kind of in collaboration, And we got to think, of, man, we just need to like send out some mass messages to anyone we know in like Illinois or Ohio and just see is there anything we might be able to

get on. And long story short, one of our contacts that Casey reached out a shared contact, ended up happening to know of a person who might have some land they'd be willing to let us get on, maybe for a small lease fee or access to use their stuff and help them out with some things. And long story short, it looks like that's panned out. It looks like we have a few properties that the three of us could hunt in Illinois. And so our plan later this week is to go and do a speed scout similar to

what I just discussed. I'm going to go down there and drive down there to Illinois and kind of burn across these properties as fast as I can, just to get cameras out with the same goals in mind which I mentioned are get a sense of the place, see what the quality deer is out there, and you know, maybe we'll get lucky and some of these deers stick around. But again I'm not trying to pattern on them right now.

I just want to see, like a general vibe check is what I'm going for in the summer, and then again speed scouting, walking the borders, walking all the main interesting zones of habitat right I'm doing a pretty significant e scout for every one of these new properties ahead

of time. And when I'm looking at that and trying to identify, you know, where does it look like there's the best cover, Where is the possible betting, where's the possible food, Where are the possible funnel funnels or pinch points? Where are the possible water sources. So mark all of that on my map that I'm looking at. I use ONYX for this, get that all done ahead of time.

That way, when I show up in person and I've got one day to scout, I can then go and hit all of those highlights, so I don't need to cover every square inch. I can just go and check all the places that I thought had the best opportunities, that I believed were the most interesting, and then I can ground trooth them. I can then see, Okay, yes, this actually is awesome. Cover check market, this is a good betting era. And then when I'm in these different locations,

then I'm also going to be pinning possible trees. So anytime I find something that I find that could be useful for a hunting location, Like maybe they'll be a little isolated corner of a bean field that pokes into some good bedding off of a ridge, and I see a patch of big oaks on the edge of it. Man, this could be a great early season location. Let's think about what the wind might be here, and let's try to find a tree or two that I could hunt, and I'll pin that. I'll try to find one that

you know has good access. Maybe you know, maybe it makes sense to trim a couple of tree limbs off real quick. But again, in this kind of speedy scenario where it's a new place, I haven't been able to commit to it for a long period of time. I'm not going to go hung a day, hang a dozen stands. I'm going to try to get a bunch of starting points, and then when I start hunting a new place, I go in there with a sal and I hunt my way to the deer. So I'll start with a starting location.

I'll observe, I'll learn, I'll adjust, I'll scout, i'll adjust, i'll watch, I'll adjust. I've really gotten away from hanging a bunch of stands on day one on a new property and doing a bunch of work, because then you kind of over commit yourself. And if you spend all this time putting up a permanent set and trimming out a thousand trees and cutting an access trail to this location, if you do that and then you hunt it, you

hunt it, and it stinks. It's much harder to pick up and move to a new spot when you are so committed to a permanent location. So I've gotten away from that, very light and fast and adaptable. Yeah, that's my new approach now. So when we're there in Illinois, we're gonna do the speed scout. We're going to ground

truth all these locations. We're going to mark some possible trees, We're gonna put up some cameras to do our vibe check, and then I'm probably gonna do an evening drive around the neighborhood again, getting a sense of the place, getting a sense of what our expectations should be for the area. Is this a place where there's a bunch of four and five year old bucks running around like we hope, let's see you know, is a good buck here like a four year old one? Or is it a five

year old one? Sixty? Are there dear bigger than that? That's the kind of thing that you can determine in the summer. Again, yes, things change, but the general sense of the place, the general sense of the neighborhood is usually a good barometer for what you can expect to come fall. So that is That's what I've got going on when it comes to these new properties with these quick scouts, there's a lot of that happening over these coming weeks. I'm going to do some more of that,

some kind of last minute public checks too. Did some of that in the spring. But there's just always more locations, right, And I'm trying to get better since I don't have I don't own a bunch of big farms, I don't

own anything like that. What I've found that I need to do is have a lot of different small things, a lot of different opportunities, because if you are dependent on any one spot, which I have been in the past, sometimes you can get yourself in a bad spot if that location is, you know, not producing for whatever reason. Maybe there's more pressure around it, or maybe the one deer year after got shot by a neighbor, or maybe the winds just wrong for most of the farm for

a whole week, whatever it is. If you are beholden to a single location, you just inevitably are going to find yourself in times when it's just not right and you're stuck at home. I don't want to be stuck at home, So I'm trying to get better every year at adding new places, even though I keep losing them, trying to add these little spots, and public land is a great option for that, as well, because there is great opportunity on public land, you have to work hard

at it, you have to search these places out. But you know, one way I like to look at this is that you know, I might spend the best weather days, the best conditioned days, in my best private land locations, but then there's going to be a Friday night or a Saturday night, inevitably during the hunting season when the conditions aren't great, and you might say, well, I don't want to hunt my good spots right now because I don't want to blow it up on a bad day.

But at the same time, you want to hunt. So this is a great opportunity if you have these places planned out and scouted and have some ideas on the board. On the maybe not great day, go and hunt those public spots and sure, maybe it's not a great night and you don't see anything, but no harm, no fault, you didn't blow up your good things, no big deal. On the flip side, maybe get lucky. Maybe you discover

this spot's actually better than you thought. Can you go in there and you see a bunch of sign and you realize you want to put more time to it, or maybe you see a great buck maybe you shoot a deer when you never expected it, because deer don't always follow the playbook. Deer don't always do what we think they'll do. So you want to be out there as much as possible to take advantage of these freak

mother nature kind of events. And if you're sitting on the couch because you don't want to hunt your good private spots, you might be missing out. So for that reason, adding some more public scout into my repertoire for this last month, too, suggest you do the same. So that's property access, that is last minute speeds gouting new properties, which I'm doing a lot of back to prepping on committed properties which I have as well, so the properties that you have hunted for years in the past and

you continue to do. So the next thing that I'm doing that I suggest you do is go and check every one of your sets that you currently have up. So if you have tree stand locations or prep saddle trees or blinds that are out there all year round, you got to go check them every year. And so I make a point every late summer to go and

do a couple of things. Number one, I go and check the straps on any sticks and stands, and make sure the straps are number one, loosened up enough so that you know they account for the growth of the tree. You don't want them stretched out because that'll lead to them breaking and inhibiting the tree growth. So I make sure that the tree straps are loosened a little bit. I then check the straps, of course, to make sure they're not ripped or torn or damaged in any kind

of way. I do the same thing to every tree stand. Adjust the straps, check all the you know, connection points to make sure the tree stands are safe and good to use, make sure my safety lines are in there. I then will trim out every one of these stands. So any permanent location, like a spot that I keep maintained year for year, these are the spots where I'll

do some significant you know, tree limb cutting. Making sure I've got good lanes, making sure, as I mentioned earlier, that I have access trails to them, making sure that I have room around the base of the tree to lay my bow down and to get hooked into the tree, or to throw my lineman's belt around, whatever it might be. I'm doing a lot of that, So lanes, straps, access trails. Another thing I do in these locations is I will also every year try to improve these sets a little bit.

One way I found to do that is by modifying maybe the deer movement just a little bit. Like try to like if you've hunted a location year after year and you found that a lot of deer, maybe fifty percent of the deer travel a secondary trail that's just out of range, well, now is a great time to go and cut a tree or two and block part of that trail that pushes them. Hopefully that funnels them

closer to you into range. So you can manipulate deer movement a little bit by blocking trails or opening trails where you want them. You could do this and a food plot, you might lay a tree top down across part of the food plot so that any deer that's coming through that area has to go around that tree limb, which then pushes them to ain shooting range maybe of a stand location. That type of thing I'm doing and

is definitely worth doing this time of year. Speaking of modifying deer movement, another thing that I'm adding to the to do list right now. Anywhere that I hunt a food plot or open field, I am putting in a scrape tree location where I want it. So what I mean by that is I am either adding or reopening a mock scrape underneath a real tree if there's a spot like this within shooting range, or if not, I am going to create a fake scrape tree location. I

do this for a couple of reasons. Number One, mock scrapes are terrific locations to get trail camp pictures, both in the summer and during the hunting season. I like to have a location like this buy some of my top tree stand locations, especially if it's like an open field there, like we're talking about, because we'll just use one of my examples. I have at like an acre ach.

Yeah about an acre food plot in one of these spots, and there's not a lot of trees on it, and deer will kind of come in and out of it. In many different locations, it's hard to zero in on the entry or exits into this food source, but there's deer comeing to it. But by putting a scrape tree in the middle of that field, it is a magnet for deer activity. So you can take that acre worth of deer travel and narrow a bunch of it down

into this one spot right where you want it. Because just like bass will be attracted to a Christmas tree sunk in the middle of a pond, deer will be attracted to a single tree, a single scrape location in the middle of an opening because it is it's like the water cooler. A scrape is a message board, is a communication center for deer, and if it's the only thing like that in an open area, they're just they're going to be pulled to it like with a tractor beam.

And so I will add these scrape trees to each one of my food plots in the open within shooting, so that not only can I get pictures, but also you have this possible increased chance of a deer that's entering that area to come within range of you and to also stop where you want him, so that scrape not only gets him close, but he gets them stopping gets him focused on something other than you, because he's focused on that scrape, and if you do it right,

he'll hopefully be facing that scrape in a direction that gives you a good broadside or quartern away shop. So highly recommend if you have any of these openings. If it's a meadow or a crp field, or a food plot, or the inside corner of a crop field that doesn't get planted. This is something that can really be a useful add on for any stand location. And I'll tell you I've used a lot of different things to achieve this. I've tried a lot of different ways, and I've kind

of come upon my favorite scrape tree method. What I found works best for me is to cut down a tree about four to six inches in diameter, so a pretty hefty sized tree. I don't want a little tree. I've used little trees in the past, they just don't seem to work as well for me. I like a big tree because a big tree can be sunk deep down into the ground, can be locked into place. I like to bury it like at least two, if not three feet deep, using postal diggers, and then I really

try to pack in the dirt around it. I know some people will put gravel or cement around it. I haven't done that, but you really want it firmly in place. And what you get with that big tree is that eight number one. It's much less likely for a deer to knock that out of the ground, or bend it over, or you know, cant it in any kind of way.

These little trees they've used in the past just never seem to hold up because what happens is come fall, Bucks will use this scrape tree and they will rub it and push it and do all sorts of stuff to it. And if you've got a little dinky tree, they just beat it up too much. But if I have a four to six inch diameter post essentially driven into the ground, Bucks can work that and it won't it won't destroy it. But what I will have is you will see this post this tree, especially if it's

a real tree. I've not tried using like a what am I trying to stay here? A post that you can buy at the store. I've not used a post you can buy at the hardware store. But what I do know works with a real tree is that they will rub up on that and they enjoy all the benefits of a real natural rub Right there's there's some sap in there still, they get the peeling effect, they can leave their scent on. It's very natural thing. So

I've created effectively a manufactured rubbing post. And in the past I used to try to cut down a tree and use the actual branches attached to that tree. But I've gotten away from that. I've started actually buying or doing this yourself. I've done it myself and I've bought the tool for it, but effectively creating a licking branch

holder and attaching that to the post. And the thing I found that I like the most is a tool called the scrape stick, I think, and it is a tool that you can either strap or drill into your post and it has then a adjustable limb holder. So imagine like a fishing pole holder where you can just stick the butt into your fishing pole into this tube. Well, this tube is instead of a fishing pole. It's there to hold your licking branch and then it has an adjustment on it so you can adjust the angle of

tilt for that fishing pole holder. So what you can do is go find an ideal licking branch for me. I want something that's very leafy, very bushy. I like oak trees a lot, and then I've also had success with like cedar limbs, conifers, that kind of stuff, but I would say oaks are usually my number one. So let's say I've got my post buried two to three feet deep in the middle of the food plot, within

shooting range of my stand. I then attached the scrape stickholder, the the you know, fishing pole holder type thing, and I angle that I get that to a height about maybe just below chest height, I guess, give or take. And then I'm going to, based on the limb that licking branch, adjust the angle so that that licking branch is about deer head height. And I have found that you do not want it too high. I sometimes have accidentally made my licking branch a little bit too high,

like more like my eye level. And you got to remember, deer is shorter than you realize, Like in real life, most deer are not that tall. Yeah, big mature buck might be. But you want the doze and young deer to be able to rub their faces and their noses and their glands in that leafy licking branch too. And if those doughs can't reach it, they can't leave as much scent. There's less of an attraction for the bucks.

So do your licking branch a little bit lower than at least I have to tell myself to do my licking branch a little bit lower than I think is right, because too many times I've just seen these doughs come up to the camera and the licking branch and they're you know, not being able to reach it. So that's something that I'm doing in a handful of different locations, is creating this like ideal scrape, big post, big oak tree limb, perfect height. I kick out a really big,

very obvious scrape in the ground. You know, I've done different scent things in the past to try to kickstart a mock scrape like that. I've peed in it myself and that seems to work fine. I'm trying something this year called DH three from a friend who's got a new company. It's got a licking branch scent and a synthetic urine TBD and all that kind of stuff. But that's something I'm trying some different places. But whatever you need,

open up a scrape, have a licking branch. If it's in a obvious location where it stands out, deer going to use it. And then I always like to have one of my cameras facing these spots because they become a great place to get an idea of what's visiting these open areas. So scrape trees big project of mine this time of year, and again I try to get these in by the end of August, and I like

to not do them too early. This is a key thing, is that your scrape trees, especially if you are putting on a limb, I don't want to have to change that limb a bunch. I don't want to go in there in the middle of the hunting season and walk around these places. So most of the time I will put a limb, a licking branch limb on these fake scrapes at the very end of August. It's the last thing I do, and then they still hold their leaves

and are good into October and maybe November. Especially if you use oaks, like a big leafy oak seems to hold onto those leaves very well. For some reason, I've found that that kind of licking branch would be a little bit more attractive. So let's see here, We've talked about checking and improving our old sets. We've talked about access routes, glassing, summer photos, habitat work, shooting your bow,

prepping new locations. You know, I guess I will say that one thing I will do on these committed properties, so kind of differentiating here the new properties like my wide net bunch of new spots, I'm not prepping trees. I'm just having trees marked for my mobile running gun possibilities.

But on properties that I'm for suregun hunt that I have hunted in the past and I definitely will here again in the future, I will still prep trees for saddles, right, So, even though I don't put as mainy tree stands up as I used to, I still like to have new trees prepped for saddles, especially in locations that I've found

to be historically good. So like I've run, I've done a bunch of run and gun hunting, hunting new places, trying new spots, and over the years I found like, man, this is the place that I keep coming back to a year after year, or this is a spot like just needs to have a prepped location. So something I'm doing over the coming weeks is going to those locations and trimming around the tree to make sure I can

easily maneuver at the base. So I talked about this earlier, but it's an important thing, making sure there's room around the base of the tree to set down your backpack or your bow to get your sticks on the tree, to do all that kind of stuff. Make sure that the tree is prepped up so you can put your sticks up, or maybe even install permanent tree steps or you know, a set of ladder steps, whatever it is.

If this is one of those locations that you find yourself coming back to over and over, maybe it makes sense to put a permanent way to get up into it. And then finally I will go up in the tree with my saddle and identify shooting lanes that I want to clear. It's nice to have, even with a saddle. It's nice to have pre set trees that you can just slip to climb right up and know like you're gonna have great shooting lanes, you're gonna have the cover you need, and you can be as efficient and quiet

as possible. Yes, this is extra work, but it's still not nearly as bad as doing twenty different tree stands. This way, you can just have you know, ten fifteen trees prepped and ready, and then you bounce around with your saddle whenever you want to hit one of those spots. So that is what I'm doing with my tree prep. Last thing cameras. We talked about summer cameras in summer intel and how you have to take it all with

a grain of salt. What I didn't mention is that my summer camera locations are different usually from my fall my fall camera location. So a summer camera location is going to be very It's gonna be very related to summer food because deer are specially slaves to the stomach in the summer, and they're feeding on things like at least an agg country that I hunt, they're feeding on soybeans or alfalfa. But come September or October, that's going

to start to shift. So I like to make my camera adjustments at the end of August, very beginning of September and move those cameras to the spots I want them to be in leading in the hunting season. So this is going to be, you know, on the edges of betting and staging where I think like they'll be heading to fall food sources. So a staging area in

between a betting area and a cornfield. The action might not be there right now alongside of cornfield because they're just not feeding in there as much right now, But come October, come November, they absolutely will. So I'm going to move my cameras to those kinds of spots now. I'm going to, like, if there's a spot deep in the timber in some backwoods funnel location that historically is really good in the rut, I don't want to go

hang on camera in October. I want to hang that camera now, even though it won't be good for another month and a half. So important thing here is that when you're putting up your cameras at the end of August or early September, make sure you've got a power solution, either with a solar panel or really good lithium batteries

or whatever it is. Make sure that you know that you can put your cameras up now and not need to worry about them, you know, just before hunting season or in the middle of hunting season, especially if it's in a hard to get to place. So that's the final thing. I'm just moving all my cameras to their final spots before the hunting season, you know, and ideally in locations that will give me good early season intel.

And really I can keep a lot of these cameras up all season these days, so putting them in those spots that will get me the information that I know I'm gonna need in October, in November, or whatever. It might be. A final note, I suppose on these fall camera locations, almost always I will make sure that there is a mock scrape or a real scrape in front of that camera. So by that, I mean, let's go

back to that stage in location. Let's say I know I want a camera in a staging area between a bedding area and the cornfield, because that's gonna be good come October. Okay, So if I'm going, then I'm walking through the staging area, which is like mixed cover in between the bedding and the food. As I walk through that mixed cover, sure, I'm going to look for trails. Sure, I'm going to look for convergences of travel or pinch points of travel in between there. But I will also

be looking like, is there a historical straight scrape. Is there a big old scrape that's been used year after year after year that's going to be like the spot within the spot for the camera. And if not, if maybe I just have like three trails that all come together at a crete crossing in this staging area, that's

pretty good. I'm going to add a licking branch in front of it to have that little extra attraction or that little extra thing to stop a deer right or I want it for the picture, and I'm going to have that on. I mean, I have a hard time thinking of any place I wouldn't have that. I will always have a mox scrape. If there's not a scrape, I'm going to make sure that there's the licking branch.

Either I bend down into the zone or or make sure I pick my camera angle to have some kind of liking branch in the frame, and I will kick out a scuffed up area in front of it, make sure that looking branch is present, Put some scent, you know, take a take a leak in at whatever I got to do to make sure that I have a chance of a scrape, you know, starting to get used there in front of the camera. I almost always always always sweeten the deal with that mock scrape. And that's what

I'm doing. That is the final piece of the puzzle. Like I said, I try to do that at the end of the summer because I want to make sure that I'm taking advantage of the shift which happens in the beginning of September. And this is this is another good point. You can do things in August that in September might really mess stuff up. But if you do it in August, not only is it a long ways away from opening day at least if you are hunting somewhere like I am, where opening day is until October,

but there's that rain shift. Remember I always look at like September Uber seven is when those bucks are usually shifting by. And so if I do a big project at the end of August, I might be mucking up this spot and putting a camera on the staging area, and the bucks that I'll be hunting in a month might not even be here yet. They might be a

mile down the road. But if I were doing this project on September fifteenth, well, every buck who's going to be here for the hunting season, he's here now, and he's smelling this, and he's hearing this or seeing this. So I like to get it done well ahead of that. Give these dear time to calm down, give these dear time for the new ones to move into the area, and make sure that I am ready both with cameras

and fall locations. Trees prepped, saddle locations pinned, a plan in place, access trails cut, and getting as much laid out as possible, even though you know that there will be new ideas to try out come fall, even though you know things won't go quite as you planned. If you have a well prepared playing field, it gives you

an opportunity to start from a position of power. I think would be one way to think about this, like, if you show up unprepared at all, you're just kind of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. But if you show up with a well prepared plan, you at least can start well. You got to adjust, you need to pivot sometimes you need to learn in the fly. But start well prepared in your hunting season

will go much much more smoothly. It will be much more enjoyable, and you'll have pretty darn good odds to wrap attack on something. That is what I am doing over these coming weeks. That's my top ten preseason tasks. Those are the projects I'm focusing on. These are the types of projects I would suggest you consider if you

were not already. I would love to answer any questions you guys have about these, so please head on over to Probably the Wired to Hunt Instagram would be the best place for you to message me or leave a comment or We also have video versions of this podcast, so if you go to the Meat Eater podcast Network YouTube channel, comment on this YouTube video for the podcast with your questions and I would happily answer your questions

there too. But I hope this is helpful. I thought this would be a good exercise for me to walk through these things to make sure I'm staying up on them, to make sure that I'm incentivized to stick with my plan, to keep on checking things off my list, to talk through all these things and make sure I'm not forgetting something to which I don't think I am. The writing things down thing does help, so I'm feeling good about this.

I'm chipping things off the list, checking things off the list, chipping away at them and makings of progress, and I'm very excited. It's an amazing time of year. It's just a lot of hope, a lot of anticipation, and before you know it, hunting. So make sure you are working on a list of your own. Make sure you check out those other podcasts I mentioned at the top, Episode number two ninety nine with Adam Hayes. Is all about finding the best bucks in your neighborhood, seeking them out,

getting access, and putting together a plan. I think that's really relevant to what we're talking about here. And then check out episode four forty nine Mastering September. That's going to be all about tactics to use during this first month of the hunting season if you start in September, and I think there's some good things to get brushed

up on. So well, that all said, I appreciate you tuning in, thank you for being here, best of luck with your final summer projects, and until next week, stay Wired to Hunt.