The hot trend in recent years seems to be folks writing off summer whitetail scouting. While I’ve never thought it was the most useful scouting intel available, I certainly wouldn’t crusade against it. In fact, it’s a small but significant part of my overall data collection each year, and it usually provides those initial data points on a specific buck that helps track his movements throughout deer season. Before detailing my usual strategy, I think it pays to address the talking points of the anti-summer scouting crowd.
What they’re saying
Easily the most common criticism I’ve heard about summer scouting is that bucks will shift their range come fall anyway, so it’s futile trying to learn what he’s doing right now. Personally, I think this is an overly simplistic view of how whitetails operate and interact with their environment.
Don’t view it as trying to pattern a buck right now. These are data points that are part of a long-term data set on a specific deer.
Why does this matter? Because deer are creatures of habit. Unless something changed drastically in a buck’s core area since last year, like a patch of woods being cleared to build a Wal-Mart, odds are pretty solid that he’ll use that patch of woods similarly this year.
Back in college, I followed a tremendous buck across two seasons that I sorely wanted to put an arrow through. I slapped cameras up everywhere trying to figure him out. I drove circles around the area trying to pin down his movements. The problem was, for all intents and purposes, I did have him figured out. I just didn’t have access to the property he called home.
Both years I hunted that buck, I picked him up mid-summer on an ag field about a mile from our property. With over a dozen sightings of him across two years, he was in nearly the exact same spot on that same field each time. Both years, I would lose him there at the beginning of September.
I would get a once-in-a-Blue-Moon trail cam pic of him on the perimeter of our property for the next six weeks, and then he was a regular nighttime visitor on roughly half of our property. I also caught him crossing the road from the truck twice at night. Only once did I have a crack-of-dawn picture of him, as he was leaving our place to go back to his core area.
Based on all the summer sightings combined with trail cam images, I was highly confident I had that buck’s core area nailed down to about 80 acres on a neighboring property. When that buck got shot opening day of firearms season, he was dogging a doe almost exactly where I figured he was bedding.
Based on all the summer sightings combined with trail cam images, I was highly confident I had that buck’s core area nailed down to about 80 acres on a neighboring property.
The point of that long-winded story is that I’d have never nailed that buck down that accurately without data from summer scouting. Though I didn’t kill that deer, my best Minnesota archery buck was one I first saw summer scouting. He shifted to our property that fall, and I killed him in mid-October. Those summer observations were crucial to learning his home range.
Cast a wide net
The main problem I think most folks encounter with summer scouting is an issue of scale. At the risk of creating a paradox, many people drastically underestimate how far deer move across the landscape, but they also overestimate how far many bucks shift when they transition in the fall. The average adult whitetail buck has a home range of about one to two square miles, or roughly 600–1,200 acres, throughout a year. However, it’s exceptionally rare that a buck’s home range consists of “square” miles.
Adult bucks are highest on the dominance ladder, meaning they get to pick and choose the best habitat. This often ends up looking like a splattered tomato if plotted on an aerial map. They may utilize a narrow strip of river bottom corridor a mile long, and simultaneously utilize a 100-acre rectangle of prime oak woods nearby, with both being important parts of their home range. Compounding this, some deer definitely have two-plus core areas.
The more that deer research reveals about whitetail movements, the clearer it becomes that deer go exploring, with some deer regularly traveling miles. It’s also clear that deer are highly loyal to their core areas, defined as areas where they spend greater than fifty percent of their time, which normally includes daylight hours. They come back to these areas time and again because they feel safest there.
In short, don’t be afraid to branch out during summer scouting. My main driving route in August encompasses roughly 20 square miles. You’d be surprised how often I catch a buck on our property during fall, especially the rut, that I saw miles away back in summer.
Beyond driving, I take a scattershot approach with trail cams to start each season. I want my cams out by August 1, as most bucks are roughly finished with antler growth and identifiable by this point. If legal, mineral licks are fantastic for compiling an inventory of local bucks. I like to utilize about one mineral site per 50 acres or so.
Closing the gap
The key I’ve found with cameras is flexibility. Admittedly, I’m a trail cam addict, so I have far more than any sane human should. I scatter them far and wide until I find a buck I want to key in on. Once I have a target buck, I start moving cameras towards where I think he’s spending most of his time.
I cannot stress how important it is to adapt to changing conditions in this scenario. By this time, we’re likely into late August or early September, meaning this is a huntable buck within a few weeks. It also means that things are changing daily, so it’s crucial to stay on your toes and try to be a step ahead of him.
One common thread I noticed years ago is that most big-name hunters from Minnesota (think Tony Peterson, Pat Reeve, and the like) have their Minnesota buck tag filled within the first month of the archery season. This is likely two-fold, as they are good hunters and already have a buck reasonably patterned, and they have other hunts planned in better-quality states, so they need their Minnesota tag filled early. Regardless, mature bucks are killable early in the season, so don’t waste that opportunity if it presents itself.
Final thoughts
Maybe it’s easy for me to advocate for summer scouting – I don’t golf, I don’t have kids in youth sports, and I rarely get time to fish anymore with preparation for deer season ongoing. If I’m needing a break, a night in the truck looking for deer sounds like heaven when August rolls around.
If you get a free evening to drive the countryside around your hunting property, or you’re getting antsy to put trail cams out, don’t sleep on this time of year. Mature bucks are hard enough to kill as-is, and if I get the chance to utilize summer scouting for data collection, bet on me taking full advantage. There are early season archery opportunities to be had, and every observation gets me one step closer to filling my buck tag.
