When you are out doing your scouting don't forget to look up. Many of the trails your are seeing now might be to food sources that are only available during the summer or are more overlooked in the fall when other sources become available.

Right now when you are scouting trails try to determine if they are trails from bedding areas. Find the heavy used trails coming from cover and you should be on bedding trails. Deer are creatures of habbit and like to stick around the same bedding area. Early season the deer may still be bedding in the same areas as summer.

Once you can determine the bedding travle corridors look up. Take some binoculars and check the nut and fruit bearing trees for signs of mast for fall. Watch squirrels intently as they can take you right to nut bearing trees. I know it is tough to see them with all of the leaf cover. If you find a small patch of oaks with signs of good yeild come fall within a decent range of one of these bedding trails you can be in for an awesome early season spot. These small stands are very productive. Especially if they are found around cover.

I typically focus on the lay of the land and found a great spot. Here is something i noticed last year. The deer in the first two weeks were all 70 yards down the hill browsing and i couldn't figure out why they weren't using the same trails they had been all summer. After a morning hunt i went to check the reason. There was a small stand of beech trees. I never knew the deer keyed in on these nuts but by the time i moved my stand they had already hammered the supply. I will note that 3 or 4 squirrels called these trees home. Follow the squirrels and learn you trees and you can really up your game come opening day.

If anyone can add to this please do so and help me learn as well. Might not be the case for every area but this has paid off for me.

Comments

Hunt Man

Great advice. I was scouting this weekend and was trying to see if some oaks had acorns forming on them and wish I had a pair of binoculars on me. With the heat down here I have to get out early in the morning or late in the evening to see any squirrel activity.