The leaves are up and the antlers are growning. As far as I am concerned I am getting ready to start trimming and prepping. One major thing that I plan on doing different this year is prepping some ground locations as I am going to be taking my father in law out with me and he doesn't do treestands. So I am going to ready make several locations so that I can come in and just pop the blind up. For example I have one spot on the mountain land where I am going to re arrange a blow down to fit a blind in the center of the fallen limbs. Treestand wise, I have already hung a few sets, but have held off on the trimming until the leaves grew. I still have a bunch of sets to hang and I am trying to get as much done now as my wife is 8 months preg with our first and I believe the second half of the summer will be a bit more hectic.
I do. I go out early and get a lot of the work done real early so that i do not disturb anything just before the hunting season. I also get some trees ready that I chose in Jan. so that I can just hang a stand or be ready with the Tree Saddle.
Yep Last week I put up a trail cam, cleaned up logs/brush off of a couple trails the deer use, and did a 180 degree turn with one of my lock-ons
Nothing really to do at this point except shoot my bow, which I do pretty much year round. I'll do my glassing later in the summer and some shining to see whats out there and where. All my gear is in order except maybe go thru my camping stuff but I'll be using that all summer.
I pretty much have all my new stand locations picked out from my after season scouting. I haven't yet decided on the purchase of my 8 new lockons but I will be making that decision soon. I won't be putting them up until mid July anyway to let the woods grow and materialize. Right now I am just shooting about 50-75 arrows a day with my new Hoyt Katera and getting all my video stuff in order (first year video guy here). I just got finished planting 70 acres of soybeans and I will begin working on my 3 hunting plots in the next couple weeks getting them ready for planting come late July or early August. I will also be going in and creating funnels to those plots to force the deer where I want them to go. I think all told I will have invested countless dollars and hours into the 2009 season. After all that is said and done comes the easy part...sitting on my butt and waiting for the deer of my life to come by my stand. My dad lives on our land and just signed the papers on a new 2 story log cabin as well. Lots going on and it's all a lot of work, but we (family and friends) absolutely love being there and doing this "work".
I spent all day monday at the lease trimming,(NOT CUTTING!,TRIMMING), lanes. No more big gaping holes in the forest. I filled a feeder, checked my plot,(Needs rain bad), and got 2 trees ready for stands. One is 15 yds from my feeder and I will likely be there opening day with my longbow in hand. The other tree is overlooking a primary scrape area. There are 6 scrapes in a 20 yd space of 2 intersecting trails that see a lot of traffic. I will get the stand up soon and won't go in there again until late October. I have high hopes for that set. I'm also trying to shoot both bows every day or every other day. Then theres the gear, getting things tuned and ready, the list goes on!
To be honest with you i dont do much this time of year other than glassing and shooting. The dam deer ticks are horrable around here. the ones about the size of a pin point (not chiggers) I do alot of my work after the season ends as far as trimming new locations setting trail tacks and so on. I get my scouting in while shed hunting from spending many hours in the woods.
i'm goin to the range saturday to shoot for a bit... i won't do much 'prep' until I head down to AL in August (god that's gonna suck down there doin that at that time!!!!)
I'm watched about 75% of the deer I saw come out from the woods and into the feild behind me. Also, the three coyotes I shot this year did the same. It is going to be easier for me to sit and draw on them as opposed to having to stand up, turn around, and hope they come through my shooting lane
I don't do much right now, when I'll start glassing when I can tell the difference in the deer that I'm looking at. My properties (as odd as it sounds) are pretty impossible to "glass" especially with everything bloomed out, then you throw in the ticks and chiggers... I'll let them grow for a little while.
i havent done a real lot, i have set a couple licks, and got a couple areas picked out but thats about it.... i still need to trim some lanes, and cut down a little sapling tree. i still need to cut some trails to get to my stands. im going to try and make a ground blind out of a old pile of cut down trees, its in a primary spot so why wasted a portable ground blind when you can build a permanent one out of what is already there. i have been shooting my bow pretty constantly so i am not too worried about that.
Prepping? No.. no more for me.. I do mine in January.. Feb.. March.. and April.. I walked 102 hours of shed hunting.. then spent another 100 just scouting.. and probably another 50 just driving. Stick a fork in me.. it's summer and I'm enjoying the new pup.. boating.. and just the general chill. Oh.. and the venison BBQ's. I probably won't even pick up the bow til the GTG at the end of this month. Justin and I may get out in July to one of our pieces.. but I wouldn't hold my breath on it. And Ben.. a HUGE congrats on the kido.. look forward to seeing the pics.
Yep, I'm always at my property on the weekends. There is always something bowhunting related to do. Trim a new shooting lane touch up an old one, check trail cams, watch a field in the evening, watch the food plots grow, spray weeds, look over topos and aerials to see if I missed anything.
YEP I have been prepping. I am working my ass off and saving every penny possible. I called the float plane companies. I have been hitting the gym daily. I bought groceries that don't expire until 2015. I am ordering a pair of European made hiking boots next week, as well as helly hansen rain gear. As far as whitetails go, I will begin putting out trailcams come mid July, and resetting stands as I go in to hunt them for the first time throughout September/early October. My early season here will be focused on killing a doe on film and being the cameraman, my time to shine will come with rut, and my rut locations are already set.
I plan on getting 1-2 cameras on the JoDaviess piece sometime around July 4th, and 1 camera down South sometime around Mid-July. Most likely leave them out till late August-ish before checking them. Give them some time to gather a few photos. :D As far as "prepping" I haven't been doing a thing and I'm loving every minute of it! Tonight I did some tuning of my bow just to make sure I'm all in line still, and I'll probably shoot once a week or so until August, then I'll start shooting 2-3 times a week until the season. As for stands or anything else, I'm not going to worry about any of that till late August/early September. I guess the only other thing I'll be doing is working with the camera a bit more this summer, possibly a little more bowfishing, and some velvet footage if time allows.
I prepped several new trees in February. The only prepping I am doing now is jogging to stay/get into better shape for my elk hunt.
Nope. I will be hanging the stands around the middle of June. I have my spots picked out for the most part. I did most of my legwork in the winter when the tick's aren't as bad:D
