As opener approach, I'm curious to hear how everyone goes about hunting the early season, and their tactics to being successful in the early season. I hunt north western mn and haven't had much luck in the early season. Colton
Be there when they're there :D No seriously, many guys will hunt wrong type of set ups in early season. Focus on pockets of acorn heavy droppers near cover, or a micro plot which sees action before the ag fields, or water source which they use before bedding and once getting up. Don't hunt breeding type action unless seeking is on...bucks are starting to show their seeking cycles now though...could tip you off to where they may be around the same moon phase in the months to come. RD (a big buck I chased) last year started showing his seeking cycle in August and repeated it in September, October and November and during the rut he did the loop multiple times in about a week and a half.
Find the high protein foods and you'll find the deer. For me that's soy bean fields and acorns. Water helps also.
Currently my early season approach is relying heavily on praying that the deer continue to stay on the summer patterns long enough for opening day to get here!!
Once velvet drops they become a different animal honestly.... at that point its all about knowing where they bed and being able to setup close enough to them without them knowing so that when they get up to eat its still daylight and you have a shot. Scout, Scout, Scout, then hunt. Its sounds goofy but scouting more than hunting will lead to a more successful year. I say scout 3x for every 1x in the woods.
If you've been watching the deer throughout the summer they will be on their same patterns as they have been all summer. Bedding to food to water back to bedding. Your best bet would be to find a high traffic trail that leads to a main food source and hang a stand.
Couldn't agree more, I've got buck beds I'll be setting up on throughout the early season. Scouting a new spot tomorrow where I just got word of a big buck. Hope to find his beds for different wind direction then kill him!
I think it depends on when your season starts. Our season opens early Sept, Sept 7 this year,and those deer are still in bachelor groups hitting a summer time food source. But if your season opens Oct 1st or so,like ours did years ago,thats a different pattern. Those deer are breaking up those bachelor groups,not using the same food source they did in early Sept. They also tend to move more at night so I tended to hunt more bedding areas. To me the first 3 weeks of Oct were some of the toughest hunting there was.
