Summer is certainly a great time to wind down and take some trips while enjoying the warm weather. But, if you want to be successful in the fall, there is no better time to get ready for the upcoming hunting season than the summer.
Come October, you want all of your time and efforts to be focused on getting and staying in the woods. Starting the prep in early summer will allow you to do that. There is a laundry list of things that need to be taken care of prior to your first hunt of the season that should be done throughout the summer. Some are no brainers and others are things I like to do that will help stay organized and ready come the fall.
Equipment
While I like to try to clean up and store my gear at the end of each season, sometimes you don’t know when your last hunt will be and it ends up sitting there for a few months. The last thing you want to do is take your stuff out the night before your first hunt and realize things are broken, dead, or need to be replaced. You should definitely be caring for your gear after each hunt, but I like to use the summer to make sure everything is functioning as it should. Make sure your bow is tuned. All your hunting rifles are sighted in. Sharpen and broadheads and replace broken ones. Check zippers on bags and clothing. A lot of companies will repair that stuff for you, but it will take a few weeks before it’s returned, so send it in early to be sure it’s sent back in time for the season. Check your tree stands and blinds for any defects. Make sure batteries are changed out on headlamps and flashlights. Check your stock of little things like hand warmers, bandaids, etc. Clean and oil things like knives and or game calls. Make sure they’re all functioning as they should and replace as needed. If anything is missing, you can find a full gear list here.
Practice
Fitness
This is something that you should be working on year-round, regardless of your plans to hunt. Ideally, you should have no problems hiking into the woods, up a mountain, or dragging a deer a few hundred yards back to camp no matter the time of year. If you find yourself huffing and puffing dragging a deer out of the woods every year, make it a goal this year to do it with ease. Take some time reading through BowTiedOx’s Substack and Twitter and get to work. If you are looking to train more specifically geared towards your hunting endeavors, up the cardio with longer runs with hills, ruck through the trails, and do a few hundred weighted step ups. Grab a sled to drag and pull for a few hundred yards.
One thing that I like to do to get myself ready for the season is to shoot a few arrows between squat sets. If you don’t have a rack at home at home, do some burpees, air squats, or push ups. The goal here is to get your heart rate up to mimic the adrenaline rush when you are full draw on a buck, and learn to control your breathing and focus.
Prepping Land & Scouting
Whether you own the land you are hunting on, hunting on private land you have permission to hunt on, or hunting public land, you can and should be doing some prep to use the landscape to your advantage. While you can really only legally alter the landscape on private land, you can still do some work with public land to benefit you fall hunt. Setting up trail cameras is something that can be done wherever you hunt. While my personal opinion on trail cameras is that they are ruining a lot of the tradition associated with hunting, they are very helpful in understanding what animals are around and how they move. Set the cameras up near where you plan to hunt, and along any natural paths you think animals are walking. The summer is also a great time to see these pathways more clearly, as the grass and brush are fully grown, and you can better see where it is matted down from traffic. Depending on local regulations, you can also leave mineral blocks and feed out. You can take it a step further on private land by actively maintaining food plots, though that is a much bigger process.
If you’re hunting private land, you can manage the landscape to play to your advantage. Cutting limbs and trees that may be in your line of sight or shooting lanes. Manipulating funnels to bring animals closer to where you will be hunting. Creating backings and concealment with brush. All of these can be done in the summer to optimize your hunting setup. Towards the end of the summer you can begin to setup tree stands and blinds. By doing so early, they will become part of the environment from the eyes of the animals and be less intrusive versus placing at the start of the season. This will also make it easy come fall to be able to just walk into the woods and sit in your stand or blind. Again, you want to focus your efforts on time hunting, not setup time.
Storage
Remember, Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance…