Follow this guide to have yourself perfectly prepared for the time when big bucks consume your attention.
Summer is here, and likely as not, you don’t wake up these warm and muggy mornings with deer hunting on your mind. Turkey season drained you back in March and April, and the novelty of hunting squirrels in May during Louisiana’s new spring season has long since passed.
You’re more likely to find yourself thinking about being out on the lake at first light, rod and reel loaded with a buzz bait, topwater lure or plastic frog, waiting for a big bass to bust your bait before the sun makes its appearance.
Hunting? Nah, I still have plenty of time to think about that when the days begin cooling and leaves start to lose their green luster. Or do you?
Truth to tell, this is the time to begin planning for the upcoming deer season. There are a few things you can do in the comfort of air conditioning, but the majority of activities will require you to be out there keeping company with chiggers, ticks, deer flies and snakes under the glare of a broiling summer sun.
First, take inventory of your hunting clothing and equipment. You can do this inside for the most part, but it is an important part of the “getting ready” phase of hunting.
By now, the fall outdoor catalogs have started arriving, and if you’re like me, you get as excited perusing the pages of these luscious offerings as your wife does her Southern Living magazine.
While you absorb every page of these catalogs literally dripping with the latest in camouflage patterns for the upcoming season, go to the closet, the attic or wherever you have your hunting togs stored, and dump them on the floor of your den, living room or home office. Your wife is likely to look up from her August issue of Good Housekeeping with a glare that indicates where she’d like to see you put them.
Explain, if you must, that you’re performing a task vital to your success at furnishing her with delicious venison steaks this fall and winter.
Go over each item of outdoor gear and check it for wear. Remember that day you climbed over a barbed wire fence and ripped the seat of your favorite hunting pants? You meant to repair them before turkey season, but on those hot, muggy days chasing gobblers, the draft that wafted through the tear felt refreshing, so you delayed. Unless you’re adept at being a seamstress, toss ’em.
Does that shirt still fit, or have the sausage biscuits you’ve been consuming caused it to appear to have shrunk a couple of sizes? If it no longer fits, toss it or hand it down to a non-biscuit eater.
Do the same with each item — hunting boots with cracked soles, socks with holes, worn-out hunting coats. As you toss each item and pick out its replacement in Cabela’s or Bass Pro, you’ll want to remind your spouse of that “honey do” list you pledge to get to before hunting season arrives.
Now that you have your worn-out hunting apparel tossed and replacements ordered, it’s time for the sweating to begin.
If you own the land you hunt or if the property is leased, summer is the time to bush-hog, disc and plant.
Bush-hogging knocks down dense, woody vegetation that is of little value to wildlife. This is the time of year that wild turkey poults and young quail are needing plenty of nutrition, and the areas you open by bush-hogging will give these youngsters ideal habitat in which to feed on insects.
Disking and planting supplemental food crops now will prove valuable to wildlife once the heat and drought of summer have reduced the moisture and nutrition level of plants that are succulent and palatable in spring. A mix of peas, millet, soy beans and other warm-weather plants will find plenty of visitors during summer and early fall from game and non-game species alike.
Another plus to having summer food plots is the excellent opportunity to observe wildlife. Taking your youngsters and spouse on sightseeing ventures to your hunting area can cement their interest in wildlife, hunting and the outdoors.
Now is also the time to consider deer-stand repair or replacement. In what condition is your deer stand? Do you need to replace steps or the platform? Now is the time to carefully inspect it for signs of decay or damage.
Take every precaution in climbing the stand you used last season. Wind damage, rot or breakage is sometimes hard to spot until you climb. Always use a safety belt, even during summer when doing your inspection. Every year, reports come in of serious injuries caused by a fall from a deer stand being checked. If in doubt, replace it; don’t take a chance.
Another problem you’re guaranteed to face when visiting your deer stand this summer is the presence of wasps. I don’t know what it is about stands that attract these stinging, nasty rascals, but they’ll be there for sure. “Don’t leave home without it” may be the slogan of a popular credit card company, but it absolutely applies to wasp spray. Be sure you have a couple of cans in your pack before you sneak a peek in your deer stand this summer.
Hopefully you won’t encounter something I found last summer when I was checking out one of my box stands. I had left the windows open, and a family of buzzards had moved in and set up housekeeping. Although I was tempted to set fire to the stand and construct another in its place, I undertook the grimy task of chasing away the buzzards and cleaning the stand. My advice: When this season is over, be sure to close all windows so you won’t find next year what awaited me last summer.
No matter if you hunt with gun or bow, summer is the time to practice marksmanship. Now is the time to work out the kinks and get fine-tuned on your shooting accuracy. Bow hunters especially need to practice regularly during the off-season as muscles required to shoot a bow need to be kept toned and in shape.
Most gun hunters could benefit by taking a refresher course in sighting in, especially if a new scope will be initiated this season.
Most shooting experts suggest that a target be set up in an area designated for firing at a distance of 100 yards. Of course, if you’re not hitting the paper at this distance, move it in 25-yard increments closer until the paper is hit. Once the target is hit, make scope adjustments and move the target further away after each series of shots.
Many shooters utilize a bore sighter to begin. Make sure the chamber is empty, install the bore sighter in the muzzle and line it up as closely as possible with the crosshairs on your scope.
Once you’re satisfied with the alignment, fire one round at the target. Determine where the bullet struck the target and use the adjustments on your scope to move your shot placement to the bull’s eye.
Since no two brands of ammunition perform exactly the same, fire sets of three shots of one brand of ammunition, identify this series with a marker and try another brand or two. Determine which of the brands you test consistently hit in tight groups nearer the target to find out which bullet your gun handles best.
Finally, use the ammunition you have selected, and test at different ranges, from 50 yards to several hundred yards. Your final adjustment should place the bullet 3 inches above the target with windage at dead center. When you’re consistently hitting just above the bull’s eye at 100 yards, for example, your shot should be in the vital area of a deer from inside 50 yards on out to 200 yards and farther.
Once your weapon of choice is performing as it should, it’s time to figure out where you will hunt.
If you have the good fortune of being a hunting club member, that issue is already settled for you. However, summer is the time to walk out the shooting lanes you used last season, remove any dead branches that may have fallen in the lane and trim any limbs that could obscure your vision.
Be on the lookout for old rubs, scrapes or deer trails you may have missed last season. If you’re lucky, you might find the shed of the big buck that made a monkey out of you last year, giving you hope of another chance at him this coming season.
If you’re not in a hunting club nor have access to a private honey hole, you’ll want to consider the many opportunities available on public lands around the state.
Call or visit district offices of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to secure maps of management areas, or contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for maps and regulations on federal lands open to the public.
If one particular area catches your eye, pay it a visit this summer to get the “lay of the land.” Where permissible, drive the back roads of these areas slowly, map in hand, getting the feel of recent clear cuts or ongoing oil field activity. These areas may not look promising this summer but can be a bonanza by this fall and winter as newly disturbed ground has a tendency to produce tons of succulent deer foods with plenty of edges deer like to travel.
I know that the heat of summer may not seem like the best time to exercise, but if your workout regimen is reasonable, summer is a great time to get in shape for the rigors of walking and hiking the hills of your favorite hunting spot.
Check around the area where you live for the location of public parks that offer walking paths. If these are not available, head for the countryside and map out a walking or jogging path on back roads. The key is to condition and season your body to withstand what awaits you once hunting season opens.
If you’re not in shape at the outset, plan to casually stroll a mile. After a few days of becoming conditioned to walking, pick up the pace a bit and increase the distance to your walk.
After getting the approval of your physician, head for the nearest gym and begin a workout routine that gets the muscles pumping and heart pounding. This will pay dividends for you when you down that big buck half a mile back in the woods and have to drag him out by yourself.
Get your honey-dos done. There are times during fall and winter when hunters are preoccupied with the sport to the extent that chores are left undone. In all fairness to the non-hunting mate, those who hunt should take care of such things as painting, repairing screens, preparing flower beds, etc., before hunting season begins. Make the extra effort now to finish the jobs on your honey-do list so that when the cool days of fall arrive, you won’t be bothered by a guilty conscience.
Oh, and wouldn’t it be perfect timing if the day your first package arrives from Bass Pro or Cabela’s should find you busy at fixing the fence, repairing screens or preparing your wife’s flower beds? How sweet would that be!
