The summer off-season is the ideal time to complete your property maintenance projects. You won’t have to worry about scaring off the deer herd during an active hunting season and you’ll still have enough time to add food plots and water sources or clear shooting lanes before the season opens. Check out this week’s blog for tips on how to use your utility trailer to help simplify your summer deer habitat projects.

Haul Water to Your Water System

You can use our Trail Runner 62 Sled or Trail Runner 62 Trailer to haul the Wild Water Bladder to your Wild Water System to refill the tank. The Wild Water Bladder holds up to 100 gallons of water, so you can fill the Wild Water 50 and Wild Water 100 systems in one trip. It comes with four heavy-duty D-rings so you can secure it to the utility trailer. It also comes with a fill port, an empty port, shut-off valve and hose. The trailers come with a steel hitch, so you can attach it to your ATV or UTV to make the process even easier.

Haul Feed to Your Feeders

You can also use the trailers and sleds to haul bags of feed to your Feedbank Gravity Deer Feeders. Make sure you’re keeping the deer fed throughout the summer months so that they can become accustomed to the idea that your property provides a reliable food source. If they receive constant food throughout the off season, they’ll be more likely to return during the fall hunting season. If you decide it’s time to move a feeder to another area of your property, use the trailers to haul the feeder around the property. You can use the Trail Runner Rail Kit to extend the sides of the trailer to give it more height and secure the feeder vertically. The trailers come with six cargo tie-down holes, so whatever you’re hauling will always be secure.

Clear Shooting Lanes

Take some time this summer to clear your shooting lanes. Pick out a prime location for your Stump blind along the path to your food and water sources, then trim branches off trees and cut down shrubs until you have a clean shot along the path from your Stump blind’s windows. You’ll want the deer herd to still have plenty of places to take cover and bed down along the path, so avoid over-trimming the area. As we highlighted in a previous blog, consider hinge cutting some of the trees. Hinge cutting is when you cut down a tree at it’s stump, but you leave part of the tree attached, pushing it over so that the branches lay on the ground and the tree is still attached to the stump. You can use this tactic as part of your shooting lane clean-up. It will give the deer more areas of cover to make up for any areas you thin out.

If you cut down any dead trees or trim branches for your shooting lanes, you can haul the wood away in our Trail Runner trailer or sled. It’s a quick and efficient way to remove the excess wood and transport it back to your house for fire kindling or wood working projects.

As you gear up for the 2025 deer hunting season, which opens Sept. 13 in Minnesota, take care of the habitat areas on your property and use our utility trailers to help maximize efficiency.

How do you use your utility trailers to help simplify your habitat projects? Let us know in the comments below!

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