Spring Property Prep Without the Pressure: What to Do Right Now

As a hunter, your goal is to fill your tags every season. It’s as simple as that. You want to fill your tags because it puts meat in the freezer and helps contribute to conservation by keeping the ecosystem in balance. The fact that it’s an exhilarating and skilled hobby is the icing on top of the cake. So, because every hunter should want to make the most out of their hunting season, you should start prepping in the spring so that you can slowly build attraction to your property, month by month. You don’t just decide to run a 20-mile marathon tomorrow if you’ve never ran a day in your life. You start with one mile and add more until you’re ready. So, if you want to be marathon-ready by the fall, start prepping now.

Food Plots and Deer Feeders

Now is the perfect time to plant your food plots or put out your deer feeders. Anything you plant now will be at peak maturity in late summer or early fall. Fast-blooming crops that burn out by the end of summer can be replanted again for a second bloom in the fall. Slower-blooming crops, like corn, will go through various stages between now and fall, each attracting the herd in different ways.

Our Feedbank Gravity deer feeders have four ports at a deer’s eye level, so multiple members of the deer herd will be able to graze at the same time. You can also use our Haybank Hay Feeder if you’d rather use that to attract the herd than actual food. Check to see if supplemental feeding is legal in your area.

Trail Cameras

There is still plenty of time before opening day. That means that even if the deer sense your presence on your property, they’ll forget about it long before opening day. In the fall, hunters are in their stands and blinds constantly, so the deer eventually learn to be more cautious as the sounds and scents increase and hunting pressure grows. You can check your trail cameras periodically throughout spring and summer without arousing as much suspicion as you would in the fall.

Set Up Your Stump Blind

Now is also an ideal time to set out your Stump blind. Setting your blind out in the spring will give the deer herd plenty of time to get used to the “foreign object.” Our blinds have a circular design and bark-like coating to mimic a tree stump. So, the deer should assume it’s part of the forest landscape as long as you make sure to hide your scent when you visit the blind. Setting the blind out now, before you’re going to be actively climbing in and out of it every week, will help the herd think it’s part of nature. Then, by the time you’re in it all time during the fall, they’ve already gotten used to it. Of course, you should still practice from your blind during the spring and summer off season, but the fact that you’re not in the blind as often, and not actively hunting, will allow the herd to acclimate.

We hope that you use our products this spring to prep your property and make sure you’re ready for the marathon of the fall hunting season.

How do you prep your property in the spring to stay ahead of the pressure of hunting season?  Let us know in the comments below!