July and August will be your prime months to observe deer herd behavior on your trail cameras before the deer hunting season opens in Minnesota on Sept.19. Trail cameras give you the ability to check out the deer herd’s habits before hunting season opens so that you can go into opening day with a game plan. Check out our tips, below, for where to place your trail cameras for the rest of the summer.
Water Sources
In the summer heat, deer will gravitate to consistent water sources. Place your Wild Water Systems around your property and keep the tanks filled. Our systems can hold up to 300 gallons of water so you should be able to fill them up now and watch the action all summer. Use our Wild Water Bladder container to fill up 100 gallons of water so that you only have to take a few trips to your system to fill up the entire tank of our Wild Water 300 system.
Our Trail Runner 62 Trailers hook up to any ATV, tractor or truck with the included steel hitch so you can pull the bladder across your property easily. The trailer has two durable off-road tires so you’ll be able to take the water bladder across virtually any terrain on your property. It has six cargo tie-down holes so you can secure the bladder to trailer. You can make your trailer even more secure by adding our Trail Runner Rail Kit that has three side rails so that you can stack multiple items in the trailer and make use of vertical space.
Set up your trail cameras near these water sources to observe the makeup of the herd and see how many bucks and does there are so you can plan your tags accordingly.
Our Wild Water Systems are on sale for as much as 15% off at the time of this blog posting.
Minerals
Deer are also looking for minerals and nutrients to replenish their levels as they grow their antlers. Nutrients like calcium, selenium and manganese help deer grow their antlers, which is why we made sure to include these minerals in our supplements. Check out our Wild Water Mineral Supplements to see the full list of minerals. Each packet can treat 100 gallons of water, meaning they’ll treat the entire tank of our Wild Water 100 system in one shot.
Food Sources
Along with water sources, deer will also seek out reliable food sources as some crops dry out in the summer heat. If you have clover and soybean fields, those will be popular summer food destinations. If you don’t have a natural food plot, you can fill your Feedbank Gravity Deer Feeders with these seeds.
Place a trail camera near your feeder or food plot to see how much food they’re eating and what time of day they tend to visit.
Transition Areas
Bucks have a routine of making bedding areas near food sources. They like to keep their triangle of food, water and shelter within the same radius. So, there will be a lot of activity along the paths that lead from their bedding areas to food and water sources. Set up your trail cameras along these trails to capture the activity and monitor the time of day you see them passing through.
Set Up for Success
Trail cameras are a great way to do some recognizance work during the off season. What you observe on the trail cameras can help you build a solid game plan for the upcoming fall deer season.
Where do you place your trail cameras in July and August? Let us know your summer trail camera strategies in the comments below!
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