It can be easy to lose yourself in the off-season and fall into bad habits before hunting season even begins. A productive off-season will cultivate a successful hunting season. Don’t fall into the off-season traps listed below.

Assuming Your Equipment is Good to Go

Don’t let yourself fall into a false sense of security with your hunting equipment. Just because it worked perfectly the last day of the previous hunting season doesn’t mean it will work the same way on opening day. Bows can get out of tune after a while, even if they’ve just been sitting in your garage, untouched. Take your bow into a shop and have an archery technician look at your bow and give it a tune-up. If you go into hunting season with warped strings, that would be dangerous for everyone involved.

Forgetting to Check Trail Cameras

Don’t forget to check your trail cameras during the summer months. While checking trail cameras is top of mind during the height of hunting season, it can be easy to forget about them during the summer. The information you gather during the off season can give you vital insight into the daily lives of the herd which you can then use during hunting season. You’ll be able to see the buck to doe ratio of the herd, gauge their ages, learn the time of day they tend to come around, and track how much they’re eating. If your trail camera catches every movement they make, you’ll even be able to tell which direction they came from and where they go when they leave. This could lead you to their bedding areas or other hotspots.

Forget to Feed Them

Keep up on the food in your feeders during the off-season. Our Feedbank 600 Gravity Deer Feeder holds up to 600 pounds of feed, so your herd has the tools to stay properly healthy all year long. If you put out a Feedbank Gravity Feeder and forget to refill it, the herd won’t see your property as a reliable food source and might not come back as often in the fall. Luckily, because our feeders hold so much food, you shouldn’t have to spend too much time refilling them.

Not Putting Out Your Stump Blind

It’s important to put your Stump blind, like the Stump 4, out now so that the deer have time to get used to it before hunting season starts. You don’t want to set up your blind and then hunt from it immediately. It’s beneficial to give them a little while to get used to it before you use it. Our Stump blinds blend into the landscape so they’ll quickly see it as part of the habitat. Setting up your blind early also gives you time to practice from it. Practicing elevated shots will prepare you for the real life scenarios during hunting season.

Not Practicing at All

It’s important to continue practicing during the off-season. Don’t let your practice routine slide during the summer months. A consistent practice schedule will help you improve your form and will show you areas of improvement with enough time to fix them before hunting season.

Hunting season will be here before you know it, so make sure you’re making the most out of the off-season and avoid falling into these off-season traps.

What are you doing so that you don’t fall into these traps? Let us know in the comments below!

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