5 Tips on Hanging Early Season Deer Hunting Bow Stands
Hanging early season deer stands is an important step in getting ready for bow season and these tips will help you pick the best spots.
Early season hunts can be some of the best hunts of the year, but it’s important to prepare before hand. Don’t make the mistake that most of us (myself included) make every summer of waiting until the last minute to hang your stands. If you hunt pre-hung stands and have done your scouting, you should have some good ideas on where to hang early season stands, but these five tips may help you out too.
1. Hunt the Food
Soybeans, hay and alfalfa are good food sources for early season hunts. If you can get a stand in between fields of different types of food, that’s always a good bet as well. Deer change food sources when the temperature starts to drop in mid-October, so having a few options for a cold front is a good idea as well. This isn’t any new information here, but hunting food sources where the deer are at is going to put you on some good early season bucks.
2. Deer of the Corn
Corn fields are high, thick and offer great cover in the early season, which is why deer love them. Deer get into corn fields and hang out there for long periods of time, but they come out to eat and move around. Walk the edges of the fields and find where their tracks are and target these areas, you never know what deer will step out.
3. Wind and Thermals
Knowing which way the wind is going to blow most often in your area is good information when hanging stands. Knowing how thermals work is also important. Nothing can blow a hunt quicker than wind and thermals, so make sure that you anticipate rising thermals in your early season stand locations.
4. Thirsty Bucks
Hot weather means a buck needs to get a drink. Water is the ticket here and can get big bucks on their feet early, especially on hot days. Watering holes are great spots for early season hunts and bucks tend to go for the water before the food.
5. Bedding areas
Hunting a buck’s bed is one of the best, and toughest, ways to kill a bruiser. It takes a lot of scouting and even more patience. If you can scout during the summer and find out where the bucks are bedding, then you’ll have a good idea where to set up your stands nearby. If you’ve hunted the area before, you probably have a good idea where bucks like to bed. Use that history and the knowledge when setting up your stands. Go with your gut.
Make sure that you put in some scouting time before hanging your early season deer hunting stands and you’ll be in good shape come September and October.
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