Where To Find Summer Bucks?
Find Your Target Buck Now
This time frame of the summer is an often-overlooked phase of scouting for mature bucks. Bachelor groups of bucks this time of year tend to seek out open hardwood canopies adjacent to high quality summertime forages such as soybeans or alfalfa fields. Depending on what type of parcel you hunt you may or may not have your particular hit list buck living on your property during the summertime. It is easy to be discouraged if you are not seeing any mature bucks on your property during this time. Often times their summer hang outs may be 1-2 miles away from their fall time core area, or in some cases much further depending on the surrounding habitat.
“Here in the Summer, Gone in the Fall”- Why Do Summer Bucks “Disappear”?
I’m guessing most whitetail hunters in the Midwest have experienced this in some way… You will have a handful of mature bucks on your property all summer and they disappear right before deer season. Maybe you see them again during the rut or maybe not at all until the following summer. If that’s the case, chances are you lack quality browse cover and a quality fall time food source. A common and easy way to increase the attractiveness of your property in the fall is to increase your woody browse by hinge cutting, logging, or TSI (timber stand improvement). It creates structural bedding areas, that increases security, and a buffet of fall time browse that deer love, and will increase your holding power in the fall. Large food plots get all the rage now, but I personally think security cover (especially in pressured areas) are hard to beat for upper age class deer.
Don’t be discouraged if there’s not a mature buck on your hunting property now, broaden your search area for several miles around your farm. You might be surprised at just how far bucks will travel come fall.
-Zach Jumps
Zach@HeartlandLodge.com
Last Updated: June 29th, 2023
awesome post ! thank you for sharing
Awe some post Thank you for sharing
I hunt big woods No corn no beans no alfalfa. All natural browse etc. Your comments on target security and food bring the does then the bucks will come. Be there at the right time for an opportunity to score
I hunt the tough Ashland co Wisconsin more wolves than deer but continue to have great hunts and an occasional kill.
Be safe enjoy time spent
It’s all about the adventure bagging mister big is the frosting on the cake