Late Summer Deer Scouting Down South

As much as I prefer to save my scouting trips for the month of February, I know there’s valuable intel in summer scouting. While it might be difficult to spot the typical sexy deer sign like last year’s scrapes and rubs, there are plenty of other sign you’ll find summer scouting that can help you tag a deer on opening day.

Creek crossings can provide year-round info, but especially in the summer months. Because there’s so much moisture along the Gulf Coast states, deer might not rely on water sources as they do in dry, arid parts of the country unless it’s a drought year. Regardless, deer use creeks and creek crossings to navigate the landscape.

Look for bends in the creek or low spots that provide easy crossings for deer. These places are typically littered with tracks, and you’ll usually find a few rubs at these crossings as well. They’re also great places to drop a trail camera if you’re into that kind of thing.

However, the crossing location will determine whether that spot deserves a sit or not. If you find a creek bank that looks like a highway, but you’re several hundred yards from any cover or bedding, it’s probably nighttime activity (at least for bucks). This is a great starting point, but you’ll want to backtrack to the nearest cover to see where you can actually hang a set. That crossing probably gives you a shot opportunity, but it can point you in the right direction.

Late summer is a great time to scout for hard or soft mast-producing trees. If you’ve got some of the best binoculars, break them out and scour the tree tops. Down South, water oaks are typically the first acorn-producing trees to drop, followed by the preferred white oak. If you plan to hunt around acorns in the early season, finding one of the few water oaks that drops first can help you punch a tag on opening day.

Water oaks typically start dropping mid-late September, so if you find a tree that’s already dropping, you might have found your opening day spot. Just like creek crossings, be mindful of its location relative to bedding, and don’t push in all your chips on one tree. Things change quickly this time of year, and a hot tree today might be a dry one the next.

Unless you live in the Delta or the limited ag country in the South, glassing isn’t really a scouting option. In most places, you’re lucky if you can see fifty feet off the road, thanks to the privet hedge and yaupon. If you’re hunting public land down here, you’re probably dealing with the big woods. However, the benefit of living in the land of the pines is that there’s never a shortage of cutovers, which make excellent glassing locations depending on the age of the cut. Cuts with two- to four-year-old pines are ideal.

Because cutovers have thick vegetation, you’ll want to get elevated to glass. This is a great time to test out your new saddle, but climbing tree stands also make for super comfortable glassing sessions. If you can, climb a tree that overlooks a cutover, preferably with the sun at your back. Cutovers that have a natural elevation change make it easy to glass multiple points in them.

If possible, position yourself where you can glass the edges of any SMZs (streamside management zones) running through the clearcut. These are areas along creeks, streams, or wetlands where you’ll find a strip of hardwoods running through the pines or cut. If you’re dealing with a new clearcut, these are the areas that look like the timber company randomly left a strip of trees. Deer bed and travel along these SMZs year round, but especially in the warmer months when they might prefer shady cover.

Not only can these SMZs key you into deer movement, but they can also be dynamite travel hubs during the rut. So, even though you’re scouting during the summer, it can pay off when the leaves are gone.

This might seem like an easy and obvious play, but even if you don’t plan on using summer intel for the early season, you can do yourself a favor by putting cameras in places where you anticipate the deer to show up later in the season.

For example, if you have historical data on a particular piece of land, then you probably know what the deer do during certain time frames. Set your camera there now to minimize your presence later, especially if you’re running cellular trail cameras.

While shooting your bow or dialing in your rifle is a necessary summer chore, a few purposeful scouting trips can be just as effective. Instead of fumbling around on opening day, you’ll actually have an idea of what’s going on and might even punch a tag.

Feature image via Matt Hansen.