Disclosure: We may earn commissions if you purchase products after clicking on a link from our site.
Do you want to learn how to pattern deer in early season? Patterning deer early season more often than not is very rewarding for the hunter. Most of the time you will get a big buck. In this article, we will discuss how to pattern deer in early season to take home that big buck you always relish.
Table of Contents
How To Pattern Deer In Early Season
1. Use Trail Cameras
Set up trail cameras around food and water sources, creek crossings, and other areas that could be routed. You want to look for low-impact areas that you can easily access without alerting deer. Trail cameras can provide a lot of information that you have to carefully study to determine the deer’s behavior. You can learn how to get the best out of your trail camera from this article on the best trail camera tips.
Set up trail cameras in many locations to find out where deer are going, where they are coming from, bedding areas, and other behavioral information. Also, set up cameras on the trails to their food sources. When you spot a buck from the videos, that you are interested in, continue collecting data to find out more about it.
Study the behavior of the buck. When and where does he travel? How does he enter and exit an area? Is he in the company of other bucks or is he always by himself? You want to pattern his movement by scouting him. Take notes or put the information in an app like Huntstand.
2. Glass The Fields
From a good distance glass the fields using binoculars or a spotting scope. If there are soybean fields nearby, glass over them to spot bucks that you can study to determine their patterns. Whitetail deer love feeding in soybean fields during summer evenings. You can read a review of the best spotting scopes on the market from this article.
Observe the buck’s behavior. Which areas of the soybean fields does he spend the most time in? How he enters it and leaves? Take note of all of his behaviors to capitalize on them later to take home that buck.
3. Use Google Earth
Use Google Earth to study the buck’s behavior. Google Earth will give you a better insight into the area. You can use it to find possible funnels, staging, feed, and bedding areas. You could also locate possible water sources not far away from where he spends most of his time. You can get a lot of information by using Google Earth to learn how to pattern deer in early season.
4. Set Up Treestand
After identifying and studying a buck to the pattern, you want to implement your hunting strategy. Part of that strategy could be setting up treestands in different areas not far from routes and areas he frequents. You also want to set up the treestands for different wind directions that the buck uses.
You must be very mindful of where you set up the climbing treestands to work with the wind direction that the buck moves with but also a location that will not give your human scent away as he moves in. You must somehow figure out how to use the buck’s preferred wind direction to your advantage. The best climbing treestands available today were reviewed and you can read it from this link.
5. Scent Control
Everyone knows the importance of concealing human scent when you go out to hunt or scout. Yet some take it for granted or don’t pay attention to the smallest details and pay the price. When you are patterning a buck, you should be mindful of your human scent and make sure it is suppressed by the measures you take.
6. The Reward
By this stage, you have identified a buck. You have studied his behavior from the trail cameras and have learned a lot about it. You know his patterns and have identified where he is most vulnerable. Now is the time to be disciplined and focus on him.
At the start of the season, relying on the information you collected, hunt the buck when he adheres to his regular patterns. You will have a greater chance of taking him home.
The Bottom Line
How to pattern a deer in the early season can be very rewarding if you follow a plan and execute it. In this article, we discussed how you can pattern a deer to finally get the big buck you always wanted when the season starts. You can read the best whitetail deer hunting tips from this article.
