Summer Scouting For Early Season Bucks?

[Trailred518]

New to the forum. Super stoked to be able to get input from other guys with the same passion for gettin after these whitetails! I'm interested to hear what everyone finds to be the most productive use of their scouting time from now (may) through august. I hunt North Carolina public ground 95% of the time so spotlighting and glassing fields isn't really an option for me. Spotlighting is illegal here and where I live there are very few open fields off the road to be glassing around public land. In years past I have mostly used summer scouting to pattern does and look for good food sources so I could fill all my doe tags in September, but this year I want to hit the ground running and get after some of these mature bucks early. Just not sure what the most effective method to locating mature bucks might be right now without getting all up in their bedroom which I would assume would be doing more harm than good at this point of the year. What do y'all think?

[VaBowKill5]

My strategy is cameras close to water sources in the summer. It gives you somewhat of an inventory of what’s there. You can go now and try to find bedding from last fall and once you get an idea of where a mature buck would bed in a certain area, you then just have to wait for the caliber deer you’re after to show up. That’s what the cameras do is just give you an idea of who’s around. Also mineral sights work really well for this too but every state is different so make sure it’s legal. I don’t know much about North Carolina game laws

[brancher147]

Trail cameras are an option as already said. I used to do it a lot but don’t do any summer scouting anymore as it never paid off hunting mostly woods and public with no spotlight allowed. I got lots of pics of good bucks just all moved come season in October.

I know enough bedding areas from in and post season scouting that now I check for buck sign around bedding areas right before or early season and hunt based on fresh sign. I used to have a lot of fun summer scouting just can’t justify it anymore.

[PK_]

Trail cams. Find a creek/fence crossing or somewhere you can find a set of big tracks and see what you get...