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Summer bucks

meyeri

PMA Member
Out of curiosity, how many of the bucks you guys get on camera during the summer stick around or show back up during the season?

Hardly any bucks summer where I hunt and if they do they're bucks that don't stick around. September-October they filter back in for the most part. I love getting velvet pictures, but I'm thinking about saving money on corn and mineral this year and waiting till September to put my cams out.
 
One property is a bachelor pad all summer long, with them leaving come the rut. :( I get an occasional summer buck returning to cruise through looking for does in heat come the first of November, but you'd need to spend some serious stand time to encounter a buck you targeted from summer pics. I usually get pics up to and shortly after they shed velvet, then they disperse in October. Fun to watch them grow, frustrating to know they will leave.
 
I would say our experience is about 50-50. There are always some bucks that we see(get pics of) regularly in the summer and then they move off around late-September and others that we don't see much of in the summer and then do once the fall gets here.

Still others that seem to be around all year long. I will say that the better we have made our habitat over the years, the more older bucks show up on cam more frequently and more consistently. Regardless of antler size, we get the most enjoyment nowadays from following bucks that we have 2-5+ years of experience with...even if someone else ends up tagging them. (Although I will confess to getting more satisfaction if we tag them! :))
 
First off don't get wrapped up in trail pics. Even the best cameras miss pics. That said the older bucks here at home stick around summer,fall, up to Nov. I got the 6 1/2 year old that ran everything off. The neighbors got the double beam 5 1/2. Will be interesting to see who is dominant this year. I suspect a 8 pointer that was 4 1/2 last year. Some bucks change their frames from one year to the next. The double beam was double at 3 1/2, regular frame at 4 1/2 then back to double beam at 5 1/2. Another place the older bucks show around the end of Oct. But that is changing with the addition of year round food and cover. And I'm talking about small green food plots scattered.
 
So depends on the farm. If you have undisturbed thickets like cedars, good thermal cover and very little intrusion, in my experience, most the bucks stay from summer into fall. Most. Farms with wide open timber, stuff that thins way out in fall (say like cow pasture), no thickets and thermal cover and/or constantly messed by people... most those bucks 3+ years old vanish, in my experience. Everything in between. On larger farms, I'll have a buck, for example, be feeing at XYZ location all summer. He'll disappear from there and relocate to other end of the farm & often stay there all fall, including rut. So many variables on pressure, habitat quality, food & Food changes over the year, holding capacity, etc - I honestly could imagine farms that turn into buck deserts come season vs other farms that have a net gain in the fall for so many reasons I don't think they all can be understood.
 
I have a creek running through my farm that sits low and is north facing and is at least 10 degrees cooler in the summer, but I don't have good thermal cover so I get lots of bucks in the summer that I don't see in the winter.
 
I agree with many of the above posts. One place I hunt, I will get picks of bucks all summer long. And most of them stay there through the fall and winter as well. Another farm about 2 miles away holds almost no deer all summer. I won't start getting consistent pics of anything other than one or two does until October.
 
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