A Year in Deer: February
Still have snow? Keep scouting. Exposed soil? Start frost seeding. February is also the time to pull your trail cameras and see what survived the season.
February is a great time to continue invasive scouting, especially if you have snow to help discover travel paths and bedding areas. We’re still far enough away from the next deer season that it’s okay to be disruptive and continue implementing your Timber Stand Improvement plans. If you live somewhere that has exposed soil, or even a thin layer of snow on the ground, you can start to think about frost seeding your cool-season annuals and perennials — things like oats, rye (grain NOT grass!), clover, chicory, and alfalfa to name a few. Frost seeding is the process of spreading seed on top of frozen ground to take advantage of the upcoming freeze-thaw cycles that comes with the spring season. This cycle results in great seed-to-soil contact. For frost seeding, just follow the recommended broadcast seeding rates typically found on the bag of seed. If you’re simply looking to bolster an existing plot that is thinning or has bare spots in it, you can cut the seeding rates in half.
Now is also a good time to bring your trail cameras in and freshen them up. Yes modern trail cameras are more resilient than ever to weather and the elements, especially if you’ve installed a hood over the camera, but why risk shortening their lifespan to get pictures that don’t provide any real data to help with the next deer season. In fact, it can be hard to tell the difference between bucks and does for the next couple of months. This last round of pictures should at least reveal what survived the most recent deer season. So you can start getting excited what you might see next deer season — and they’ll be a year older!
Summary
- Continue doing invasive scouting
- Timber Stand Improvement
- Frost seeding
- Refresh your trail cameras