Setup trail cameras around major summer food sources (more on this below) and on trails to those food sources.

Find tips on how to hang trail cameras properly, here. Trail camera pictures are only as useful as you make them. At the most basic level, they tell you if nice bucks are around. But what you’re really trying to figure out is where those nice bucks are heading, where they’re coming from, and where they might be vulnerable. To do that, you’ve got to really read the pictures, not just flip through them. For example, look to see if one of your target bucks is hanging out with a bachelor group of smaller bucks. That way, even if you don’t keep getting photos of the big buck, but capture shots of the smaller bucks, you can still gamble on the big buck’s general whereabouts (some of the wariest bucks are good at avoiding cameras). Years ago I got a trail camera shot of a buck with muddy legs. That told me he probably crossed a nearby swamp before coming out to feed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGTogAIPXPw&t=15s