I was thinking and read from other forums you could drill now or summer and should be able to set bolts in the fall, but would have to redrill tree next year. I am drilling whatever tree is in the right spot. maples, oaks, pine, balsam fir.. i take it you mean leaving bolts in the tree for presets? thats just too much money in bolts for me to do that, was looking to drill the holes in trees and then return to hunt in fall...
The premise of my question, I guess, was more of a comment than it was a question,
My point is that there are so many variables involved that make early drilling undependable.
Some of the variables...
What part of the country are you talking about? Southern areas have a longer and faster growing season than Northerly areas. But I'd say pretty much any hole, North or South, will have at least some amount of growth if the holes were drilled in June or July. The more South, the more extensive the growth (hole shrinkage) will be.
Tree species has to be taken into account. Semi soft trees like Cottonwood, aspen, etc grow faster than extremely hardwood trees like osage or oak, and even then there are varieties within each species.
Even identical species on the same acre will grow at a different rate. Genetics, or soil fertility, soil moisture...some trees (oak for example) just grow faster than one 50 feet away. The holes of that faster growing tree will close faster than the slow tree.
The grain and fiber characteristics of some species will drill much "cleaner" than other species. Osage drills a nice clean, well defined hole. In some cases, those holes may still retain their diameter weeks or months later. But there are other trees (hickory, butter nut, etc) which have extremely wirey grain that doesn't always drill cleanly. I've had trees in which bolts were difficult to insert immediately after drilling let alone a couple months later.
Grain characteristics change within an individual tree, too. You can prove this to yourself the next time you split a tree for firewood. The closer to the trunk the tougher the grain and fibers are. Even on one side of the tree versus the other side of the tree...grain changes. Different grain drills differently.
Yeah, lots of reasons why you cannot depend on being able to slip a bolt into a hole that was drilled several weeks earlier.
My thoughts on pre-sets is that I want to show up at O-dark-thirty and have everything ready to hunt. If I get to the tree and struggle to get even one bolt
fully inserted then my set has become undependable and that's unacceptable to me.
Other than bolting the tree, what else will you be doing to preset the tree? Are you carrying a stand in for each hunt? ROS for each hunt? Lock-on stands that you hung during the summer?