BigDeer Archives - Big Deer

28 10, 2025

3 Stands for Hunting Thick Cover in the Deer Rut

Clay Hanback2025-10-26T09:45:08-04:00October 28th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, Deer Rut, sportsman channel, whitetail deer|0 Comments

Three days or so before the peak of the rut, many does pile into stands of thick cedars or pines. They’re tired of being chased over hill and dale by horny bucks, so they try to hide out in the thickets. Of course, the boys pitch in there and keep harassing them. Check an aerial photograph for a small clearing in the greens, like a third-row thinning in planted pines. Sneak in there (great quiet walking) and set up in a ground blind on the downwind side of the opening. A doe might pop out to browse with a buck on her heels, or more likely she’ll flash across, still trying to dump a rowdy 8-pointer. An old buck is [...]

26 10, 2025

4 Rut Stands For Farm Country Bucks

Clay Hanback2025-10-26T09:33:13-04:00October 26th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Rut, sportsman channel, trijicon, whitetail deer|0 Comments

Where are the best spots in farm country to ambush a rut-wired buck? The first week of November bucks love to troll nose down across an old pasture or weed field from one point of woods to the next. It’s a natural pinch point. Hang a tree stand in the downwind point of timber where you can see and shoot far out into the cover with a firearm. If bowhunting, move a stand more toward the middle of the patch of woods and set up on the downwind side of the heaviest doe trail in the vicinity. Let’s say that later in November you see a big 8-pointer chase a doe out of the far point of woods and toward [...]

13 10, 2025

15 Blood-Trailing Tips For Deer Hunters

Clay Hanback2025-10-13T12:55:49-04:00October 13th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, Deer Hunting, whitetail deer|0 Comments

Once you fire an arrow and draw blood, it is your ethical duty to work until you find that buck or doe. Do whatever it takes, for however long it takes: five minutes or five hours or longer. Follow this advice and there's a good chance the red trail will end, happily, at your animal. See Deer Run After the thwack of the arrow, watch the deer run as far as you can see him. In thick woods, look for flashes of white as he darts through the trees. In open country, follow him with your binoculars. At the spot where you lose the buck, pick a marker—big tree, rock, fence post, etc. Climb down from your stand, walk to [...]

7 10, 2025

Deer Science: How Bucks See

Clay Hanback2025-10-07T11:43:58-04:00October 7th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Science, whitetail deer|0 Comments

The 10-pointer stepped out of the brush, took a quick look around, lowered his head and strolled toward the corner of the bean field. I smiled and put tension on the bowstring. The wind was perfect for where I was sitting, and in less than a minute the buck’s route would take him down a shallow funnel and to a place less than 25 yards below my tree stand. He kept coming, nose to the ground, but 40 yards out he stopped, flinched, peeked up and wheeled back into the cover. What the…? Had I moved a muscle? I didn’t think so. All I knew was that the buck was gone, and I was I left to wonder went wrong, [...]

29 09, 2025

Tips to Find a Big Deer for the Bow Opener

Clay Hanback2025-09-29T09:15:54-04:00September 29th, 2025|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Bowhunting, whitetail deer|0 Comments

Scouting and glassing…setting out cameras…hanging stands…shooting the bow over and over. That grunt work is essential, but it is easy to get so consumed with it that you forget to exercise your brain. It is just as important, perhaps more so, to learn where bucks feed and bed now, and where they will continue to hang out when your bow season opens in a few days. That knowledge might help you tag out early. But even if you don’t, it lays groundwork for shooting a good buck later in the season. Science reveals that the living quarters of mature whitetail bucks are relatively small, especially on properties with good food sources. In a study, researchers from North Carolina State University fitted [...]