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 the opposite point where your stand is set. Well, chill and get ready. Once the deer break into the timber on your side, they’d probably stop, rest, pause and look around for a bit, perhaps giving you a good bow or gun shot.
  • You can never go wrong watching a fence-line funnel that links a feeding area and a staging/bedding site. But a lot of times there’s not a good tree for a stand on a fence, so build a small brush or cedar blind on the downwind edge where the fence runs into the timber. Small is the operative word here; if you build a huge blind or pop up a big camo blob here, you’ll spook deer. You might whack a buck out of this little hiding spot morning or evening. Focus on the fence, but glass out across the fields too. You never know where a hot doe and a horny buck will pop up.
  • One of my favorite setups is in a fence corner 50 yards or so back in the woods near a crop field. A bunch of does will naturally walk up and down the fencelines and the corner; bucks will swagger up and down those trails, sniffing for estrus scent. Set a ladder stand where you can shoot both the fence lines and the corner. Use your binos, because during the first 2 weeks of November, the more you can observe deer in open areas the better. You can determine which rut stage is going on—seeking, full-blown chasing or breeding—and then tailor your setups and strategies accordingly each day.
  • If you bowhunted an oak ridge adjacent to a corn field October, and if that ridge had a fair to good crop of acorns, don’t pull off it too soon in the rut. Starting around Halloween, bucks will have rubbed and scraped that early feeding area raw, and they’ll continue to swing through the familiar area every other day or so in November as they prowl for does. It couldn’t hurt to hunt here some mornings or afternoons in the rut. Good luck!