Guest post from Big Daddy, who has stuck with me on the blog since I launched in 2008. This is one of the coolest posts I can remember, and one of the most satisfying for me:   Mike: Once again early November proved to be a big buck's downfall. I posted on your rattling tips blog the other day about working on this buck with the horns: Big Daddy on November 7, 2016 at 10:59 am said: "I have been hunting hard for one certain buck since October 12th except for a few days I took off to hunt mule deer in Montana the third week of October. I have seen him twice with no shot either time. Today, Nov. [...]

From Stevan Louch, thanks for sharing: My brother David killed this buck November 7 in Oscalossa. It's a main-frame 8-point. Biggest antlers I've ever held. I don't know what the record is for an 8-point; let me know what you think and if there's a possible record here. He shot it with a Bowtech and Grim Reaper broadhead. This is obviously a huge and beautiful buck, and to me the kickers and stickers give it more character. But my research of the 5 top 8-point bucks in the world shows that all of them, scoring 180 to 183 net B&C, have amazingly typical antlers with fewer deductions than David’s awesome buck. But the Louch Buck has a frame and beams [...]

I posted Friday that with the weekend beginning on October 21, the best hunting of the year was about to heat up: Historical “rut curves” assembled by biologists over decades show that bucks really begin to rev up their scraping around October 20…the data show that 5 to 7 percent of a herd’s does are bred by bucks around October 21… With the cooler weather…that will occur in the Eastern U.S. (last) weekend, I predict the buck movement and hunting will get better… after (last) week of 80-plus Indian Summer days here in Virginia, a cold front will blow through later this afternoon, and the low tomorrow morning will be 44. …the next couple of days should be good. Virginia [...]