Hey Mike: I just got this pic off my trail cam from my property in WI. I can't wait until my upcoming time off work. Hopefully this guy steps out into the daylight come the rut!--Happy hunting, Jason Great buck, good luck man! The rut is officially upon us, how is the hunting going for you? What is it like in your part of the woods? Let us know!
Whitetails love to roam the points and strips of trees and brush that border rivers and streams and grain and hay fields nearby. One November long bow hunter Luke Strommen scouted such a series of points on his Montana ranch and found them torn up with buck sign. Major doe trails wended into the woods from fields to the west and south. The timber patches were littered with rubs and scrapes. Strommen could have hung a stand in any tree and seen deer, but he’s better than that. And he knows he has to be for 15-yard shots at bucks with his stick bow. He poked around and found the perfect ash tree near the nexus of the trails and [...]
Mark Drury and I compared notes again and came up with our 5th annual prediction of the best days to shoot a monster in the 2013 rut. Any year, the first week of November, when bucks rub and scrape like fiends and troll for the first receptive does, is a great time to hunt for a big deer. If you take off this week, you ought to hunt all day every day, because you never know when you might see a shooter. But with the moon new and dark this November 3 and then waxing crescent, bucks should be most active at daylight. Get on stand extra early and hunt the mornings extra hard. The first week of November “will [...]
This is gonna be the best weekend of the season so far, so plan to be in a tree as many hours as you can. With cooler temperatures and high-pressure across the country, bucks will start moving in preparation for the rut. October 20 is the kick-off of the hard pre-rut every season, and so some serious rubbing and especially scraping are set to kick in. While bucks have been making sign right along, they are going to really get after it now, with the days growing shorter and the temps cooling down. I bet you find some big, fresh scrapes. While I don’t like this full moon nearly as much as the one that will illuminate the rut next month on November [...]
One mid-October morning in Montana, I froze as an 8-pointer trotted toward me through the woods. He was moving fast, trying to get back to his bed along the Milk River before the sun got too high. Something flashed behind him—a 10-pointer pushing 150 was bringing up the rear! I was hunting on the ground, and the wind was right. Those woods were flat as a pool table and pretty open, but I wasn’t too worried. I let the bucks come close and step into the ditch in front of me. When they disappeared, I drew my bow and stepped out from behind my hiding tree. The 8-pointer popped out on my side, and I ran an arrow through his [...]