Here' how to evaluate new ground and zero in on places where bucks hang out. The more feed on a property, the more family groups of does that live there. It’s that simple. And here’s the kicker. Bucks will follow the gals to the food sources during the early-fall “fattening-up period,” and the horny guys will keep prowling around them later in the rut. If a place has a couple of soybean, corn or alfalfa fields—or better yet a mix of crops—that’s great. But one or even two major food sources aren’t enough. Suppose there’s a drought? What if in early fall a farmer picks clean his grain? Well, the does gotta eat several times a day. They’ll quickly expand [...]

I headed to northeast Oklahoma the day after last Thanksgiving, full or fire. I’ve had some of my best hunts of the last decade in this region during the first week of the December post-rut. My friend Corey Corson, who runs the hunting on Liberty Ranch outside Pawhuska, showed me cam images of three old 8-point target bucks. Corey said that nobody had hunted those bucks all season. As I climbed into my stand near a corn feeder in the chilly predawn the first morning, my only concern was that I would kill out the first hour of this six-day hunt. As I climbed out of my blind at dark on day three, I was getting concerned. I’d seen several [...]