1) While you’re out working your land with a tractor this summer, try this. Bush-hog a strip of grass or mow a lane through a thicket right up to one or two of your favorite tree stand locations near a field. Keep those lanes trimmed one more time in late August. Deer will find and use the paths. One day later this fall, a big 8-pointer might walk smack down the strip to your bow stand. The trimmed lanes are also great places to plant mini-plots of attractant clover and chicory just before hunting season. 2) Scour an old grown-up farm field or pasture for hidden fruit trees, like apple or persimmon, or thickets of blackberry. Open up the trees [...]

Last September we posted that in a fall like 2021 with two “rutting moons”—October 20 and the second was November 19—the pump was primed for a classic “trickle rut” in the whitetail woods. We predicted that some adult does would cue off the first full moon and come into estrous in late October while other does would cue off the November full moon and be ready to breed in mid-to-late November. In between those full moons and time frames you would see ebbs and flows of rutting activity. Testimonials After the 2021 bow season Big Daddy wrote to us via Messenger:  Mike, last year you predicted a good rut after the full moon in October. Here in northern Pennsylvania, you [...]