Anybody got any good tactics for hunting nocturnal bucks? Seems like the first 3/4 of the season while sitting I'm waiting for a buck I generally only see does. That last week though, the bucks are acting just plain goofy. It's a little nerve racking waiting for the last week every year to catch one doing something stupid.
Posts by stweedie
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Thats kind of the strategy I've used. Fresh snow is great but even around my camp up North I may get 3 ideal tracking days a season. I guess the big thing is I've got to start to train my eyes when still-hunting. A standing deer I can pick out just fine. It's the bedded deer that I have a difficult time spotting until they bolt, and then it's a mess trying to spot horns and shoot before they're in the cover.
MJ,
Most of my hunting is in the "big woods". I had scouted a spot in the summer and October and spent my first week in my climbing stand on this ancient skidder trail that ran down through a recent selective cut. The interesting thing was that trees along this old skidder trail were left untouched and it was almost like a tunnel through the cutting. At one end there were a lot of rubs and the trail ran into a real thick, swampy area. I figured he was bedding in the thick stuff and working all the does we saw everyday around the easy feed. Late in the season when I came back the does had left (all the raspberry leaves had fallen off, and the clover had wilted) and their was no fresh buck sign around so I abandoned the spot because I knew the bucks were chasing does. Do you recommend watching these trails with the rubs running along them if I think the buck is working the area? My bucks have all come late in the season and most of them no where near a rub or scrape. Usually just an area that I knew had bedding does.
Most of my hunting is in the "big woods". I had scouted a spot in the summer and October and spent my first week in my climbing stand on this ancient skidder trail that ran down through a recent selective cut. The interesting thing was that trees along this old skidder trail were left untouched and it was almost like a tunnel through the cutting. At one end there were a lot of rubs and the trail ran into a real thick, swampy area. I figured he was bedding in the thick stuff and working all the does we saw everyday around the easy feed. Late in the season when I came back the does had left (all the raspberry leaves had fallen off, and the clover had wilted) and their was no fresh buck sign around so I abandoned the spot because I knew the bucks were chasing does. Do you recommend watching these trails with the rubs running along them if I think the buck is working the area? My bucks have all come late in the season and most of them no where near a rub or scrape. Usually just an area that I knew had bedding does.
Thanks for the tips! Guess I need to start doing my homework now for next season.
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