Anyone ever had any luck killing a mature buck on the heavily used trails you can find this time of year? I personally haven't. I see lots of does on those trails, but the big guys don't like traveling with the crowds. It sure is tempting to hang stands at every major trail intersection you find now tho.
From what I've seen on trail cams they sometimes use them at night and during the rut. But, I've never killed anything but nannies on those muddy trails. I try to hunt off to the side of them if I can.
I once read an article(I think it was in bowhunting magazine) that said it's very difficult to get the deer on the main trail, so he forced the deer to take the path he wanted. If there was say a fork in the path and he wanted the deer to go left he'd fell a tree across the trail or put a white plastic grocery bag to spook them away from the "wrong" path. If your interested I could see if I can find the article for you.
I took my buck this year near a main trail, but not off it. He was kind of paralleling the trail. The only times we ever really get pictures of the big guys walking the main trails is during the rut.
My brother in law shot his 9 point on a main trail. This was at the peak of the rut and he had just rattled so he was coming in hot.
