Im sure there are a billion threads about this, so if any of you know where a good one is feel free to point me there! my question is this: what are some major factors and affect bucks in the early season? From opener up until a couple weeks before the rut. What are they doing? where are they going? do you hunt the food sources? do you hunt the scrapes? do you hunt the bedding areas? Same thing with late season, or after the rut. My main place we hunt with shotguns during the rut and we like to stay out of there a couple weeks before the rut so I wont be bowhunting during the peak of the rut. UNLESS MNDNR finally decides to do something good about the age class of bucks and move gun season out of the rut... Thanks!
My goal every year is to nail an early season mature buck while he is still on a feeding pattern. best bet has been to pattern him early summer from a distance going to and from a good food source. easier said than done, but it has worked for me the past few years. luckily I have a decent food source nearby being an old small orchard with some wild fruit trees and fruit bushes. the big mature bucks 4 years plus stop using these during the daylight hours in mid to late august, but the 3 year olds stay using them in daylight hours well into September when the RI/CT opener is september 15th. Last year I got my 9 pointer (129") on September 20th, and the previous year I missed/botched the 20 yard shot on a 10 pointer September 17th. unfortunately Without a definitive food source it's going to be hard to pattern an early season buck.
FOOD early and late season! See a buck early season and you can bet you will see him in the same area at almost the exact same time almost every night.
I have definite food sources, our hunting land forms a big U of a mix of habitat around a crop field that is either corn or beans so i will try that for sure!
During early season say from opener till around Oct. 15th I'm hunting those food sources. That's what the bucks have in mind is food, food, food. After the rut I'm again hunting food sources. Because the bucks have lost a tremendous amount of body mass during the rut, so they are trying to put on the pounds while still searching for those couple of fawns that are coming into estrous.
An article I wrote covering this. Hope it helps somehow. October Whitetails - Page 1 | Bowhunting.com Blog
Good article. I usually travel to Ohio in November to hunt on my family's farm but this year I'm making the trip the first week of October because my wife is pregnant. At first I was bummed because I would be missing out on the rut but the more I think about it the more optimistic I get. Instead of worrying about bucks chasing does, I can focus on their eating patterns and get a good setup. Let me clarify- by at first I was bummed, I really meant very blessed and excited to be having my first child!!!
Unfortunately where I am, they are nocturnal for the most part in early season except for does and immature bucks. Its not until mid-October when the temps drop to the low 40s when I start seeing mature bucks in the daylight.
Yeah, that could get me the couch treatment! My problem last year hunting in November was we had too many does. They need thinned out pretty bad. If you have a similar problem, early season hunts might present your best opportunity to take down a shooter.
We have a ton of does here too! I wish we could shoot more than one deer a year here Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Killing buck early in the season has a major drawback..having to wait for gun season to hunt again is one and after gun season we can take a second buck but hunting gets real hard after the big orange army rolls thru
We only get one deer in MN, and we can party hunt during gun season so that's not a huge drawback in my situation Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
When I think back to almost all of my biggest early season bucks they were almost all shot within 150 yards of there bed and even though I watched a few of them rise out of there bed, they were shot close to closing time and a guy 200 yards or further back would have never seen them in daylight. They are very easy to pattern at this time of the year if you know the bedding well, but most guys don't push the envelope far enough in my opinion.
