Anyone can answer this, but im looking for insight from the real die-hard, to the bone whitetail hunters. Say you monitor your land with trail cams, shed hunt vigorously, and summer scout hard. Basically, you know your deer. Have you ever had a big/mature buck appear infront of you (outside the rut) that you have never seen or have any history with at all? The reason I ask this is because I have scouted and shed hunted hard and although there are a few bucks that might sprout into something next year, the prospects are not looking that good. It seems to me that anyone that is as farmiliar with the deer in their area as I think that I am would know about all of the big boys around. Pretty open question, what do ya'll got for info for me??
It happens. No matter how hard you scout, there will always be deer that you haven't seen. Could be one that's moved hoome ranges, or one that's cruising for does if the rut is on. If it's a big 'un, I take it as a bonus, rather than a failure on my part to do a thorough job of scouting.
All of the time!! I don't know where they hide for most of their lives, but some you may see only once in a lifetime. And they can show themselves at any time. They seem to know how to not walk in front of trail cams.
I see it every season. Back in 04 I shot a 10 point on November 17th that I didn't see prior to that day. Last year I had a beautiful 115" 6 point that I had never seen that I passed on. The great thing about the "Rut" is that you get bucks traveling from their core areas searching out does in areas the typically do not frequent.
I've seen the same 12 pointer 3 years straight, only once per year and always in the 3rd week of November. I've never caught him on a trail cam, nor found a shed belonging to him. From sign, I know he lives in a 20-30 acre, super-nasty thicket. I sware that aside from the rut, he's either completely nocturnal or he only vetures outside of that thicket once a year, for a very short period of time.
I don't know exactly what a "full time" deer hunter is.. But Al.. relax dude. There is NO way in Haitis that you or anyone will ever know ALL the bucks that live in the area. NO way. Since you're in NY.. I'd have to guess you're just coming out of a long winter. During this winter your resident whitetail may have moved 1 or more miles out.. onto better feed. So while you didn't find sheds.. don't freak out. Means nothing.. except the lands you hunt are poor producers during harder winter months (even late fall probably). So if anything.. you just answered a VERY important Q before next season even started. Get on 'em early.. cause after that weather change and the BIG foliage drop.. your chances diminish GREATLY. Cause they simply ain't there. Long way to go yet before you can start to get anxious.
Hey Al, don't get any ideas....ghost bucks do NOT exist...it is out of the realm of possibility for any deer that I personally haven't laid eyes on to exist...just beyond comprehension. Sarcasm aside, there ARE bucks in any given area that nearly no one will see besides a few rare instances, no doubt in my mind.
Lol I guess my post did sound a little OCD, but im not fretting yet, just curious about what the more expirenced hunters have expirenced, so to say. I live in the Dairy capital of NY, so there is corn and green fields everywhere. Nutrition is really not a problem here. One of my core peices had a 50 acre corn field that never got chopped, so our feed was top dog in the area. On one of my shed hunting adventures I encountered 83 different deer in a green field next to the corn. Which now begs the question, am I finding shed of "other people's" buck? Crap! The major sucky part of my season is that we dont open bow until Oct 17th, which means the weather has already changed and the bucks are starting to move right when our season opens. I figure that I only have a one week window to get it done before the boys start to abandon their core range and bedding area, after that I switch to funnels and doe bedding areas and hope for the best. Havn't come up with a better solution yet. :d Thanks for all the replies boys, keep em commin!
Bucks abandoning their core areas by Oct. 24th? Al.. don't start hunting the funnels and doe bedding areas til the 5th or 6th of November.. at the earliest. You'll live longer.
Personally, I start hunting doe bedding areas and funnels about Oct. 25th. I have seen a lot of big buck activity in these places during the last few days of Oct. including the last two bucks that I've killed.
Jeff, From my experiences in farm land over the years I have developed different hunting tactics based on time of year. This is what works for me..... Note: The exact time and dates may vary a little depending on what is actually going on in the woods. In Wis., If I've done my home work and located a good buck before season I try for him by hunting evenings either near his bedding area or the food source he's hitting. A lot of the time I mainly hunt just the food source because it is more difficult to get closer to the bedding area if the buck is still hanging in a bachelor group. I hunt this way for about the first week or up until about Oct.1st. After that it seems that the bucks break up out of their B groups and become mostly nocturnal. Remember, a lot of the time, the biggest and oldest bucks may not associate in B groups. For the next 2 weeks I hunt a lot of observation stands and do some careful scouting around field edges during mid-day. During this time I pay attention to where the doe groups are hanging out and on the look out for big buck tracks to see which direction he's approaching the fields from. I pay strict attention to the oldest does because it seems that a lot of them come into heat first. Next, I start hunting doe bedding areas (if I still haven't found a good buck) and funnels between bedding and feeding or two doe bedding areas. I start out very cautiously and see what kind of activity is going on. If you start seeing a lot of young buck activity, be ready, the bigger ones will start showing up in the next couple of days. The reason I like to find the first (usually old) doe that comes into heat is because it will draw almost every buck in the neighborhood around. Once more and more does start coming in you won't have that much activity. Depending on conditions and activity, I jump around from doe group until I score. If this don't happen I start hunting food sources in the evenings around dec. 5th through the 12th, waiting for the "second rut". This has worked good for me.
As pushy as it sounds I have had some real success in the late part of october in the bedding areas as well as the funnels. One reason that I can get away with it is my awesome access to them, I can enter and exit with little to no disturbance. Obviously I wont do this when it is unseasonably warm out, but I have gone trick-or-treating with my snowsuit on up here and I really think that if we get a few days of 10 degrees below average weather you can catch one on the prowl. Another point, gunnies are in the woods by mid november and they camp out for a month. Ive only got a few short weeks to put a buck on the ground, not a lot of time to develop a pattern. As much as I would love to be a more active deer hunter sometimes ive got to go on the passive side and wait one out, and I figure that taking advantage of their sexual frustration is the best bet ive got.
Welcome to my world NY/AI...I live and die by hunting topography and sign. I am not allowed to trail cam and the place I hunt has no crop fields so summer scouting is near impossible. When I see a buck it is generally the first time, and the last time. But for one thing, it sure makes hunting fun....you never know what is lurking.
I must be confused on what others refer to a "funnel" b/c I can't think of a single reason that you wouldn't hunt them all season. If there is a spot that will "funnel" deer heading from A to B, then I want to hunt that spot given that I think they will be traveling from A to B. The bucks around here move around a lot and often in their core areas all season long. It is just normally at night and outside the rut you typically have to be near the bedding area to hope to catch them in daylight, or just really lucky. Either way, funnels are still a great place to be IMO.
I think outside the box. And there are loads of reasons that one wouldn't have to hunt a funnel to take a deer. In fact.. I think why MOST deer hunters are successful in November is because they spend all year hunting funnels. And truth be known.. those funnels will only produce with the presence of the breeding season. Hunting a bedroom (for instance) in early October will get you further on a buck's back than hunting a funnel between doe bedding areas. Simply.. cause bucks don't often move far enough to get to your funnel in day light. Hence.. why so many of us are killing more deer in November. There are always better ways to skin a cat.. so to speak. And we have several hunters who frequent this site who can attest to this.
One great thing about this tactic is you either see a big boy, or you can take a nice nap with no chance of a deer bothering you
I must just be stupid b/c TO ME it makes no sense to sit somewhere that the deer have no real reason to travel. They have to be on their feet and travelling in order to be shot. It may only be that they are travelling a very short distance from bed to feed, but we still need to get ourselves on that travel route. In order to increase your odds, you have to pick spots that they are most likely to move, and those, by my definition anyway, are funnels. Most of the funnels I hunt early and late season are directly adjacent to bedding areas, but they are the preferred ways in and/or out of the bedding areas. One in particular (my favorite spot) is a great creek crossing on the edge of a cliff. They can climb the cliff and they sometimes do, but for the most part, to get in or out of the main bedding area from the south they go right by this stand b/c it is a funnel. I don't hunt inside bedding areas. I feel that I can wait them out and don't have to be that aggressive, but that is just me. I'm not claiming to know it all, or even most of it. I just can't see the reasoning behind sitting in what sounds like a relatively random spot. However, I am probably just missing something.
