Ive been getting some pics of mature bucks at night eating my corn but i was wondering how you guys pattern big bucks how do you get them to come during daylight hours
The only way you are going to bust a mature buck is being on stand during the rut. The more time you spend in your stand, the better the chances of catching a buck chasing a hot doe. To improve your odd: 1) Know the topography, funnels, pinch points, where the food source is located and doe bedding areas 2) Know the prevailing winds relative to #1 3) Combine #1 & #2 and set your stands accordingly then sit in them sun up to sun down
Hunting pressure is huge! if the hunting pressure is high you will almost never see mature bucks on hoof during daylight, be sure to rotate where you sit, keep scent control in mind, and be real careful to not walk through their bedding areas or bump them on the way in or way out. All of those things aside theres a good chance you still wont see any big bucks anyways, but keep in mind you got to be out there to see them Good Luck and Happy Hunting
Patterns: are repeated behaviors over and over and over and over again with no uniqueness or change....deer are not "patterned" in a sense however they do repeat behaviors/approaches/travels given the same wind conditions or weather conditions or food conditions and such. It's all about documentation of every sign collected and honestly figuring out a mature buck's tendencies isn't something done over night and at times the boogers may not tip enough of their movements to you for a year or two to really have a confident plan on them. Document, document document and begin to see the correlations with travel tendencies is the best way to achieve a higher sense of predictability in mature deer's movements...after all they are driven by survival and have been doing sound survival actions to reach maturity; yet they lack the ability to analyze and think like we do so use that!
When you say document what do you normal document on your bucks? Trails, times, temps? What are some things you guys take notice of?
Whenever I get visual sightings of a mature buck whether via the farmer riding around, on trail cams, or myself on stand or on property (also father) I document it. What direction was he heading, what direction did it appear he had come from if one could tell. I then list with the sighting wind conditions (at time of the sighting as well as the pre-dawn wind for that day), the moon phase at the time, can even log barametric pressure and such too and do some. I will then always have a major food source at the beginning of each year's sightings which may be influencing movement. This year has been so slow I've not even done my usual diligence but it's what I do when I spot a serious target.
they're not sleeping by your corn pile, so you need to figure out bedding area, and find the spot closest to the bedding area w/o disturbing the deer.
The only way your going to kill a mature buck is by hunting and putting in your time. The Rut is not the only way your going to kill em. Big bucks don't normally come into a corn pile during daylight hours if they did we would all kill monsters every year. They don't get big by being dumb. Take your corn and spread it around your whole stand it seems more natural to them when they have to search for it.
In my experience, the rut can be the worst time to hunt one particular buck. You have to realize that once that first doe comes into estrous, all hell breaks loose. That buck that you've been watching, putting pieces of the puzzle together all summer and early fall all of a sudden shows up out of nowhere somewhere else. Sure, he may venture back through the known areas, but those tendencies will get fewer and farther between. He's on his feet, looking for does and advertising. I think the pre rut is your best bet. When he's still on a half way normal pattern and he'll get increasingly more visible as the rut approaches. My best friend and I are heading to Ohio this year and we chose the last week in October over Halloween. We did so because we simply didn't want to end up watching bucks running by at 100mph chasing does. Sure, its exciting, but more difficult in my opinion.
get between the bedding area and the corn pile they're up moving somewhere. Get as close to the bedding area without spooking them hunt the right wind and be extremely scent conscious and maybe you get him!
