To tag out in the toughest month, keep an eye glued to the weather forecast and get in a stand when conditions take a turn for the worse.
As far as whitetails are concerned, October is a throw-away month for many folks—at least the first 3 weeks, anyway. This mindset stems from overblown credit given to the “lull,” and the fact that a lot of whitetail-hunting advice is dispensed from hunters who live in states such as Iowa, where the firearms’ season doesn’t interrupt rut-time bowhunting.
For the rest of us, who still wish to sit in a stand every chance we can and make the most of valuable hunting time, October gives us a chance. This is especially true when the weather gets downright nasty. Deer, now sporting their winter coats and not overly concerned with rutting activity, will move more during periods of weather that seem far more conducive to staring skyward in search of approaching mallards than climbing into a stand.
To capitalize on the best-of-a-worse-case scenario, pay close attention to the weather and plan your hunting time around the following:
PIGGY-BACKED FRONTS
Recently, throughout much of the Upper Midwest, we had a spate of near-record heat. The scorching daylight temperatures didn’t do much for deer movement; however, like all warm fronts, it came to an end. What rolled in after the heat was a cold front, which is always good news for whitetail hunters. What followed the first cold front, though, was a gift—another cold front. Temperatures that went from 80-degree daytime highs to those in the 40s presented a perfect opportunity to get into a stand. In fact, when the second front hit I started getting frequent texts and phone calls from hunting buddies about encounters with big bucks. It felt like the second week of November, not mid-October, when conventional wisdom says that the deer hunting should flat-out stink.
SPRINKLES AND DELUGES
Although Guns N’ Roses didn’t think as highly of rain during October as they did of November showers, bowhunters can thumb their nose at Axle and Slash by watching the radar like a hawk during this month. Precipitation in the light to heavy category will get deer on the move. True downpours that cause arc-building thoughts might be worth sitting out, but you better try to get into a stand as soon as the rain lets up. Deer will move then, if they haven’t already. Better yet, unlike cold fronts, rain keeps other hunters out. This is a bonus for those of us hunting public land or pressured private ground.
Embrace the challenge of hunting October whitetails. Follow the weather and eventually you’ll be rewarded.
SMILING SUNSHINE
On the note of hunting when others won’t, it does pay to hunt during those hot days of October. I know they are the least appealing, but your competition is likely to stay home. A single day with sweat-inducing heat might not be worth it, but a sustained heat wave will offer an opportunity and it’s very simple: Sit the water. Creeks, ponds, rivers, puddles, cattle tanks or any other place where the deer can stay in cover and slake their thirst are good bets. To up your odds, consider sitting water close to a green food source such as alfalfa or hay.
You’ll have the woods to yourself when it gets truly hot, and provided you play the wind to keep your sweaty, stinky body from tipping off approaching deer, you’ll be in on action. This is the least fun time to hunt. The misery will only last until you see a mature buck working his way toward you. Then those thoughts of crisp November mornings will drop through the trapdoor in your mind to make room for the present need to range, settle the pin and send an arrow on its way.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Without a doubt, mid October isn’t the best time to kill a mature buck. They are still out there, though, and they will move during daylight. This gives you a chance, especially if you take the time to follow the weather patterns and capitalize on the changing conditions. It only takes a single deviation from normal patterns to get bucks on their feet. You won’t kill them if you stay home like the rest of the weekend warriors.
On private ground—where I have a good idea of how much hunting competition I’ll face—I enjoy the rut for obvious reasons. While hunting public ground, I have a much more complicated relationship with the month of November. I still love having faith that a mature buck will screw up and trot by my stand while scouring the woods for a good-to-go doe, but I hate the fact that everyone else feels the same way.
If there’s one time aside from opening week when public land is bound to be overrun with other bowhunters, it’s during the rut. When Halloween ends and October gives way to November, it seems that every single hunter with a tag in their pocket decides to hunt. This doesn’t bode well for anyone on tax payers’ deer ground. However, just like during the rest of the season, there are some things you can do to out-hunt the competition and take advantage of the rut.
USE VACATION DAYS
Whether I’m hunting small public parcels near my home in the Twin Cities or camped out in the Badlands of North Dakota, there’s one constant: Weekends are always busier than weekdays. This is reason enough to plan vacation days around mid-week hunts. If you have the option to take a few days off of work during the week, take them. Fewer hunters will be out, giving you a better chance to encounter a good buck.
GO SIMPLE
Manufacturers of hunting products love the rut because the promise of dumbed-down bucks means more folks will go out and buy whatever calls, lures, scents and decoys they’re peddling. Some of those hunters will end up hunting your area, and trust me, they’ll use whatever they bought. Whitetails that have walked the earth for more than 1 1/2 years have already encountered these tricks, and they’ll be wary. Let the others try out the latest and greatest gimmicks, and stick to a plan. Figure out where the deer want to be and get in there, stay quiet, and stay ready.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
On the note of getting in to where the deer want to be, rut hunting is all about the “where.” The simple explanation involves travel routes such as funnels and pinch-points; however, simply finding a good pinch-point isn’t enough. If it’s easy to find and looks obvious, you’ll have company. Public-land deer encounter hunters, or evidence of hunters, in obvious spots all season long. This pushes them into the cover and into places people don’t want to go—this rule holds true during the rut as well. This is why, when I hunt public land in November, I almost always wear knee-high rubber boots no matter how cold it gets. The reason? I’m going to have to cross water, whether that be a stream or a cranberry bog, to get to my spots. Out-work the average Joe and you’ll be much better off all season, but especially when the chase phase is cranking up.
PUNCH THE CLOCK
When you’re not hunting tightly managed ground, time in stand can be your biggest asset. The true secret to public-land success involves putting in more time than everyone else. This starts with scouting and goes all of the way through to the late-season. And, of course, during the rut. Every minute you spend in stand this time of year could yield an encounter, which means the more minutes you spend, the better your odds. Too many hunters spend a couple of hours in the morning or evening on stand and call it good enough, but the ultimate secret to killing mature bucks (in any situation) is making the time to do it right. It’s not easy, but it’s true.
The same old hackneyed whitetail advice holds true for public-land rut hunts—advice such as playing the wind and planning your routes. If you don’t have these basics downs, it’s going to be a rough one. If you do, and you decide that it’s time to sneak into the cover on a Tuesday morning to set up where others dare not tread, you’ll be much better off.
To tag out on public land, it’s almost always necessary to put in more time and work harder than your competition. That means getting in deeper and sitting longer, which can be tough but fruitful in November.
Tasting ‘real-world’ hunting success might not lead to fame or fortune, but will likely deliver far greater rewards.
If the recent flare-up over Walter Palmer’s infamous lion incident tells us anything, it’s that pure trophy hunting is ugly to the masses. This is really no surprise, especially when it comes to “megafauna” such as lions and elephants. Here in the lower tax brackets, where the whitetail is king, it’s much easier to ignore the perceptions of the antis and the non-hunters. But we shouldn’t be so naïve as to think that trophy hunting for deer is doing us any favors, either.
It’s a rare day that I meet someone who is a deer hunter solely to collect large sets of antlers, but it’s not as rare as it once was. This is where things get a bit tricky for me, because I love the fact that we are able to hunt for any reason we desire. If it’s inches of bone that matters to you, so be it. Whether decorating your mantel is the sole reason for the hunt or not, who am I to deem your motives good or bad? Still, there is a point when I start to care about my fellow hunters’ motivations. My personal tipping point occurs when the non-hunting public is exposed to reasoning that sours its opinion of hunters in general.
WE’LL SETTLE FOR ACCEPTANCE
Perhaps one of the toughest tasks for any hunter is to explain to someone why he or she hunts. Or why he or she loves to hunt. Most of us have multiple reasons. One is likely that feeling deep inside of us that begs us to do more than merely watch nature run its course. If you’re like me, there is a primal need to act—to participate in the entire process—an almost mystical, nearly magnetic draw. For many of us this powerful feeling is undeniable; it’s also plenty fulfilling to indulge.
History has proven that the nonhunting public will approve of what we do, as long as we eat what we kill. Are you projecting a positive hunting image?
The non-hunting public—those pesky folks who weigh heavily on our available hunt opportunities and, ultimately, will decide our fate as hunters—may never understand our need to hunt. And that’s okay, I believe, as long as they accept us for what most of us are: average people who love to hunt and enjoy the spoils of our success that include, first and foremost, the meat.
It’s become increasingly clear that the key to our overall societal acceptance lies in eating what we kill. When we choose to do away with this time-honored hunt tradition—in lieu of the singular goal of seeking trophy heads for our walls—all of us lose. It’s really that simple.
FANTASY VS. REALITY
I’m always telling fellow hunters that there are about three people in their lives who truly care about the size of the deer they kill. Everyone else is merely pretending. Because of this sobering fact, it’s best to kill what makes you happy. If that animal is a 43-inch six-pointer, shoot it. If something larger is what you’re looking for, fine. But be realistic about your expectations.
There is a lot of pressure these days to “compete” in the deer world, but the most-common litmus test used to see if your latest buck “measures up” is bunk. Outdoor television, arguably the worst thing to happen to hunters overall, is great at showing bucks that were grown to be killed. Most shows are full of hunters who didn’t burn a calorie to kill a big deer, or any other critter for that matter. I know this because I’ve been there and done that. Several times. And tasting “success” has never been difficult.
The reality of hunting is very few people actually care about the size of deer you kill. Because of that, it’s best to hunt for what makes you happy. If that is a young buck, fawn or whatever, go for it. You’ll have more fun hunting to your own standards than someone else’s.
To me, TV hunting would be fine if we were honest about one major point: That an awful lot of it exists simply for entertainment—and that, most of the time, the “hero hosts” haven’t done a thing to be successful other than making the shot. Of course, this is not how much of the viewing audience sees things. Today, we have scads of hunters throughout the country who speak in terms of “young 125-inchers,” or “decent 140s-type bucks.” Are you kidding me? Most hunters will never get a chance at a true 140-inch buck over an entire season. And when (or if) they do, the odds are stacked heavily in the deer’s favor.
You can’t kill trophy bucks if none exist on the properties you hunt. The best hunters make the most of their situation, and hold themselves to the highest ethical standards.
Big bucks are awesome, but so are little bucks. Does and fawns aren’t bad either. When it comes right down to it, several fine meals of lean, protein-rich venison, for many of us, is plenty enough reason to squeeze a trigger or let an arrow fly. My message here is simple: Hunt for each one of your very own reasons. You’ll be much happier for the effort, and as a whole, we as hunters will be better off for years to come because of it. If one of your reasons is to obtain an eye-popping trophy, fine. I understand the feeling completely; I love mature bucks as much as anyone. But if their headgear is your sole motivation, please keep that info to yourself, or at least within your inner circle of close hunting friends.
PRODUCING UNDER PRESSURE
I’d be willing to bet the average hunter hailing from truly hard-hunted states like Pennsylvania or North Carolina could out-hunt most other hunters in the country. I know that’s a broad-stroke statement, but having hunted a ton of public land over the years, I can safely say that hunting pressure is what makes hunting the most difficult.
Hunting pressure is the reason why so much of the deer hunting information you see on television is almost totally absurd. Most offending footage of which I speak comes from tightly controlled properties where the local bucks don’t risk death, or danger of most any sort, until they are at least 5.5 years old. So it’s no wonder they are on their feet during most all hours of the day. Does showing game activity and/or hunting techniques in places like that really help you? I think not.
A love of venison is a great way to keep the masses on our side, just as espousing pure trophy hunting is a way to turn them away. All of us need to choose wisely.
To me, the best hunters are those who make the most of their specific situation. If you’re a “weekend warrior” in a hard-hunted area, killing any deer consistently is probably the mark of a good hunter. If you’ve got 1,000 acres all to yourself in southern Iowa, I’m not likely to be impressed unless you consistently kill Booners. Because you should.
The measure of a good hunter rarely boils down to inches of antler. Many skilled hunters must haunt heavily pressured public lands, where “huge” bucks are scarce.
Somewhere between the two examples above is where most of us fall. If you fit in this group, your mission this fall should be simple. Hunt the deer that challenge you, the specimens that get your heart racing. Most importantly, aim for the deer that make you happy. Through it all, compare yourself not to television hunters, but to those who have truly earned your respect. People you’ve met with a reputation for ethical behavior first, and consistent success second. Emulate those hunters, and you’ll do the entire lot of us a huge favor. And for that, I say thank you in advance.
I don’t know if it’s his tendency to stand in the wide open during the middle of the day. Or perhaps his ability to create a sudden mile of distance between us in roughly the same amount of time it takes me to curse under my breath and wipe the lenses of my binoculars clean with a shirttail. It might be his more-than-passing resemblance to a few African critters.
I don’t know what it is.
What I do know is that antelope have their hooks in me and I can’t shake the draw of bowhunting them. And it’s not the suffocating confines of a waterhole blind that calls to me every August… that stuff is for a different kind of hunter. I want the open prairie and the challenge of beating the best eyes in the business on even ground.
Spotting and stalking antelope with a bow is a lesson in humility 99 percent of the time. Failure on the prairie is different than the deer woods or the elk mountains, because with antelope you can always see the damn things. They are always there, tan-and-white and always on the cusp of deciding they’ve had enough of your crawling in their general direction.
That 1 percent of the time though, when they’ve fed into a draw or too close to a bit of hands-and-knees-hunter-height sage brush—that brings a feeling of serious accomplishment. And if the arrow flies true, some of the best meat out there.
FREE-FOR-ALL
The beginning of a proper antelope hunt should start with finding a place to hunt. Guided hunts are pretty common, but the beauty of antelope in my eyes is that they are available on public land in good numbers, in several states. National Grasslands throughout the west will have decent populations of antelope, and in most states, easy-to-obtain tags. Better yet, a nonresident antelope tag will cost you much less than a typical deer or elk tag.
SHADELESS CAMP
On most of that public land you’ll be able to pitch a tent and declare a temporary home wherever the mood strikes you. The downside is that open fires are almost always a no-no, given the timing of the antelope season and the arid land they inhabit. A propane stove on the tailgate of a pickup will work just fine for meals, and quite frankly, during most antelope hunts you’re not going to want to sit by an open fire anyway. If you’re not a hunt-all-day kind of bowhunter, invest in a battery-operated fan for your tent to make mid-day naps somewhat tolerable.
THE VIEW
Sunset on the prairie tends to be an awe-inspiring event. Ditto for sunrise. If you’ve watched the sun set, you’ve probably also watched a few antelope doing their thing. After breakfast the next morning, get back on them. They’re usually pretty easy to relocate in the morning, and that means when you’re laying in the tent thinking of the goats you watched at dusk, you know that you’re going to be in the game right from the get-go in the morning. It can be tough to sleep and easy to rise with the alarm, which is how all hunting should be.
BUSTED
If you’re of the easily discouraged variety of hunter, you might want to stick to the whitetail woods because antelope will beat you far more often than you beat them. Stalking them with a bow is no joke. Prepare to get busted, a lot. After a few blown stalks you’ll start to realize that even though the antelope are visible, they aren’t always approachable. Learn to find the goat that has tipped the odds in your favor and spend your time on him. And go slow. Even when they’re on their feet and feeding, antelope don’t move as much as it appears. That is, of course, until they decide to go somewhere—and then they’ll be gone.
TROPHY THIS, TROPHY THAT
A big goat will sport horns of at least 12 or 13 inches in height. A “good” goat, on public land, taken by spotting and stalking with archery equipment will be any goat. If your tag is good for either sex, stalk every antelope you can. If you’re looking for the boys, stalk every legal male you can. This is not the type of hunt to be picky on, especially if you’re new to antelope hunting. If you decide it’s Pope & Young or nothing, you’ll get in very few stalks and are almost guaranteed tag soup. Lower your standards, hunt everything and have fun.
DANGER
It’s easy to look at the wide-open prairies and assume there isn’t any danger out there. This, unfortunately, isn’t true. I once showed up to a new area in South Dakota and pitched a camp in the dark. When I awoke before sunup I realized I was surrounded, and I mean surrounded, by hump-backed bulls. The whole pasture was covered in them, and they didn’t particularly like my intrusion into their buffet. Rattlesnakes are also another concern, and I’ve had enough close calls to realize that it’s always a good idea to give the potential of an encounter some respect.
THE SHOT
If you’re good out to 20 or 30 yards but sketchy any farther out, you’re not ready for antelope. Some folks will say there’s no need to shoot farther than that, but those folks also tend to live in antelope country and either have unlimited time to spotand stalk, or they’re ambush hunters. Most of my antelope shots have been between 30 and 60 yards. That’s reality, and you better be very comfortable with your rangefinder and shooting off of your butt or knees. The upside of the longer shots is that antelope at that distance aren’t string jumpers, and they’re designed with an excellent demarcation line on their sides to aim at.
A LAST RESORT
One time of my life I got my tail kicked so bad spotting and stalking that I set up a blind on a waterhole. The 12 hours I spent in the confines of that pop-up were terrible, and while I did have a pair of antelope come in, they never offered a shot. It was 30 seconds of excitement and the rest was torture. I might have killed one if I had waited it out, but I want to have fun when I’m hunting and that wasn’t fun. Spotting and stalking, while much more difficult, is also much more enjoyable. If, for whatever reason, you can’t handle another day of watching diaper-butts disappear in the distance, try the blind thing. You’ll see what I mean.
SUCCESS
Just like bears and mature whitetails during the rut, antelope have a bad reputation meat-wise. In my experience, this is insane. I’d rather eat antelope than elk. I did have one Wyoming antelope that simply didn’t taste that great, but it was my fault. I shot him and threw him in the back of my truck with some ice in his chest cavity. A 12-hour drive didn’t treat that goat too well, and I’m to blame for it. The rest of the antelope I’ve shot, I’ve field dressed and butchered quickly. Every one of them has been delicious. If you get lucky and make a good shot, take your pictures, admire your animal, and then get to work. At the very least get him pieced out and on ice in a cooler. You won’t regret hustling to get the job done the first time you grill out.
#theHUNGER
Hunting rutting whitetails on public land sometimes requires kindergarten-teacher levels of patience.
Have you ever tried to launch a boat at a public access on July 4th, at say, noon? If yes, then you understand what I mean when I say “idiot factor.” A subdued although similar situation plays out on public land in whitetail territory once the first week of November hits.
To be fair, not all hunters deserve the label. Most don’t, in fact. Most of them are just out there trying to take advantage of the deer magic associated with the time of the year. There are others though, who feel like the rut is the best time for them to tag out, even though it’s clear they don’t really know what they’re doing.
I’m not judging inexperienced hunters here, because we’ve all been there. You don’t know what you don’t know. However, it’s those folks, and others who lack the basic deer hunting skills that make public land much more difficult to hunt for everyone. That’s the reality of more hunting pressure, and on Uncle Sam’s ground it’s unavoidable. This is especially true once the kids are finished trick-or-treating and it’s suddenly November. To work around this influx of hunters possessing vastly different levels of whitetail savvy, a public-land bowhunter looking to fill his tag needs go the contrarian route in nearly every way. And that all starts with location.
THE ‘SECOND-BEST’ AREAS
During a rut-hunting trip to a few Walk-In Areas in South Dakota I thought the agricultural fields on the public ground would be the ticket because I didn’t anticipate much pressure in my chosen location. What I was quickly reminded of, is that it doesn’t take much field-edge pressure to ruin the hunting. This point was driven home as I watched a sweating hunter bang a full-bodied buck decoy on every piece of brush he could as he walked past my blind. I needed to re-think where the deer would choose to be to do their thing and avoid the two-legged predators.
That led to some time sitting on peaks, observing. What I saw was whitetail movement that centered on winter grass, some kind of volunteer clover sprouting up on the hillsides, and a litany of browse like the red tops of the sumac bushes. The deer I saw were living in areas much more suited to mule deer.
Finding rut action on public land often involves hunting the thick stuff. This could be near the road, or 3 miles deep, but either way, overlooked is overlooked. Forget the easy areas where most of the hunters will concentrate and get into a thicket.
With that info, I scoured my aerial photos to try to find a few ponds tucked into no-man’s land thinking that all of those deer browsing and chasing on the ridgetops would eventually get thirsty. The first waterhole I hiked into had a buck on it at 11 a.m., and so I hung a stand and got out. The hope was to play off of the hot weather and the fact that with the weekend, more hunters were likely to pile into the no-brainer spots.
It took only 2 hours perched over that pond before two bucks chased a doe fawn past me. The second deer, an oddball nontypical, caught an arrow as he grunted his way through.
It took only 2 hours perched over that pond before two bucks chased a doe fawn past me. The second deer, an oddball nontypical, caught an arrow as he grunted his way through. He died 40 yards from my stand, tucked deep into an area of the Missouri River Breaks that didn’t look anything like typical whitetail ground.
The author killed this nontypical South Dakota buck on public land during the rut. The areas he wanted to hunt were too easy to access and therefore covered in hunters.
Make a plan to find several areas that might hold deer, and resign yourself to the fact that the best-looking stuff will be covered in competition. This is tough to stomach, but can actually work in your favor. Hunt the thick stuff, well away from the fields, and you’ll find more deer. The farther the better for the most part, but remember that overlooked is overlooked. The spot I arrowed my South Dakota buck was only half of a mile from a road, which is much closer than I thought I’d be if I filled my tag.
FORGET THE GIMMICKS
All those other hunters who are going to be jockeying into position for the same deer you’re hunting have one thing in common: get-rich-quick products. They’ll have rattle bags, calls, scents, lures and decoys. And they’ll use them. All might work, but the reality on public ground is that it’s a far better bet to go find where deer like to be and hunt them there. This is something that can really only be learned by experience, but it’s almost a better bet on public land to simply stay quiet and wait out natural movement.
Even young bucks on public land tend to figure out what’s going on pretty quick when it comes to hunting pressure. This makes them, and all of the rest of the deer, much harder to fool into range with calls, decoys or scents.
Most deer that make it past 1.5 years old on public land have encountered every kind of trick we can throw at them. The ones that fall for any of the tricks have a negative encounter with a hunter, which may or may not end up in death. If it doesn’t, they’ve learned a valuable lesson. Those lessons stack up over time, creating deer that are much harder to fool and much easier to spook.
Scout hard, look for fresh sign and learn to read the terrain for your rut stands. And remember, the thick stuff is your friend. Go where the deer want to be and leave the gimmicks to your competition.
KEEP YOUR HEAD STRAIGHT
A couple of buddies and I spent some time hunting a national grassland down in Oklahoma this fall. Through our scouting efforts, we identified one creek-bottom that was by far the most consistent spot for mature bucks. It also held plenty of bonus turkeys and pigs. On opening night, one of my friends snuck in at 2 p.m. to sit out the evening. Three hours later, two hunters walked right up to his stand.
It’s hard to stay upbeat when someone walks into your setup, or you can hear hunters rattling away nearby. The difference between public-land success and failure, however, is often staying positive enough to hunt smart and stay in the woods despite setbacks.
He was bummed, but not out of the game, which carries a big distinction. Attitude has a lot to do with bowhunting success, and it’s easy to get frustrated on public land. During the rut, when everyone is out hunting, this can happen daily. How you deal with it will dictate whether you kill a buck or not. If it gets you down and you let your guard slip, you’ll start to get sloppy and become the hunter you’re trying to avoid. If you rally, sit it out or move to a Plan B or C spot, you’ll keep your odds up. It’s that simple.
SMART SYNOPSIS
Conventional deer hunting wisdom doesn’t steer most hunters to totally contrarian hunting styles, but most of the hackneyed deer-speak out there doesn’t come from public land hunters. It comes from folks hunting places where pressure is tightly controlled. To succeed on public land when the general public of the bowhunting community is out in full force, it is necessary to be an individual and do what others aren’t. It’s not easy, but it’s the best way to tag out while others are struggling.
To score big, public-land hunters must stay one step ahead of their quarry, as well as the competition. These tips will help you get it done starting now.
These days it’s become increasingly rare to run across a whitetail hunter who doesn’t use trail cameras to scout. But, unfortunately, those who choose to ignore the fine details can wind up doing more harm than good. For the private-land bowhunter, trail cam placement decisions are usually pretty simple. Find the preferred food, or pounded trails leading to that food, and, well, that’s about it. The public-land bowhunter doesn’t usually have that option, and instead needs to consider a few “sneaky spots” deer might be—strategic places that other hunters will likely ignore. Those are the places worth hanging a trail camera on common ground.
Here are 7 of them to consider:
River & Stream Crossings. If the water is moving, there will usually be a few places the deer prefer to cross. Whether you’re dealing with a small, easily wadeable trout stream or a decent-sized interior river that is dicey for you to cross in chest waders, the deer will have preferred locations for traveling from bank to bank. Find them, and hang your camera to watch over them. Typically, the hottest river crossings show consistent deer movement patterns throughout the season; this means that if you dial into current deer activity at a particular crossing, you don’t need to worry about phase of the rut, seasonal timing, or anything else. Just hunt it.
Isolated Waterholes. Hot crossings are often a no-brainer, but watering holes are a different story. The “obvious” pond sitting 200 yards from a public parking lot is probably a lost cause. Every bowhunter on the place knows about it, and it will get hunted a lot. Skip the obvious water. Check out your aerial photos for smaller water sources—the farther from access points the better—and get in there to check things out. If you have to work to get to water, the deer will use it. Hang your cameras on all of the “sneaky” water sources you can, because just like crossings, they can be good for the entire season.
Swamp Crossings. Each year, some of the best local whitetails are bagged in some of your area’s nastiest swamps, mostly for obvious reasons. However, finding a place to hang a camera in and around a low, wet swamp can be a tough proposition. So do your primary scouting from home. Find opposing points, or long spines, of high ground that allow for easier travel through the lowland muck, via aerial photography. This is a time-honored big-woods strategy, and can work very well at all times of the season, but especially during the rut. When you’ve identified a few of these spots through digital scouting, hike in and hang some cameras. If the deer want to get from one side of a swamp to the other, they’ll probably pass by your camera. 
Life On An Island. If you’re digging into swamps during your digital recon, you’ll probably encounter some isolated “islands” of cover. If your pulse didn’t start to quicken, it should have. Mature bucks love these islands because they offer most every possible advantage as bedding sites. A good buck spending daylight hours on an island can easily hear approaching predators, including bowhunters, but you can build a plan around a suspected sanctuary and use it to develop a solid hunting strategy. Run cameras to see how a buck accesses, and exits, his island. If you know where he comes from and where he’s going, you can play off of that travel and possibly catch him sneaking out at last light—without ever having to slog your way in to his island sanctuary. Keep in mind that you’ll want to intrude as little as possible, so be sure to play the wind and make every camera check count.
Staging For Success. What if your chosen ground lacks streams, rivers, or even a swamp? Don’t worry. You can still hunt like a private-land bowhunter—sort of. In this scenario your goal should be to figure out the “destination food sources” of the local deer herd. These areas might be on public ground, or they might be across the fence beyond the No Trespassing signs. Either way, your challenge is to “reverse-engineer” the travel routes, until you find a spot that looks like it might be a staging area—a place where the local deer linger and otherwise mill about after leaving their day beds, just before entering their preferred feeding area. Staging areas will usually be within 200 to 400 yards of the “groceries,” especially in areas with good cover. Run a camera or two on the best trails, to start figuring out just who is using them and when. If you identify a good staging area, you’ll be light years ahead of most of your hunting competition, most of whom will likely be setting up right on the local food source. And as a bonus, any direct food source hunting pressure can often make the area’s staging areas even more important—and productive.
Isolated ‘No-Go’ Zones. Nearly every piece of public land I’ve ever hunted has featured at least one area virtually untouched by human pressure. Sign, as they say, does not lie. Sometimes it’s the five-acre patch of woods by the parking lot that most hunters simply walk right by, or sometimes it’s the ridgetop located a full two miles from easy access that is just too far for most weekend warriors. These spots require an on-site “speed-scouting” mission to verify their potential, but if the deer sign is there and the human sign is not, you should hang a camera and back out. It may seem too simple, but the reality of public-land success often boils down to hunting where other people don’t—or won’t.
Fencing Will Point The Way. Much of the deer movement on public land is influenced by what’s happening on nearby private ground. A great way to flesh out this impact is to find well-used fence crossings and monitor them with trail cameras. Some of my best year-to-year spots were discovered this way. Start by walking the perimeter of your chosen parcel and keep an eye out for where the deer leave it to enter private ground. Even if the land doesn’t have a maintained fence, you might find an old rusty three-strander still hanging in certain spots. Where the barbed-wire is busted, broken or sagging, you’ll often find a crossing.
Great Photos Are In The Details. I almost always hang my cameras above my head and angle them down, for a few reasons. The first is that this reduces theft. The second is that it cuts down on the number of passing deer that get spooked. Whatever type of “flash” or “no-flash” system your camera utilizes, deer often take notice of cameras showing up in their bedrooms, and they don’t appreciate it. I also use quality SD cards, long-life lithium batteries, and pay special attention to my camera settings. I hate returning to a trail camera that has been in the woods for a month only to realize the batteries died a few days after I hung it, or that I set the date/time wrong. Or worse, never even turned it on. Think about all of these things with every camera setup, and you’ll gather much more useful intel.
Finding Motivation Pays. As a public-land bowhunter, you don’t have the luxury of a lazy scouting strategy when it comes to trail cameras. You’ve got to out-think and out-work your competition, while attempting to keep tabs on the same bucks that everyone else is trying to keep tabs on. This isn’t easy—nothing about public-land bowhunting ever is—but it is entirely possible if you’re willing to exert a little extra effort right now. Take the time to get out there this summer, and you’ll be setting the stage for fall hunting success.
Looking to tag out in the toughest month? Keep an eye on the weather forecast and hunt when conditions take a turn for the worse.
When it comes to hunting whitetails, October is a throw-away month for many hunters—at least the first three weeks, anyway. This mindset stems from overblown credit given to the dreaded “lull,” and the fact that a lot of whitetail-hunting advice is dispensed from hunters who live in states such as Iowa, where the firearms’ season doesn’t interrupt rut-time bowhunting.
For the rest of us, who still wish to sit in a stand every chance we can and make the most of valuable hunting time, October gives us a chance. This is especially true when the weather gets downright nasty. Deer, now sporting their winter coats and not overly concerned with rutting activity, will move more during periods of weather that seem far more conducive to staring skyward in search of approaching mallards than climbing into a stand.
To capitalize on the best-of-a-worse-case scenario, pay close attention to the weather and plan your October hunting time around the following:
COLD FRONTS, HOT HUNTING. This past summer, throughout much of the Upper Midwest and nation in general, we dealt with near-record heat. The scorching daylight temperatures didn’t do much for deer movement; however, like all warm fronts, it came to an end. What rolled in after the heat was a cold front, which is always good news for whitetail hunters. What sometimes follows a first cold front, though, can be an even better gift—another cold front. When temperatures that can range easily to 80-degree daytime highs suddenly drop into the 40s, you’ve been gifted a perfect opportunity to climb into a stand. In fact, during a very specific string of “piggy back” cold fronts I started getting frequent texts and phone calls from hunting buddies about encounters with big bucks. This was no coincidence. Conditions felt like the second week of November, not mid-October, when conventional wisdom says that the deer hunting should flat-out stink.
DUAL-PURPOSE RAINS. Precipitation in the light to heavy category will get deer on the move. True downpours that cause arc-building thoughts might be worth sitting out, but you better try to get into a stand as soon as the rain lets up. Deer will move then, if they haven’t already. Better yet, unlike cold fronts, rain keeps other hunters out. This is a bonus for those of us hunting public land or pressured private ground.
TOO HOT FOR THE COMPETITION. Regarding hunting when others won’t, it really does pay to hunt during those hot days of October. I know they are the least appealing, but your competition is likely to agree…and stay home. A single day with sweat-inducing heat might not be worth it, but a sustained heat wave will offer an opportunity and it’s very simple: Sit the water. Creeks, ponds, rivers, puddles, cattle tanks or any other place where the deer can stay in cover and slake their thirst are good bets. To up your odds, consider sitting water close to a green food source such as alfalfa or hay.
You’ll have the woods to yourself when it gets truly hot, and provided you play the wind to keep your sweaty, stinky body from tipping off approaching deer, you’ll be in on action. This is the least fun time to hunt. However, the misery will only last until you see a mature buck working his way toward you. Then those thoughts of crisp November mornings will drop through the trapdoor in your mind to make room for the present need to range, settle the pin and send an arrow on its way.
TAKE ON THE OCTOBER CHALLENGE. Without a doubt, mid October isn’t the best time to kill a mature buck. They are still out there, though, and they will move during daylight. This gives you a chance, especially if you take the time to follow the weather patterns and capitalize on the changing conditions. It only takes a single deviation from normal patterns to get bucks on their feet. In the end, the only absolute certainty is this: You won’t tag one if you stay home like the rest of the weekend warriors.
The thrill of the hunt in wide-open spaces. Plenty of visible targets. Throw in a tent camp and positive attitude, and you’re ready for spot-and-stalk pronghorn bowhunting.
I don’t know if it’s his tendency to stand in the wide open during the middle of the day. Or perhaps it’s his ability to create a sudden mile of distance between us in roughly the same amount of time it takes me to curse under my breath and wipe the lenses of my binoculars clean with a shirttail. It might be his more-than-passing resemblance to a few African critters.
I don’t know what it is.
What I do know is that pronghorn have their hooks in me and I can’t shake the draw of bowhunting them. And it’s not the suffocating confines of a waterhole blind that calls to me every August … that stuff is for a different kind of hunter. I want the open prairie and the challenge of beating the best eyes in the business on even ground.
Spotting and stalking antelope with a bow is a lesson in humility 99 percent of the time. Failure on the prairie is different than in the deer woods or the elk mountains, because with pronghorn you can always see the damn things. They are always there, tan-and-white and always on the cusp of deciding they’ve had enough of your crawling in their general direction.
That one percent of the time though, when they’ve fed into a draw or maybe too close to a bit of crouching-hunter-height sage brush—are the times that deliver a feeling of serious accomplishment. And if your arrow flies true, more reward comes in the form of some of the best game meat on the planet.
PLENTY OF ROOM TO ROAM. The beginning of a proper pronghorn hunt should start with finding a place to hunt. Guided hunts are pretty common, but the beauty of antelope in my eyes is that they are available on public land in good numbers, in several states. Tapping into the HuntStand property boundaries feature will show a staggering amount of public lands in many prime pronghorn states. But where to focus? National Grasslands throughout the west will have decent populations of antelope, and in most states, easy-to-obtain tags. Better yet, a nonresident antelope tag will cost you much less than a typical deer or elk tag.
SHADELESS CAMPS COME STANDARD. On most of that public land you’ll be able to pitch a tent and declare a temporary home wherever the mood strikes you. The downside is that open fires are almost always a no-no, given the timing of the antelope season and the arid land they inhabit. A propane stove on the tailgate of a pickup will work just fine for meals, and quite frankly, during most antelope hunts you’re not going to want to sit by an open fire anyway. If you’re not a hunt-all-day kind of bowhunter, invest in a battery-operated fan for your tent to make midday naps somewhat tolerable, and packing some type of portable canopy can also help, delivering some welcome shade.
CAN’T BEAT THE VIEW. Sunset on the prairie tends to be an awe-inspiring event. Ditto for sunrise. If you’ve watched the sun set, you’ve probably also watched a few pronghorn doing their thing. After breakfast the next morning, get back on them. They’re usually pretty easy to relocate in the morning, and that means when you’re laying in the tent thinking of the goats you watched at dusk, you know that you’re going to be in the game right from the get-go in the morning. It can be tough to sleep and easy to rise with the alarm, which is how all hunting should be.
PREPARE TO GET BUSTED. If you’re of the easily discouraged variety of hunter, you might want to stick to the whitetail woods, because pronghorn will beat you far more often than you beat them. Stalking them with a bow is no joke. Prepare to get busted—a lot. After a few blown stalks you’ll start to realize that even though the antelope are visible, they aren’t always approachable. Learn to find the goat that has somehow tipped the odds in your favor, and spend your time on him. And go slow. Even when they’re on their feet and feeding, pronghorn don’t move around as much as it might appear. That is, of course, until they decide to go somewhere—and then they’ll be gone.
HUNT FOR THE ADVENTURE. A big goat will sport horns of at least 12 or 13 inches in height, and anything larger than that is a serious bonus. And now for the reality check. A “good” goat on public land, taken by spotting and stalking with archery equipment, will be any goat. If your tag is good for either sex, stalk every pronghorn you can. If you’re looking for the boys, stalk every legal buck you can. This is not the type of hunt to be picky on, especially if you’re new to pronghorn hunting. If you decide it’s the Pope & Young recordbook or nothing, you’ll get in very few stalks and are almost guaranteed tag soup. My advice? Lower your standards, hunt everything and have fun.
BEWARE THE PITFALLS. It’s easy to look at the wide-open western prairies and assume there isn’t any danger out there. This, unfortunately, isn’t true. I once showed up to a new area in South Dakota and pitched a camp in the dark. When I awoke before sunup I realized I was surrounded, and I mean surrounded, by ornery hump-backed bulls. The whole pasture was covered in them, and they didn’t particularly like my intrusion into their buffet. Rattlesnakes are also another concern, and I’ve had enough close calls to realize that it’s always a good idea to give the potential of such an encounter some respect.
MAKING THE SHOT. Here’s another pronghorn bowhunting reality check: If you’re accuracy is good out to 20 or 30 yards but sketchy any farther out, you’re not ready for antelope. Some folks will say there’s no need to shoot farther than that, but those folks also tend to live in pronghorn country and either have unlimited time to spot and stalk, or they’re ambush hunters. Most of my pronghorn shots have been between 30 and 60 yards. That’s reality, and you better be very comfortable with leaning on your rangefinder often and shooting off of your butt or knees. The upside of the longer shots is that pronghorn at that distance aren’t string jumpers, and they’re designed with an excellent demarcation line on their sides on which to focus your aim.
THE AMBUSH OPTION. During one particular (and somehow still-memorable) hunt I got my tail kicked so badly while spotting and stalking that I resorted to sitting a blind on a waterhole. The 12 hours I spent in the confines of that pop-up were terrible, and while I did have a pair of antelope come in, they never offered a shot. It was 30 seconds of excitement and the rest was torture. I might have killed one if I had waited it out, but I want to have fun when I’m hunting and that wasn’t fun. Spotting and stalking, while much more difficult, is also much more enjoyable. If, for whatever reason, you can’t handle another day of watching white pronghorn butts disappear in the distance, try the blind thing. You’ll see what I mean.