It’s the rut. It’s your favorite time of year to hunt whitetails. It also can be one of the most frustrating times of the year, as bucks abandon their normal routine for a Monty-Python-like approach to life. For your chance at a rutting buck this season, keep these hotspots in mind. Some are as routine as the rising sun, while others may seem a bit wacky. Nevertheless, all hold potential for a freezer full of venison and a rack for the wall.
CHASE THE LADIES
You can’t argue with the facts. During the rut, the facts state that bucks will be searching diligently for an estrus doe. If you want high odds of meeting up with a future taxidermy candidate, then you need to hunt in and around the greatest density of does. If you’ve been hunting throughout the season, you know where the does are hanging. They’ll be gathering around your food plots, scrounging in harvested agricultural fields and browsing on hayfields.
Despite the obviousness of these locations, you need to stay abreast of changing feeding patterns as fall progresses. A food plot that was hot last week might have experienced a freeze that makes the browse less desirable to deer. The same is true of large agriculture fields. A newly harvested soybean field might be the hot ticket with spilled beans scattered on the ground, leaving your clover plot vacant. And don’t overlook hunting pressure. If you, your buddies or the neighbors put the hard press on an area, deer might slip out a side door to feed and congregate elsewhere.
If you can’t scout every day, then put your electronic partners to work. Trail cameras can monitor sites and trails, giving you a quick update for your weekend-warrior hunt. Check cameras monitoring your most active locations and those you believe will turn on. The camera that flashes the most images of antlerless whitetails should be your top choice.
While bowhunting in Kansas one season, we literally switched areas every other day as deer hopscotched between food sources. Finally, a group of does settled on a soybean food plot and a day later a nice buck stood under my stand a few seconds too long. I love trail cams.
HUNT NEAR HOME
Are you wearing out your Goodyear tires driving back and forth to a farm for whitetail hunting? Maybe you should consider a suburban hunt? Deer live in and around humans throughout whitetail country, and as the rut explodes many bucks are led into the suburbs by the scent of does living a cul-de-sac lifestyle. Cities across the country now have seasons, many bow-only, to help manage burgeoning deer herds. And even if you don’t land a coveted urban whitetail tag, you might find lots of action at the edge of city limits.
Some whitetails lose their fear of humans, cars and even barking dogs during the rut. They wander around neighborhoods all day long.
Some whitetails lose their fear of humans, cars and even barking dogs during the rut. They wander around neighborhoods all day long. Others still fear the human commotion. Bucks that are led to the city sights by estrus aromas might hole up in fields and woodlots just outside of the city, yet roam throughout the paved trails during nocturnal romps. In either case, it pays to look in and around your urban homeland for possible signs of a rutting buck taking advantage of city girls (and city street-lamp lighting).
One of the biggest whitetails I’ve encountered to date nearly ran me over as I hunkered in a fence-row hidden in standing corn. The field was within sight of a subdivision; I routinely watched neighbors grilling as I bowhunted the field. The rutting buck never knew I was there as he crashed by, and had I been given a few seconds notice, I would have been rewarded with a 2-yard shot along with the adrenaline blast.
SNEAK INTO HIS BEDROOM
Whitetail experts, your friends and every article ever published warns you to stay out of the bedding area of a whitetail buck. If ever there’s a time to be an invader, it’s during the rut. As soon as the first doe comes into estrus, bucks begin to abandon their schedules and hunt relentlessly for their next date. This means they might be at home in their bedroom, but they could also be late or skip a day. This gives you a clear opening to slip into bedding cover, but having some entrance advantage is only one positive aspect of a bedroom invasion. The best reason focuses on a buck’s tendency to pace around bedding cover in hopes of bumping into a hot hookup. Bedding cover is often dense, so bucks are more apt to wander 24/7, giving you the chance for a meeting morning, noon or night.
Being mobile during the rut, especially with the expanded range of a firearm vs. a bow, can be the most effective way to run into a lovesick buck.
Don’t think you can just walk into bedding cover and not be noticed. Does, fawns and younger bucks will still be using the sanctuary. Plan your entrance. Determine when the vast amounts of deer leave cover and return, and then slip in when the fewest deer are present. You’ll also want to find a backdoor entrance that doesn’t include a dawn traipse along the edge of your food plot where the bulk of the deer are gorging. You don’t have to go deep into cover, but far enough in where you feel the deer will move around with ease during shooting light. In all cases, give yourself a backdoor entrance and escape route. Once you find that perfect spot, pack a lunch and prepare to spend the day. Don’t forget to check your ScentCone before you break into the bedroom.
Last season, while bowhunting in Iowa with Tails of the Hunt Outfitters, I spent all day in stands watching bedroom corridors. On the ninth day, a mature 8×6 buck walked into a shooting lane at high noon. My treestand-sore butt commanded me to drop the string on my Mathews bow, and I ended my hunt with a bruiser of a bedroom stalker.
YOU FOUND HIM WHERE?
This is one of those fill-in-the-blanks type of responses. During the rut, it’s not uncommon to find a whitetail buck, oftentimes courting a doe, in some of the most mind-twisting places. That noted, you never want to overlook any location, big or small, in your whitetail zip code.
Open country is an attraction for bucks trying to court hot does in much of the country. Whether it’s a harvested wheat field, a sagebrush basin out West or even a grazed cattle pasture in Ohio, bucks will often hang out with a hot doe in the wide open. This leaves you few options for archery hunting, but firearm hunters might have just enough terrain to crawl into shooting position to wait for the big boy to stand.
Open country is an attraction for bucks trying to court hot does in much of the country. Whether it’s a harvested wheat field, a sagebrush basin out West or even a grazed cattle pasture in Ohio, bucks will often hang out with a hot doe in the wide open.
Abandoned farmsteads and even active farms also have been known to harbor rutting bucks. During one particular season, I set up in a haystack across from an inhabited farm. After sunrise, the school bus stopped, loaded the kids and as it left a big buck literally ran out from behind the bus, leaving the farmyard and heading my way. I made sure he never pulled that trick again with a Hornady happy ending.
Small wetlands in the middle of a farm field, weedy fence lines, brushy windbreaks and overgrown gravel pits are just a few examples of where I’ve jumped bucks holing up during the peak of the rut. If you have a gut feeling, follow it during the rut. No location is too odd to hold a buck when testosterone spikes.
The rut gives you every advantage to tag your buck for the season, but hotspots can change day by day, so keep your hunting strategies fluid for success.
