A large number of bowhunters take the month of October off, which is great for those of us who don't.
While there are good reasons most hunters do not see as many deer during this pre-rut month, there are some compelling times and places to be in the woods during the month of October. Here are five that might make you rethink your October complacency.
It's Lonely Out There
Since so few hunters take October seriously, you may be all alone out there. October may be the single best time to hunt public land because there is little pressure putting the deer on edge.
There may be a few people out and about on the weekends, but you might find that you have normally busy areas of public hunting properties all to yourself in October.
Hunting pressure definitely causes deer to change their behavior patterns. Once they begin to feel pressure, many mature bucks go underground and won't be caught out during daylight. Hunting in October gives us a chance to target them before they feel the heat. They can still be in fairly predictable fall feeding and bedding patterns, which leads us to reason number two.
Predictable Movements
October is a time of ease for most bucks. Food is everywhere and the bedding areas are mostly undisturbed. Acorns are still around in abundance, cut corn and soybean fields offer easy to reach food, alfalfa is still green.
The daily lives of a buck might be to rise in late afternoon, hang out with the guys a little, make a few rubs and maybe sniff a scrape. He may do a little sparring with other bucks and then make his way towards the food source where he arrives with a half hour or so of daylight left.
He'll probably hang out just inside the woods until nearly full dark before exposing himself in the open, which gives a hunter the perfect opportunity to connect with him just inside the woods.
In the morning, he works his way back to his preferred bedding cover without much urgency, nibbling at browse along the way. Then he will spend his days in cover chewing his cud and only rising to stretch and relieve himself occasionally before going through his routine again in the late afternoon. It's a pretty good time for a savvy hunter to figure out the pattern and waylay a mature buck who has no idea he's being hunted.
Enjoy the Autumn
The living is pretty easy for us hunters too. Another great reason to hunt October is to get out and enjoy pleasant fall weather while gathering information for upcoming rut.
Evenings are delightful in a treestand at this time of the year. Mosquitoes have succumbed to frost and the colorful leaves are pleasant to the eye. Mornings are cool but not shivering-in-your-boots cold. It's just a great time to enjoy some of the things we love about hunting and being outdoors to observe nature and its natural goings on.
You can learn a lot that will help you better hunt the upcoming rut as well. October offers you a chance to inventory the deer in your area and get a feel for where the does are bedding. This knowledge will be valuable come the helter-skelter activity of the rut. You have to get out there among the deer to gain this knowledge.
Calling and Rattling
The second half of October is arguably the best time of the year to use calling and rattling to bring in a buck. Testosterone is surging and bucks are on edge as the urges of the upcoming rut are beginning to run through their veins.
The success rates of using combinations of grunt calls and rattling antlers can be at its peak in late October. Bucks come running with more abandon than at any other time of the year. Find a good spot with lots of ground cover near a bedding area and do some calling sequences. Make sure you are set up where the buck can't see a long ways, but must come close to investigate the source of the sound.
Rattling and calling are at their most effective during the final week of October. Bucks are on edge and readily come to sounds that mimic interaction.The largest buck my son Ben shot with a bow was taken under these exact circumstances. We set up at the point of a wooded draw where it cut into an alfalfa field. At the bottom of the draw was a thick creek bottom; perfect bedding cover.
I put out a buck decoy and Ben concealed himself 20 yards downwind of the decoy while I rattled. Almost immediately, a buck came strutting up out of the bottom and challenged the decoy. Less than 10 minutes into the sequence, he had the 10-pointer on the ground.
Sign Success
By the last week in October, scrapes and rubs are a central part of the area deer's lives. This pre-rut period is the time of the year when scrapes are visited in the daylight and rubs are being worked often. I don't hunt sign just for sign's sake very much, but the last week in October is the one time when it's definitely worth the effort.
October is when the annual signpost rubs get a lot of attention. It's the time of the year when hunting sign is effective.When you've found an area all torn up with scrapes and rubs, the hunting can be good there both mornings and evenings. Set up downwind and use some good scent such as Trails End #307 or use a scrape dripper with Active Scrape lure in it. Spicing up the scrapes with good quality scent works very well during this time of the annual cycle. Many bucks will circle to wind-check the area from downwind so be sure you set up your stand accordingly.
If you can't find the scrapes and rubs in the right situation to set up a good ambush, create your own. Mock scrapes with fresh scent work just as well—sometimes better--than the real thing. Use a pocket knife to forge imitation rubs. The local bucks feel compelled to investigate.
So don't spend October on the recliner in anticipation of November. These five reasons should be incentive enough to get out there and tag a buck before the masses fill the woods.
I'm always surprised when I talk to someone who mostly runs their trail camerasjust before the deer season and into the season. I suppose not everyone is as addicted to the sport of running cameras as I am, but in addition to that, hunters who wait until the last minute to get their cameras working for them are missing out not only on a lot of great enjoyment, but also some good information that will pay off later on.
The enjoyment comes from watching the deer lazily biding their time through the summer and observing the amazing spectacle of nature that is the growth of antlers each year. The information comes in learning patterns and most importantly taking an inventory of the bucks on the properties you hunt. Knowing the potential of any property is a valuable part of deciding what areas you will hunt come fall and choosing which bucks will become your targets when the deer season rolls around.
There are four places I feel it's critical to keep cameras operating during the summer. I may not have cameras on all four of these on each property, but I will at some time during the summer be monitoring these for at least a couple weeks. I try to let the cameras sit for at least two weeks and some of the prime spots may have a camera on them all summer. Let's look at these four spots and examine why they are good as gold.
Water
While deer get most of their water from the plants they eat, they will consistently supplement that with any clean water that is available on the property. This may be a natural water hole, pond, stream or swamp. The ones that are easy to cover with a camera are the small ponds where you can set the lens to take in the entire pond. Bucks will use thede day and night if they are secluded in areas which give them a secure feeling.
Deer tracks around these ponds will tell you which ones are getting the most use. Deer tracks will also offer clues as to where the deer are drinking on larger waters. Banks will be stomped down where the deer go down to the water. Creek crossings are one of my favorites because you are monitoring both a trail and water simultaneously. Deer will loiter and take a drink at the creek whenever they cross, giving you ample opportunity to get good photos of them.
Minerals
I start my mineral sites in the spring as soon as the snow goes off, and the deer will hit them periodically all summer. Hunters, land managers and biologists will argue well into the night around a campfire about how much benefit the bucks' antlers receive as a result of the minerals, but one thing is for sure, they sure bring the bucks in front of your camera.
I don't mind a mineral with a goodly amount of salt content because the deer will stay at the site longer and the hole that develops as a result of their pawing and licking is also an attractor. A salt or mineral block can work just as well. Put them in spots where the deer feel comfortable during daylight hours and resist the temptation to check them too often. Keeping human scent intrusion to a minimum will ensure that the biggest mature bucks will visit often.
Food and Corn piles
Natural foods attract deer all summer and these food sources can be excellent places to put a camera. Problems come with this as most food sources are large and difficult to cover with a scouting camera. They may be using a large soybean, corn or alfalfa field for example. You can attempt to find the access points where the deer are entering the field but they are often so numerous that you'll be using too many cameras on each field.
I have found that it pays to use artificial food source whenever possible. A 50-pound bag of corn will last about week in most places with an average number of deer in the area. With high deer numbers it might take two. Most every deer will stop in for a bite or two of corn even when food is abundant. I have a source where I can buy 30-pound boxes of crushed peanuts really cheap and it works wonders but it also disappears much faster than corn and every bird and critter in the area will fill up your camera's SD card so it's a toss-up.
Bedding Areas
Many people are afraid to put a camera right in known bedding areas and there are good reasons to avoid doing so. However, there are a couple things we can do to minimize disturbing the deer to the point that they avoid the area. The first one is simply do not check the camera often and then check it right before or during a rain or at night. The rain will wash out your scent and checking the area at night allows you to sneak in and out when the deer our off feeding somewhere else.
Bucks like to bed right on the backside of a hilltop and putting a camera there can provide a lot of information about when they arrive and exit the area as well as how they tend to use various bedding areas in differing wind and weather conditions.The introduction of cell phone and wifi cameras has changed the game for those of us who like to put cameras right in the bedding areas. I have a Covert Blackhawk camera that uses Verizon towers and it only costs me $15 per month for up to 1000 photos. It will text or email me photos as it takes them. I can monitor it from an app on my smartphone so I don't need to go get it until the app shows that the batteries are dead, and that's usually several weeks.
I place this cell phone camera right in the areas I know the deer are bedding and it's amazing what I have learned from it, even during the middle of the summer. I can see what times deer are entering and exiting the area. I have also noticed that they tend to use certain bedding areas with variances in wind directions and weather conditions. A camera in the bedding area is one of the most educational tools I use in the summer for learning about the deer on the properties I hunt.
So don't wait until the cool evenings of fall get your hunting juices flowing to put those cameras out. Keep them out all summer and you will not only know much more about your deer, but you may also become addicted to the sport of scouting cameras like I am.
Whitetail hunters today face new challenges. As more and more states and provinces adopt extra-early openers, the October tactics we’re accustomed to employing just don’t seem to cut it for hunting late-summer bachelor groups.
The whitetail is one of the few animals with the ability to adapt and overcome any habitat obstacle it’s faced with. Meanwhile, we humans, as smart as we are, sometimes have a hard time adjusting tactics. We tend to overthink things sometimes, and more importantly, underthink the most obvious.
To be successful during these early days of deer season in places such as Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina and the whitetail areas of Wyoming, our game plan needs to change. Hunting a deep hardwood ridge in Tennessee the way you would during October might leave you scratching your head, wondering where the deer are.
GET THE EDGE
These late-summer bachelor groups are usually found on natural edges and are keyed in on the best food they can find. It could be a soybean field, an overgrown place with a lot of natural browse or a favorite clover food plot.
Most of us have a basic idea of whitetail behavior. We know they live in the woods and move at dawn and dusk, but that’s not enough. We must dig deeper to connect on these early-season bucks. Usually at this time of year they aren’t bedding far from food. High temperatures and an abundance of food and cover make this possible. They’ve been unpressured all summer and feel comfortable hitting these food sources with predictability.
Using trail cameras and good optics at this time of year can really help us key in on where we need to be for opening day. As with anything else, the more time spent in preparation, the better the odds of reward. And if we use our brains to think outside the box instead of giving animals human qualities, we can magnify our chances even more.
This time of year, a basic understanding of deer behavior certainly will help. However, if we use what our trail cameras and our own observations, tell us, we can start to get a more in-depth look at individual deer behavior. Generically classifying deer will only get us so far. Whitetails might not have personalities in a human sense, but they’re individuals. Only after realizing each buck is unique can we fully use his quirks to our advantage.
WHICH KIND OF BUCK IS HE?
There are three types of bucks we might encounter at this time of year. While every hunter’s situation will vary somewhat, our examples will involve a mineral site. Your situation might be a soybean field or clearcut, but the points will apply just as well with one as another. Just by using the info of our cameras, it’s easily apparent which type of deer we are dealing with. It just takes an understanding of which pattern to look for with each personality type.
THE SOCIAL BUTTERFLY
This type of mature buck hangs all summer with two or more others. These companions often will vary from bucks his own age all the way down the chart to those that have just passed their first birthdays.
Although this mature buck presents certain challenges, he’s the easiest type to kill in early season. The first reason is that you have his buddies’ inexperience on your side. Instead of holding tight to his bed the way Mother Nature has programmed him to, every afternoon he’s largely at the mercy of his younger, less wary companions.
As the sun gets low, these younger deer become impatient and start to stand and stretch. Before you know it, the youngsters start easing out of the bedding area, headed toward the mineral site. Behind them is an older buck that knows better but follows the pack anyway. Usually he’s bringing up the rear moments behind these young guys, leaning on them putting themselves in harm’s way if there’s any danger in the area.
The cons presented by this type of trophy deer are worth noting, though. First off, your scent-free game must be totally on point. You’ll more often than not have several other deer close to you before the oldest one steps out. With that many eyes and especially noses moving about, there’s no room for a scent or other mistake.
BEST BUDDIES
The next type of buck we see in late summer is one adhering to the “buddy” system, traveling with one other buck. Such deer have always intrigued me, as they often display interesting personality traits.
Buddy bucks are usually of the same age or only a year apart. They tend to do everything together — even rut. I’ve witnessed this on several occasions, even in November still finding them somewhat together. The bond between them must be treated with respect, because once it’s been unraveled, the result can be a mess from a hunting perspective.
Let’s say you have two buck tags and consider both of these bucks to be “shooters.” If you mainly want the larger of them, don’t take the lesser one first. Patience is key here; you must hold out for the one you really want.
If you remove one of these bucks, the other is immediately left in a vulnerable situation. He’ll immediately search out another buck with a similar personality, no matter how far away that might take him. Usually it will happen some distance away. Of all the big bucks I’ve seen use this system, I’ve never had one stay around after the loss of his buddy.
THE LONER
The hardest mature buck to hunt in late summer is the loner. Some deer just prefer to do their own thing on their own schedule, and that describes him perfectly.
Many factors come into play here. If you have a ton of does and fawns using your place all summer, it becomes a nursery. Old loner bucks don’t usually like to hang around that much other deer activity.
These old does are hard on the bucks this time of year. An aggressive doe will stand up on her rear legs, then use her front hooves to smack bucks away from mineral sites. These same nurseries become hotspots in November, but for early-season hunts so much overall deer activity can be bad. Our old loner buck always shows up by himself, and we often see him leave immediately whenever other deer approach.
What makes him so hard to kill is his genetic programming. We like to give deer human qualities and overthink the obvious. In doing so, we tell ourselves these bucks are super smart and only live in the wooliest of places. But this isn’t necessarily true — we’re just misidentifying what really is going on.
We see does with their fawns every day and at all times, so we assume they’re dumb to our game. This isn’t true at all; in reality, these old does are the smartest deer in the woods. We see the adult doe more because she must feed more regularly to produce adequate milk, as well as teach the two “parasites” that are sucking her dry where to find their own food.
The second deer we see in daylight with great regularity is the yearling buck. We see him often because it’s the first year he’s out on his own, and he’s still operating on his mom’s schedule. The 2 1/2-year-olds we see less often, and the 3 1/2s even less.
By the time a buck reaches 4 1/2, he’s physically mature. And if he has a loner personality, he’s decided he has no deer to take care of but himself. His urge to stay tight to cover until nightfall is strong. Not by using a human brain, but a small brain that’s programmed with only three basic instincts: eat, sleep and breed. And during late summer, the breeding part isn’t on his mind at all. He’s simply focused on survival.
For that reason, the loner is usually the hardest buck to kill in early season. Without the presence of any companions coaxing him onto his feet a little before dark, he generally won’t be in any hurry to head out of the bedding area. That means you’ll probably be left with only nighttime photos of a phantom.
These deer are killable. However, this is where a basic understanding of weather and moon phases comes into play. To kill this buck might take every trick you can think of.
Try to find a pattern. High-pressure, low-humidity days seem to put these deer on their feet earlier in the afternoon. So do cool, rainy days. But the pattern varies from deer to deer, so you’ll have to figure this out on your own. Every one of these loners is different, as their personalities would suggest. Cameras and careful observation often will reveal huntable patterns you can tap into.
IN CONCLUSION
Not every whitetailer bowhunts where the season opens during the velvet period. But if you do, remember these examples of what you might encounter in your summer scouting and early-season hunting.
As G.I. Joe always said, “Knowing is half the battle.” And that could never be truer than when dealing with specific bucks. For many bowhunters, the days of just “deer” hunting have changed to a focus on specific deer that are relatively mature. Learning your target animal’s personality type will greatly enhance your odds of taking him when the season starts.
The pursuit of waterfowl is always humbling. And Canada's prairie is a place we have spent many falls, chasing the first flights of the migration.
As a co-owner of Habitat Flats Central Prairie Lodges, Max Cochran has been afforded the privilege to spend the early season in Canada, scouting, guiding and dodging the occasional roadside moose — hey, everything is more wild in the Great White North — and he tapped us in to tackling Canada.
If you're considering a Canadian hunt (and you should be), there are a few things you need to know. Whether you go with an outfitter or want to DIY it, we'll get you headed in the right direction, so you can come home with a cooler full of birds'¦and memories.
1. Ruling out an outfitter: Whether you plan on a guided hunt or doing it yourself, understand what you value most in your hunt and what path will allow you to accomplish that. If you define success with full limits, oftentimes the outfitter is your best option with his local knowledge.
The good ones take great care of you and allow you to experience the wild with them. But do you're homework. There are plenty of lazy guides laying in wait to take your hard-earned money.
2. Lack of respect: Respect the people, culture, and way of life. Canada is its own country. Be worldly and polite and it will take you far. Don't argue with game wardens, farmers, customs agents or local authorities. It will get you nowhere, and you're making life difficult for the rest of us who want to continue hunting here.
3. Ignorance of the law: Don't rely on your know-it-all buddy or web chat fodder. Call a local official and get it right from the source. No different than in the U.S., each province has its own local and international laws.
4. Don't let your trip begin and end at Customs: There is nothing worse than spending the time, money, and effort for a Canadian adventure and getting stopped at customs without the right paperwork. They do not negotiate.
Research what you will need to gain entry into the country. Your passport, proper gun and ammo forms and authorization for your retriever (if you plan on bringing him) are just a few necessities. Canada has many different laws and regulations that may not allow certain people or items to come into the country.
5. Leave it as you found it: No matter the setting, pick up all your belongings, including shell casings and trash after the hunt. Not only is it the right thing to do, but if you ever want to hunt that spot again, clean it up. Leave a mess and that farmer is bound to tell everyone to turn you away.
6.Always keep the tank half full: You never know where your next fuel station might be in rural Canada. And if you plan to use a credit card make sure it has a pin number as some pay-at-the-pumps will lock your card in. If you don't have a pin it won't release the card, so you better hope the attendant is friendly.
7. Have an exit plan: Canada has very liberal limits, which is why many people come here. But just because you can kill 100 birds a day doesn't mean you can eat all of them.
Take possession limits into consideration, and have a responsible and legal plan to put your harvest to use. And remember, you cannot transport breasted out birds home, the wing must stay on and the birds must be properly tagged.
