Well I found in the way back of the property a heavy wooded area that is thick! It is about .5 acre total. Well a massive buck jumped out of there as I walked by it. This .5 acre is boarded by train tracks and a creek. I went in there and snooped around and yep, he lives there as his sign is heavy and everywhere.
I hung a stand right where the cow pasture and woods meet. From the stand I have a great and open view of the entire .5 acres. I can only hunt that stand with a south or southwest wind.
My question: should I hunt it am or pm? I am thinking am. It gets light at 6:30am. I am thinking if I am in the stand by 6 which is still pitch black I should be good. What do you guys think? Now that the peak rut is over he should stick around in this tiny but golden unpressured honey hole.
Im worried about pm being that I will jump him climbing into the stand. Am hunt I am betting on him not being home yet.
Help me out! I have never shot a buck larger than a basket and this guy is big!
just my thoughts.
Good luck.
Don't overhunt or overscout area......big rubs are pretty but don't screw it up with scouting /trail cams etc.Make sure you have a good steady wind also.Be patient and ride pine for most of the day
However,I would rather climb the tree and risk busting him out (far more likely he isn't there) in mid morning than to bust deer going in in the dark and not know what I spooked.Also your gonna get winded if your there before he is there.
Look at the terrain and openness and the probability of entrance into bedding during daylight hours....then place stand in a spot where entry/exit and wind is all to your advantage.
His entry is most likely different in early morning than mid morning....push your chips to mid morning at least for the remaining of the last trickle of rut behavior.......Hunt it no more than three times and want to till next year to scout again and reevaluate
You have to treat this spot as a travel corridor becasue it most likely is a doe bedding area and is why he there.To think he is coming back to bed there for a good nights rest in Nov is not what I'm thinking.He there becasue of the likelihood of a doe and he's killing two birds with one stone.
He could come through anytime don't make assumptions this is his primary bedding spot,they just aren't used that much in the rut
Good Luck
Hopefully when you were in his domain you located the beds. There is no way you will be able to hunt this area in the evening. He will be bedded just inside the brush with the wind at his back and will have eyes on the entire open area. Mature bucks don't just walk out into big open fields for no reason. He will also be bedded long before daylight. If you go in at 6:00 AM you will bump him and you won't even know it. He will be back in his bed long before daylight probably around 5:00 AM.
If you scouted well enough you should have located a few beds for each wind direction and exit/entry strategies. Your only real chance is to get in before him undetected and hunt him in his bed. He will be so in tune with that .5 acres that he will notice the most subtle change. And it's very likely he wont tolerate a 2nd intrusion.
If it was me I would be getting in there in the off season and create some really nice buck beds, set a few stands to take advantage of several winds, and you will have a crack at a giant 1 or 2 times a year.
The creek is l shaped if you look close you csn see how it wraps this honey hole.
He has lots of options to get in and out. Im hoping by being on the very outside edge of the woods is sufficient. But as you can see my options are super limited. Plus the property ends its thsi or cow pasture as the other lands in the pic are not this guys property
Every time, with the exception of once, I have gotten busted trying to beat the buck to his bed and wait for daybreak. He will come in and circle the area while it is still dark, picking up your scent and it's over before it is light enough to see. (The one exception was a buck bedding next to a "near cliff" and I was hard headed enough to climb down it to get in my stand.
In the afternoons however I can take my time and usually sneak to within 50 or 60 yards of a bedded buck easily and wait for him to move. I sometimes hear them when they get up and I will grunt once or twice and then just wait. I do grunt with my mouth as I have found grunt calls to be fake sounding to a buck and they will shy away from a call.
On occasion I have tied a small piece of flagging tape over the top of a bed or two so that I can spot the tape from a distance and then put on a stalk if I can spot the buck bedding with my bino's from a distance first.
I have such a buck bedding area pin-pointed now and will be giving a try at him soon. Note: They have other bed locations and will change them with the wind. Sounds like you have found a spot he frequents if it has a lot of rubs. Good Luck.
whatever makes you beleive the most,do that :)
Do one more thing....take the google map down of your spot,it may get leased next yr! :)
It would be great if you get a crack at him....but even if you don't, think of the fun that you will have in the offseason. Maybe hanging a second stand, raking trails, trimming a second or third entrance into the woods, etc.
If you had to guess, how old is the buck? if he is a three and a half year old buck, this might be a two or three year battle of wits!!
Are those tracks still used by a train or are they decommissioned? If they're not used, you could slap a ground blind right on the tracks and shoot him as he crosses. That'd also open up the southern side to a north or northeast wind. (Obviously you'd have to know this with a certainty for it to be safe, but it sounds like you know the area).
If the creek is too deep to wade, is it deep enough to float on a rubber raft? That could get you to a pretty good spot for a stand that would work for a east or north east wind. A raked spot from water to nearby tree could make it pretty quiet too. Does the creek flow north to south or south to north?
Does the property you have access to end at the tracks?
What's the deal with the property to the east? (Size, ownership, pressure, etc)
I am happy with where I hung my stand. Its a great tree in a great spot I just have to have luck on my side when going in and climbing into it.
Genisis, if you look on that map from further out you see really quick no one is begging to lease it....all agriculture. I put a ton of time in every year for obe deer let alone 2. The deer are their but very hard to hunt due to lack of big woods. Plus they are old farmers who could care less about money. I know them personally and both very well. The property east of this spot I dobt know much about except gun season which is now over had 4-5 trucks in the field. So it os hunted currently.
This buck is a 10 pointer. Probably 4.5 years old. I saw him twice this season chasing does. His body is so big it looked like he was chasing a tiny fawn when in fact she was a big mature doe.
All I could do is get in their and try....not gonna have a crack at him from my couch!
Whatever you do:
-make sure you can enter and exit without getting busted.... each and every time.
-your wind (including entering and exiting) never blows into his bedroom.
Looks like the great competitive arena has been set!
Good luck and keep us posted!
Mark
Armed with information I would try to pick the most opportune time to try and shoot him. Understanding that that I personally think the first set is the best time to kill.
I would pick my moments and not fall victim of over hunting on poor setups or days.
I will probably tuck into the east tree line along the tracks. Yeah I will keep you guys posted on what happens with these hunts.
Also, after the season, unless you want to try now, where that bridge goes over the crick can be unreal if there is room for the deer to pass. To verify, you could even walk the tracks and look down from above.
With the info you've given I would definitely go evening. In the am you can bust him (vice versa actually) and you will never know. Go in early pm when the wind is right and sit tight until dark. I like the 'wait for the train" to come in and out - that small an area and whatever noise you make (you will) will bust you otherwise.
If you're successful, with all this wonderful advice I'd say you pick the convention, the bar, and the time and buy the whole group a drink. Ignore the fact that half of it directly conflicts (am- pm etc) - one of us is right on the money.
Good luck and let us know either way.
Nothing so far and nothing has jumped out of there with me going in or going out.
Here are some pics from my stand.
Mark
Reminds me of a few bucks that I have seen and harvested during the rut in a highly-pressured area, huge and old. Often times they would show up out of the blue for a week or two and then disappear for a year or two. Never did figure out where they went but could almost always plan on them the first couple of weeks in November.
Often times it may take a year or two to get a deer like this, but he will return near the same time.
Good luck!
Are there any other "hide outs" in the area where he might move to .. maybe ... with in a few hundred yards of here?
Deer, even wise old bucks, like there home core area and normally wont be too far away.
I'm going out on a limb here ... hopefully others will chime in here on this idea.... In this situation, I might try something a little out of the ordinary here ... put some boot leather on the ground ... go to every place (that you have permission) within a few hundred yards and do a walk through - make it a pretty good walk through - spread your scent around a bit. If he did move on, you might just push back to 'YOUR" area OR you may be taking a big risk and push him out of the area completely. It's getting towards the end of the season - getting a bit radical ((((MIGHT)))) pay off - risky, heck yeah ... but if you haven't seen him during your past 3 sets ???
OR, as was previously mentioned, be a bit cautious / conservative - back out and use your binoculars to find his travel routes coming and going to this location.
Man A little dusting of snow would sure be nice right about now. :)
good luck "may your bow bend quiet and your arrow fly true".
I would suggest carrying a bow in case you cross paths and put the wind in your face on this scouting trip, but do it only once due to disturbance/scent concerns.
Good luck!
