The November sun shined brightly down, lighting up the forest around me with its bright, warming beams.
I’d been up since 5 a.m. and was barely awake, my head nodding, eyelids heavy. Years previous, I’d have been back at camp taking a nap or talking to the other hunters, but experience had shown the hours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to be prime during the first week of November when the bucks begin seriously searching for hot does.
The year before, a big buck with a huge track had torn the sapling holding my scent bomb up by the roots while I was eating lunch. Never again would I move from my stand during the middle of the day; I’d learned my lesson.
As I stared around, glassy eyed and groggy, a flicker of motion and a brief bright flash of light caught my eye. What was that?
I raised the binoculars and, suddenly, was wide awake. A buck was sniffing my doe scent estrus trail and the occasional flash of light was the sun reflecting off his antlers. It was 1 p.m.
The buck, head down, was following the trail straight at me. I raised the crossbow, heart thudding loudly against my ribs.
The buck then turned and moved sharply left, facing away, off the trail. Why had he done that?
He fussed around, then turned again, walking at me and paralleling the scent trail. At 15 yards, I grunted and shot. The nice eight-point fell only 70 yards away.
Archery hunting is rushing upon us and will be here before you can say, “It’s this weekend?”
Time is flying by. Hurry, get the bow out, dust it off and begin shooting.
Your arrows need to be carefully examined for cracks or loose fletching, your bow may need adjusted; there may be other details you somehow never quite got around to fixing, nocking point, new string, arrow rest or sight. Your broadheads may need to be replaced or sharpened and the release is not the model you really want after seeing your buddy’s newest release or the latest TV commercial.
Preparing is never simple it seems, and now with archery season days away, it’s too late to procrastinate.
One of the best ways to become a more proficient shot is to spend the majority of your time shooting at 50 yards. At that distance, every little error or mistake is magnified and becomes glaringly apparent.
Your hold, release and follow through must be near perfect or your shot flies far off, sometimes alarmingly so. Once you can consistently hit a paper plate at 50 yards, shooting at 30 yards seems like child’s play, and you’ll be amazed how well and how tightly you can place your arrows.
Hopefully, you have been checking your trail cameras and have some idea what the bucks are doing on your property or hunting location. If not, knowing where the bucks generally place their scraps and run lines is a good start; if bucks are frequenting the area, the scraps and rubs will be there, too, generally not that far from the previous years.
Don’t be afraid to ask around — many people who don’t hunt are free with information about the deer they’ve seen, where and when. Apple trees, acorns, corn fields, hayfields with clover and other food sources always attract deer, as well, and the large bachelor groups of bucks are already breaking up into small individual groups, the dominant animals singular.
At the beginning of the season, patterning a buck moving to a nightly food source is a great way to fill your tag. This pattern usually only lasts a week at most, so get right on it. After that, the majority of bucks break from their previous summer feeding patterns as a rule, and their movements become unpredictable.
If you are fortunate enough to have a great stand location, one that the bucks cruise through searching for does, be sure not to hunt from it at all during October. Wait until the rut truly kicks in.
This day light movement usually begins in earnest the first week of November. Big bucks can be paranoid and simply hunting that stand early on may alert him to your presence.
Leaving any sign on the way in or at your stand even once pre-rut greatly lowers your chances of shooting a trophy animal. Nothing escapes a monster buck’s attention and just one nose full of your lovely body odor may keep them from moving by your location during shooting time the rest of the season.
My most productive stand allows me to walk up a small stream for 400 yards. This completely cleans my boots, leaving no scent trail at all either in and out. It works.
So, hunters: Practice, practice, practice and become an expert and disciplined shot. Try to get a handle on the habits of the bucks you’re chasing, the does they’re after and the travel corridors bucks frequent when searching for love.
Get as high as possible, remain scent free and stay in your stand all day during the first two or three weeks of November. Remember that the middle of the day is a prime time for searching bucks; don’t leave your stand for lunch.
If you do all these things well, and Lady Luck’s on your side, success may be just around the corner.
