John's Journal...

Big White-Tailed Bucks by the Bushel at Oklahoma’s Rut-n-Strut

Lots of Big Bucks

Click to enlargeEditor’s Note: I’ve rarely ever hunted a place where all 8 people on a 5-day hunt either have taken nice deer or missed nice deer. However, on my recent trip to Rut-n-Strut in Sayre, Oklahoma, with outfitter Todd Rogers, that’s exactly what happened. This week, we’ll give you some of the highlights of the hunt and show you photos of deer taken on the hunt.

Except for the Hunter’s Specialties Boiler Room Ground Blind and the brush put up aClick to enlargeround the cattle pen, I would have felt as naked as a baby on his birthday. Oklahoma has very-few trees, and the wind sweeps across the plain. Even though I’d brought a Hunter Safety System tree-stand harness to use in a tree stand, I didn’t see any trees big enough to put a stand in. The whitetails in Kansas have plenty of open spaces to roam, and what little bit of cover the deerhave, they use primarily for bedding. Seeing deer and picking out individual deer to hunt is much easier in Oklahoma than in my home state of Alabama, which primarily consists of heavily-forested lands with plenty of underbrush like blackberry, smilex and sedge and swamplands. All of this growth makes seeing a deer more than 50-yards away at a glance a real chore.

I’d hunted in this part of the United States before, and the terrain was pretty much the same throughout. Therefore, if you knew where the deer were feeding (on this hunt, in a field of alfalfa) and you had identified where the deer were bedding (during this week, small draws that had waist-high brush), you could scout easily and effectively and use ground blinds to take these deer. Click to enlarge

Todd Rogers of Rut-n-Strut Guide Service is on the 24,000 acres that he hunts every day, checking oil wells. Rogers can inventory his deer herd and determine their movement patterns at the same time. Since he also regulates the hunting pressure on his land, he can make very-accurate judgment calls as to where certain deer probably should appear each time you hunt. So even though I was sitting on a knob out in Click to enlargeopen country, I had every reason to believe that my chances for taking a nice buck were better there than any place I might find. I realized I couldn’t beat landowner input in a scouting program. If a landowner who is on the land all day, everyday doesn’t know where his bucks are, or how they’re moving, the chances of your learning that information in a 3- or 4-day hunt are remote.

The morning was a little chilly. At daylight, right out in front of me I saw 20 or 30 deer coming over a small hill and headed straight for me. I hadn’t been on the stand an hour, and I couldn’t believe this parade of whitetails. In the middle of the herd was a 6 point that would score about 100 points on the Boone and Crockett scale and a 10 pointer that would score between 136 and 138 B&C. Although I knew that Rogers had bigger deer on his place than either of these two, the 10 point was a big, mature buck. Should I let him pass, or should I take him? Tomorrow I’ll tell you what I decided and why.

For more information about Hunter’s Specialties top-quality products, go to www.hunterspec.com or call (319) 395-0321.

To hunt deer, turkeys, quails, doves or predators with Todd Rogers of Rut-n-Strut, call (580) 799-1920 or (580) 225-6831, or email trogers@itlnet.net.

 

Tomorrow: How and Why I Chose My Buck


Check back each day this week for more about "Big White-Tailed Bucks by the Bushel at Oklahoma’s Rut-n-Strut"

Day 1: Lots of Big Bucks
Day 2: How and Why I Chose My Buck
Day 3: A Gun for All Seasons – the Thompson/Center Encore Endeavor
Day 4: Another Hunter’s Success
Day 5: More Bucks and More Stories

 

Entry 482, Day 1