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John's Journal... Entry 177, Day 4

HUNT RUTTING BUCKS NOW

Midwestern Bad-Weather Buck Techniques for the Rut

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hunters have chased them, shot at them, cussed them, spooked and aggravated them all season long. But the biggest, the oldest and the smartest bucks on any property you hunt have managed to survive until the end of the season. These large, older bucks write the textbooks young bucks study to survive. Some of the nation's best hunters employ strategies that will take these end-of-the-season rutting bucks each year. These masters of the hunt tell us their tactics for bagging late-season bucks.

A master woodsman, Brad Harris directs the public-relations program for Outland Sports in Neosho, Missouri. Each year in his home state of Missouri, Harris looks forward to end-of-the-season hunts because he knows where the trophy bucks will stay.

"At the end of our season, the rut also ends," Harris says. "We don't have the advantage some states do in hunting scrapes where does congregate to find trophy bucks. Taking a trophy buck here often proves difficult during that time."

Like most of the other late-season, trophy-buck masters, Harris plans all year for his end-of-the-season hunt. He starts immediately after the season ends the previous year.

"I walk into thick-cover areas and jump bucks out of those spots to learn where the trophy bucks have remained all season," Harris explains. "I also religiously hunt sheds after the season, because shed antlers will tell me if I'll have a trophy buck to hunt the next season and where I can expect to find him."

But Harris doesn't stop his scouting program for trophy bucks just after the season. During the summer months when the deer sport velvet antlers, he once again deliberately goes into thickets to spook trophy bucks and to learn where they live. Also prior to the beginning of hunting season, Harris hangs tree stands in thick-cover bedding areas. But he doesn't go to these stands until the very end of deer season.

"Also, you must choose the best day to take a rutting buck in thick cover at the end of the season," Harris emphasizes. "I wait until I hear a howling wind or see rain pouring down to hunt these bedding sites. Since the buck already knows what a hunter sounds and smells like, I use the wind and the rain to blow my scent out of the region and to cover the sounds I make as I approach my stand. If bad weather takes away the buck's ability to smell and hear me, the wind moving through the thick cover also masks the deer's ability to see me. By using the elements of nature, I'll enter an area I've never hunted before without spooking a deer, and I can hunt that spot undetected."

Missouri's sub-zero temperatures toward the end of the season also give Harris another advantage. Most hunters don't want to sit in a tree stand during those bitter-cold days to wait for a buck to appear, especially if they have to contend with a plunging wind-chill factor or rain that makes hunting conditions even more miserable.

TOMORROW: MORE ON MIDWESTERN BAD-WEATHER BUCK TECHNIQUES

 

 

Check back each day this week for more about HUNT RUTTING BUCKS NOW ...

Day 1 - Hunt Rutting Bucks Now
Day 2 - Middle State Strategies That Will Pay Deer Dividends
Day 3 - Southern Techniques for the Rut
Day 4 - Midwestern Bad-Weather Buck Techniques for the Rut
Day 5 - More on Midwestern Bad-Weather Buck Techniques


John's Journal