Derrick | Whitetail Hunting

Whitetail Hunting: Not Seeing Any Bucks?

Question: This my first year on a new deer hunting lease. The habitat is great and I am sure it will be good hunting. Anyway, last week I put out two game cameras over two different deer feeders. After checking out the pics, I am only seeing does; large groups of does and no bucks at all. All of the other hunters on the lease who have cameras out are getting pictures of some very nice whitetail bucks. The land we hunt is basically the same with no notable difference and we are all throwing corn, so why am I not seeing any bucks at my feeders?

Answer: Stay calm. If you have does hanging around then you will have bucks. A lot of hunters think deer feeders are a cure all for deer hunting. Don’t think that you will shoot a good buck at a feeder, but think that you will attract does to your feeder and then the does will attract the good bucks. If you have the does, the bucks will surely come your way come the rut.

In the past, I’ve tried all kinds of deer scents, including doe in estrus and drag rags. The absolute best deer attractant of all of them is a whitetail doe in heat. So, if you say you have lots of does on the cameras, then relax and wait. You are in a good place. Now, it’s only a matter of time before they go into rut. Get in the stand around the rut and you will see all kinds of action. The bucks will be looking for does, and guess what? You’ve got them!

Deer Hunting in Kansas – How Does It Work?

Question: My father and I would like to go to Kansas whitetail deer hunting this year and we are wondering if you could give me the steps to take to get something planned or done for the upcoming hunting season? I have heard that alot of the farmers up there will let you hunt for next to nothing, but is this true? Any advise you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Answer: As non-residents you will have to put your name into the draw for Kansas deer hunts. If you have a place to hunt in Kansas that information will be required for your draw permit. Because that information is needed, you will need to find a farmer that will allow you to hunt before you apply for the permit.

Draw permits are over $300 this year plus about $75 for the non-resident hunting license. A large portion of the land in Kansas is leased by outfitters from the farmers. However, it is not impossible to find farmers that will allow you to deer hunt. I have known hunters that have met some of the locals that have allowed them to hunt deer.In areas where there are a lot of farmers and very few hunters, the deer will eat the crops and are a nuisance.

Also, there is a lot of public ground to hunt. Look at North Central to Northeast Kansas. Some walk in areas have really good looking country. Another tip would be to contact every chamber of commerce and every vistor site you can.

Whitetail Hunting: The Buck That Got Away

Reader Submitted on 10/3/09

I headed out bowhunting thinking that the cool weather might make for some great whitetail hunting. I had a 2.5 year old spike buck come in Saturday morning walking down a cross-fence on our property. He walked within bow range and shot at him at 18 yards. As luck would have it, I hit a wire on the fence and the arrow went straight up into the air!

At this point, I’m thinking, “Man, what’s the chances of that?” Well, the young buck calms back down and starting feeding on some protein pellets I had thrown out. He then gives me another shot, this time slightly quartering away and 30 yards out. The shot looked good, so I let one fly! Just before the arrow gets there, the spike jumps and it sticks him about half way back and high on the boy.

I watched him run across the pasture and into the woods along the creek, with my arrow sticking out of him. I knew it was not a great shot, so I gave him 2 hours and then me and my hunting buddies went looking. We found my arrow where the buck went into the creek and followed a blood trail for about 75 yards. The blood trail was pretty steady, but then it just stopped at the creek bed where he crossed.

We looked most of the day Saturday for that spike and never found anything. I have felt like crap the rest of the weekend just wondering whether he is still alive or not. I assumed it would happen sooner or later while whitetail hunting with a bow, but it sucks losing a buck. I just wonder if he will be able to shake it off or what.

Best Feeder Times for Whitetail Hunting

Question: I hunt in North Central Texas, what are the best feeder times to set for morning and and evening during the general (gun) deer hunting season? Thanks for your help in adance.

Answer: For most of Texas, a good rule of thumb would be to have your spin feeder run around 6:45 a.m. and about 3:30 p.m. Some hunters prefer a bit later in the morning and in the evening, but the times mentioned above have worked well for me in the past.

When a spin-feeder goes off, some deer wait for the noise of a feeder and then come right in. These are typically the younger and smaller deer, which many hunters are not looking to shoot, at least not right away. These early deer want to get there and grab a bit before the dominant, deer, bigger bucks kick them out. This is especially true later into the evening.

What are the best deer feeder times?

Automatic Deer Feeder Times by Location

In my opinion, selecting the ideal or best time for a deer feeder to run really does vary with feeder location. If a feeder is located in a wide-open field, then it needs to run very early in the morning and later in the afternoon. Deer are more apt to feed in open areas when the sun is low in the sky.

On the other hand, spin-feeders located within an adjacent woodlands are more likely to be used for longer periods of time during both the morning hunt as well as evening hunts. Deer prefer low-light situations, so I actually prefer to position the deer feeders I use in such a way to take advantage of shadows cast by trees.

For example, let’s say I have a woodline to the west of my stand. If I place Feeder A 5 yards off a woodline and Feeder B 50 yards off a woodline, which feeder will have deer first in the afternoon? Feeder A. First, it’s close to cover and, secondly, it’s going to be in the shade.

Shade is important because it helps to conceal the deer. Deer and other wild animals do not want to stick out like a sore thumb. Shade is also important, at least here in Texas, because sometimes it can still be quite warm in the afternoons during deer season. Feeding in the shade allows deer to remain cooler.

Best Automatic Deer Feeder Times for Hunting

Best Deer Feeder Times

In the example above, the best time for Feeder A to run would be just before the shade covers the feeder, probably around 4:30 p.m. or so. The best time for automatic deer Feeder B to run would be just before sunset, so probably 5:00-5:15 p.m. or thereabouts.

Hunters are using feeders to attract deer, but ideally they want to attract mature deer, specifically mature bucks. A feeder needs to run at the ideal time in the afternoon as to attract older bucks early enough in the evening, with enough daylight to see the antlers on their heads clearly.

If you can get the does to come in early in the afternoon then it’s only a matter of time before the older bucks come following closely behind, particularly during the rut. That is, if there are any mature bucks in the area.

Texas Deer Feeder Times?

Although most hunters will consider an evening time later than 3:30 p.m., you’ll be surprised at what you will see during the early afternoon, especially with proper feeder placement. Early feeder times are great in the morning, except that on a cloudy morning you may have the deer (especially if you have a high deer density) consuming most of the feed before you can see them very well.

Hunting a Deer Feeder

From my experience using deer feeders, the larger bucks tend to be visit very early in the morning early in the season, so the earlier your feeder can go off, the more likely you are to have larger bucks come in. Of course, they may finish eating before you can see well or can legally shoot.

To bring a buck a buck in early and hold him there, set your automatic feeder to feed for about twice as long in the morning than it does in the evening. Again, I like feeder times about 6:45 a.m. for a morning feed. Just make sure to get there well before the feeder runs, or you’ll end up blowing deer out of the area.

For the evening hunt, set the feeder to go off based on shade conditions at your feeder. Feeder times anywhere between 3:30 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. make sense. Bucks, especially mature bucks, can show up at any time, but are more prominent around feed sites during the last 45 minutes of daylight.

Minnesota’s Camp Ripley Produces Monster Buck

Camp Ripley produces another monster whitetail

When it comes to great whitetail hunting, Minnesota has a reputation for producing some great monster bucks. Although the current nontypical record is over 225 inches, resident Scott O’Konek did his best to threaten that record. And it sounds sad to to say he came up short, because he bagged one heck of a big buck, but his deer did not make the cut. However, I would have a smile a country mile wide if I had even seen this great deer, much less tagged it after putting a well-placed arrow through it.

Source: Scott O’Konek may have rewritten the Minnesota record books when he tagged this 32-point buck around 9 a.m. on Oct. 15, the first day of Camp Ripley’s annual two-day archery hunt. Bolstered by good mass and long brow tines, the big deer’s green score—conservatively measured at 228 nontypical—would be more than enough to dethrone the current state-record archery buck, ~~a 222 5/8 nontypical taken in 1992 by Gary Martin~~ a 226 3/8 nontypical taken in 2008 by Ben Spanjers. O’Konek’s deer weighed 192 lbs. field dressed, and the highly symmetrical rack netted 183 7/8 typical.

Deer Hunting Joke: Search for the MONSTER Buck

We used to deer hunt with a guy that always went way overboard with what ever he was doing, and whitetail hunting was no different. To make matters worse, this guy would talk non-stop about the huge bucks that he was hunting, yet he never killed anything. A good friend of mine had found a mule deer shed in Colorado with an astounding 34 inch main beam and a 16 inch tine and a 12 inch tine on it, so the idea was hatched.

A fellow hunter in our camp was very good at carving, so he carved us a huge deer track that was attached to a long pole. You can see where this is going. The footprint was an inch longer than any whitetail buck track that anyone has even seen. So we had the huge antler and the huge track, our deer hunting joke had legs (literally).

So the huge shed was left within 20 yards of his deer stand, and it took him several hunts in that stand before he even noticed it. I mean, really? Open your eyes, dude! To sweeten the pot, we made rubs on trees that were 18 to 20 inches in diameter and several scrapes that were 4 to 5 foot across. And, we of course lots of HUGE deer tracks.

This guy obsessively hunted what he called the world record 6 point the entire season before he received a tip on where his monster whitetail buck could be found. Needless to say, he got a lot of whitetail hunting in that year, and we got a lot of laughs. And he took it pretty good, too. That kept him quiet for a little while.

Whitetail Rutting Activity in Schleicher County

11/20/09

I went whitetail hunting North of Highway 190 between Menard and Christoval last weekend. I observed lots of really healthy deer, bucks and does. The area we hunt had a bluetongue epidemic about three to four years ago, so we still do not see as many 4.5 to 5.5 year old bucks as all the hunters would like. As other hunters I know have stated, the deer look great and it should be good year in Schleicher County. They received much more rain than a lot of the State, so there was abundant food. Antlers and body condition should be well above avergae.

I saw both mature and immature bucks all weekend, but never saw any rutting activity by the deer. I even used some doe in estrus scent just to see if I could get any reaction, but nothing. The mature bucks I saw completely ignored the hot scent and ignored the does themselves, too. The big bucks were still more interested in pushing the others away from the feeder and filling their bellies. Most years, the rut kicks off with the first major cold front in early November.

We will see what happens this year. A lot of things have gone good this year, so we can only hope for the best. If any of you guys hunt out here, drop a line so we can see how the hunting is going.

Where Have All the Bucks Gone?

Question: I have 13 different bucks on game camera on my property and have not been seeing any of these deer on our lease. In all, we have 900 acres with 8 guys whitetail hunting on it. I shot a nice 9 point first week in October with my bow, and opening day of the general season another guy shot a nice main frame 10 with 3 kickers. It was a nice buck, but those are the only 2 bucks that have been seen and killed by hunters on our lease.

I just had 2 new bucks show up on camera in the last week, but we just aren’t seeing them while hunting. Most of the photos are at night of course, but one buck showed up during the day time (on camera). I have tried grunting, rattling, can calls, but have had no luck.

We have 900 acres and the lease next to us has about 1,600. The one to our north has 500 and then there are several other lease properties with about 200 to 300 acres of food plots. Will we see any bucks?

Answer: If you’ve got bucks on camera, then they are around. Whitetail bucks can stay under the radar very well, but they lose their cool when the rut kicks off. When they start rutting, you will see those bucks moving around, as well as chasing does. I know it may be hard to believe that with all the different bucks you have on camera that you are not seeing them, but just give it time. The neighbors may have them using their food plots at night, too. However, the rut will mix things up. Just be ready when it happens, and hope your whitetail hunting turns out good.