By Mike Hanback, Field Editor

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tactics&technique theten New Buck ommandments When you hunt whitetails for 70 to 80 days a season like I do, you find out a lot about the deer, and yourself.

1 tactics&technique theten New Buck ommandments When you hunt whitetails for 70 to 80 days a season like I do, you find out a lot about the deer, and yourself. One big thing I ve learned the last few years is that I didn t know as much about the habits and hunting of mature bucks as I thought I did. That revelation has been humbling, but good, because it has forced me to change some of my ways, and tweak some of my other strategies. Use my new rules to upgrade your game and shoot a big deer this fall By Mike Hanback, Field Editor Command Play the Terrain Speaking of hot sign, well, it II can be a curse. One of the biggest mistakes I used to make was to find a mother lode of rubs and scrapes, rush in and hang a treestand based on the sign. (Sound familiar?) Sometimes it works out, most of the time it doesn t. Why? Because a ridge or bottom spot where bucks lay down a ton of spoor, especially scrapes, is where they are apt to appear after shooting light. Something Pennsylvania biologist Kip Adams told me stuck: Why sit and watch scrapes where a 10-pointer is likely to show up at night? Why not watch a heavy trail or edge of cover 100 yards off the scrapes, where you might catch him moving in first or last light. Another of the nation s top biologists, Mick Hellickson, has done extensive trail-camera research on land in Iowa. He said, We have 10 camera sites where we photograph an average of 10 different mature bucks each year. Sign aside, common habitat features for those bucks are proximity to security cover and any terrain that bottlenecks buck movement. Man, use that science. Find a hub of hot sign and scout out from it for 50 to 200 yards. Hone in on thick edges and pockets, and trails that run along or through them. Look for creek crossings and bends, ditches and ridge points that funnel deer to and from a sign-blazed ridge or bottom. Hang stands near that terrain to see and shoot more 10-pointers. Go back to the first commandment and notice that while the spot Steve and I hunted was ripped with sign, our stand overlooked the grass funnel 100 yards between the bedding trees and the feed. We hunted the terrain and the sign to kill those P&Y bucks, and that is how you do it. III Get a Visual I rolled into camp in Saskatchewan last November to find my guide, Sheldon, grinning like a Cheshire cat. You that glad to see me? I asked. Not really, but I do have something cool to show ya, he said. He fired up his laptop and I gawked at the slide show of the 170-class buck that had just moved into the area I d hunt. If I saw him I d know it; the giant had 8-inch brows! It was minus 10 the next morning, but I hung tough. At 1:36 p.m. Daggers stepped out 20 yards from Sheldon s Cuddeback, and I nailed him with my Remington 7mm Ultra Mag. Trail cameras have changed the face of big-buck hunting. Recently I have blogged about dozens of 170- to 200- inch monsters that hunters have killed Photos: DusanSmetana.com 60 American Hunter August 2009

2 American Hunter August

Photo: Mark Kayser Photo: Russell A. Graves across America. At least 60 percent of the time, those guys had gotten two, five or dozens of cam pictures of the bucks before they shot them.

As soon as you get a picture of a shooter, move in with a stand and hunt him. You need to kick it old-school, too, and glass, glass, glass your hunt area as many days as you can.

3 Photo: Mark Kayser Photo: Russell A. Graves across America. At least 60 percent of the time, those guys had gotten two, five or dozens of cam pictures of the bucks before they shot them. Get one or two cams (the new digital models are relatively inexpensive and easy to use) and set them out before the season. Move them around and keep them running in the rut. As soon as you get a picture of a shooter, move in with a stand and hunt him. You need to kick it old-school, too, and glass, glass, glass your hunt area as many days as you can. Work your binocular and maybe a spotter at both dusk and dawn, before and during the season. You can never look too much. Same premise: If you glass a giant working a ridge or creek edge a couple of days in a row, move in. If you can see him and snap a cam picture of him, your odds really soar. IV Find a Big Deer s Home Range You glass a 4½-year-old brute, find his big rubs, get some cam images chances are he will live right there all season, so hunt right there all season. Years ago I thought in terms of a thousand acres or more for a buck s range. I d spread stands all over creation in hopes of catching a 150-incher in his travels. I believe I was handicapping myself. Now I ve shrunk my strategy and think hundreds of core-area acres. A lot of modern science backs this up. The latest research I ve read is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They studied the traveling behaviors of 173 radio-collared deer in the southcentral part of the state. They (bucks) are using small home ranges and not traveling long distances, the report said. There s more. Scientist Mick Hellickson told me, Our telemetry studies show that bucks range less as they increase in age, and their summer and fall/winter core areas overlap more. So the older (and generally bigger-racked) 62 American Hunter August 2009

the buck, the smaller the area you need to hunt.

Think I ll give it a shot, I replied. I shot the 150-incher two hours after sunup from a tower stand.

Grant Woods, who says that more feed and the better the diversity of it on a property, the better the hunting will be.

4 the buck, the smaller the area you need to hunt. I showed up in an Oklahoma camp last fall and my buddy Kenny said, We were seeing an 11-pointer in a small pasture for weeks, but we haven t seen him for a while, what do you think? Think I ll give it a shot, I replied. I shot the 150-incher two hours after sunup from a tower stand. Bonus lesson: If you find a big boy but lose him for a few days or even weeks, don t panic, he s likely still around. V Pinpoint What Deer Eat That s a favorite talking point of biologist Dr. Grant Woods, who says that more feed and the better the diversity of it on a property, the better the hunting will be. Further, you ought to pinpoint what the deer are eating right now, and he has a radical strategy for doing that. Whenever you or a buddy shoot a doe or a buck, stir around in the guts and check its stomach. Let s say you find alfalfa or corn in the deer s mouth and/or esophagus; obviously it was eating that just before it was shot. But dig deeper. Say you find honeysuckle or acorns lower in its stomach; the deer was staging and eating greens or nuts before it reached the crop. Think back to your scouting, check your aerials, look for that minor food source and set a stand to ambush a buck on the same bed-to-feed pattern. That s hardcore advice. Used to be I d hunt food sources in the early season, but when the rut and gun season hit, I d key more on rubs and scrapes and thickets deep in the woods. Not so much now. Wherever and whenever I m hunting, I try to check a dead deer s stomach. Then I look for terrain funnels with good sign near the grub, and set up there. Think all food all the time. VI Buck Triggers Four things in this Understand the Four order food, the rut, cool weather and the moon get mature bucks up and moving. We ve already talked about the importance of feed. The other factors are linked, and here are some observations. Bucks start their major scraping around October 20 in most of the whitetail s home range, and the breeding season runs for roughly the next six weeks. I ve found seven days within the rut to be prime (more on that later) but the truth is, you re apt to see a shooter on his hooves anytime during this sixweek period because the smell of a hot doe(s) in his core area will get him up. The cooler the weather in the rut, the better. Deer move especially well the two or three high-pressure days after a cold front blows through and drops the temperature 20 to 30 degrees or more. They almost always move better after a front than before it. I ve tried all the moon theories and I m conflicted, as you probably are. Just when I think the rutting moon or the rising/setting moon has some merit, I won t see a good buck for a week when the moon conditions are perfect. This has happened so many times that I have now moved the moon way down my depth chart. I still check it, but I hardly ever plan a hunt around it. Interestingly, I ve found that some old advice is still the best. When the moon is dark, you ll see more shooters at dawn or dusk. When it s full in late October or November, some giants will surprise you in the middle of the day, like the 163-inch muzzleloader giant I smoked in Canada two years ago at 2:22 p.m. on October 27. VII Think Small If you or maybe a rich uncle owns a huge farm or ranch with lots of big deer, more power to you. But if you re like many hunters, you ve been sharing a so-so property with other guys the last few years. It s time for a fresh start and some new ground, and it doesn t have to be a lot. Two hundred acres or less of mixed hardwoods, brush, fields and Photo: Mark Kayser Photo: Robert Franz American Hunter August

Photo: Michael H. Francis 64 American Hunter August 2009 creeks will do. Out in the country or in the suburbs, a block like that is apt to hold more than one big buck. The key is sole access.

If you re smart and stand hunt (not too much stomping around the small joint) you ll see bucks in bow season. It will get really good later when the rut cranks and the guns boom on neighboring lands.

5 Photo: Michael H. Francis 64 American Hunter August 2009 creeks will do. Out in the country or in the suburbs, a block like that is apt to hold more than one big buck. The key is sole access. If you and a buddy can get it (or lease it) you ll have control. You can hunt when and where you please without bumping into other people. If you re smart and stand hunt (not too much stomping around the small joint) you ll see bucks in bow season. It will get really good later when the rut cranks and the guns boom on neighboring lands. A hog 8- or 10-pointer might run under your stand any day. Did you catch my blog post at about the 190-class giant Ohio bowhunter Scott Burton shot in the 5-acre wood behind his house last fall? You ll probably want to hunt a few more acres than that, but you get my drift. VIII Beat the Pressure If you continue to hunt a property (maybe public land?) with other people remember this: Their pressure changes everything, especially in gun season. You ll see some does and young bucks, but the mature bucks will seem to go underground. To have a shot at one, work around the habits and movements of the other hunters. Dr. Woods turned me onto some mapping and geographic-analysis studies he conducted on several properties. These lands had fantastic deer habitat and quite a few hunters. In every case, Grant s data showed that the hunters set their stands or blinds within a quarter-mile or so of logging roads, crop fields and similar easy-access areas. The other 90 percent of the land became a sanctuary where a lot of the old bucks went to hide out. Get an aerial photo of your land. Mark in red spots where guys park their trucks and hike or drive four-wheelers. If you see a treestand or shooting house, mark it. Then avoid those spots. Check your map for thick-cover, overlooked buck holes a half-mile or farther from the pressure points. Scout them for fresh sign, like a few big tracks and rubs. Look for terrain funnels like we talked about earlier. Check for thickets of honeysuckle and other greens where bucks will browse before moving out to major feed at night. It takes work and smarts to find and hunt the holes, but it s worth it. A case in point: Last October Kansas bowhunter Nick White found a thicket about 150 yards from a landowner s house and barn, a little spot that nobody hunted. He hung a stand and drilled a 200-class giant that had been eluding him and other hunters for three years. IX Hunt November 6-12 I did some research one time and found that 15 Boone and Crockett Club-caliber bucks were killed in America on November 8, 2003, by far the most of any day that fall. I have used that as a target date ever since, and boy has it paid off. Hunting from November 6 to 12, I have routinely seen giants on the prowl, and my buddies and I have shot a few of them. Other guys have, too. I have blogged and written about dozens of 180-inch-plus titans that have hit the ground during these seven Photo: Mark Kayser

Most does will pop into estrus any day, if they re not in already. The horny big boys lug around in a daze after the gals; you mi

6 days the last few years, particularly in the Midwest. Last November 12 a guy killed a 180-class drop-tine 30 miles from my house in Virginia. I ll profile that monster in an upcoming issue of American Hunter. Why so good? It s peak rut, baby, and we don t need any scientific data to back that up! Most does will pop into estrus any day, if they re not in already. The horny big boys lug around in a daze after the gals; you might whack one at dawn or dusk or 11 a.m or 2:38 p.m. Some big deer walk in daylight for only a few days each fall; these are the days for some of those giants. Start planning your vacation! X Take Him When You Can A 160-incher slipped away in Nebraska 170-inch giant flagged off in Texas last January. There has been more misery, much more. One of the hardest lessons the old bucks have taught me is how dang easy it is for one to get away if you dally in his presence. You gotta be confident and shoot a big deer as soon as you can. It s a fine line between making a good, quick shot and jumping the gun (or the bow) and taking a poor, unethical one. If a 190-incher stops 20 yards below your bow stand, quartering hard toward you, pass; the second he turns broadside and shows two lungs, you drive an arrow through his ribs. If a 10-pointer trots through the trees 100 yards out you hold fire; the instant he stops in the oaks with his shoulder poked out, you drop him with a bullet. The more nerve-racking buck encounters you have the better you will get at it, but here s the main thing: The second you see a shooter, don t look at the rack again. Coil your body into shooting position and get your bow or gun up. Look for holes and lanes in front of where the deer is moving focus, anticipate and react. The instant his heart/lung vitals pop into an opening, in range and not moving fast, take him. Etch Commandment X in stone and have an amazing season. ah Photo: Donald M. Jones Photo: DusanSmetana.com American Hunter August

C h a r l e s a l s h e i m e r. Mathews Bowhunting Whitetails. MathewsInc.Com

C h a r l e s a l s h e i m e r Mathews Bowhunting Whitetails b y D a n i e l e. s c h m i d t Deer hunting is a unique sport. It s a pastime that most us daydream about all year, then enjoy for a few