Narrowing The Field

The fight started over dinner. My brother-in-law, Bobby, hunted the stand for eight straight days before he couldn't escape the office any longer. I hunted the property that day and took a buck in the 160s. Actually, now that I think about it, the fight may have started when Bobby got home and saw the buck hanging.

Bobby's problem was not his skill with a muzzleloader or lack of commitment. Bobby put in the time in the off season and scouted for weeks in advance. He, like so many other hunters, was doomed from the start due to his misguided focus before heading into the woods. Bobby based his strategy on what he saw--lots of deer. The problem was he wanted to shoot a mature buck, and those are always in short supply. The sign was there, but the strategy was flawed from the start.

There are two distinctly different bucks that walk the woods, immature bucks 3 ½ years and younger and mature bucks that have made it to at least 4 ½. More often than not, most of the articles and books you are likely to read will show you a picture of a big member of the latter, then tell you how to hunt the members of the former, younger group. Truly, mature bucks and younger bucks have little in common other than a few feeding areas.

Younger bucks are not hard to solve. Their patterns are more transparent; they will make mistakes much more often--rush into a field before sunset, run in at the first blast of a grunt call and if all else fails, they exist in greater numbers and thus your odds of running across one are good.

Picking A Buck
Several years ago I read a study on bucks that had been fitted with GPS collars and others with ear tags. The younger bucks wore the ear tags and the mature bucks the costly GPS collars. As was expected, the younger bucks were spotted with frequency. Over the course of the first three months, six different bucks were identified and patterned. All were identified by the plastic ear tag they wore. The surprise was in the mature bucks. After all, we had GPS tracking data on them. Of the nearly two dozen mature bucks, the data--for all but two of them--seemed completely random. After two years and several computer models showing GPS tracking data broken down into everything from one-day to two-week rotations, no patterns could be distinguished.

Worse than that, young bucks in a given area, from year to year, would follow similar patterns. Mature bucks on the other hand, seemed more than just random--they seemed hopelessly random. Each buck's pattern seemed linked more to the personality of the buck than the age.

Understanding this fact brings me to classify bucks by more than just gender, age or location. To hunt an older-class deer you have to study and unlock that one individual buck. That is where Bobby made his mistake and why I'm still not invited to my sister's for Thanksgiving…

Unlocking The Unlockable?
For years I have studied whitetails and harbored more than just a professional interest in how to demystify mature bucks. After more than two decades I know one thing for sure: Trying to understand women and how they think may have been an easier task than unlocking a mature buck. If I listed step by step how to hunt whitetails and you laid into a monster, you'd call me a genius. But those of you who didn't wouldn't think so. So here's the skinny: If you want to hunt mature whitetails, give it up. If you want to hunt "a" mature whitetail read on. As I have previously alluded, every mature buck is a species of his own and you have to treat him that way. You have to study that one particular buck and relearn him every year after failing to hang a tag on him. Long gone is the thinking "What would a buck be likely to do?" Your mindset must always be set to "What will this specific buck do?"

Common to all bucks is food. Big bucks know the area and know where the best food comes from. Protein-rich foods such as soybean, clover and alfalfa are all going to have a strong pull over the summer. During the summer, there is no hunting pressure and the bucks are more likely to pop out for a meal. This should be your starting point. You may never see him again, and almost certainly by the firearms season he will have changed areas or gone nocturnal.