Why Spooking Deer During The Rut Doesn't Matter

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I was devastated. This was the biggest whitetail buck I'd ever seen on the hoof. I had countless trail cam pics of him. They didn't do him justice. He was a brute—a breathtaking symbol of strength and power. He turned a cottonwood sapling into a toothpick in seconds. I grunted. The buck turned, whipped his tail, pinned his ears, and marched right at me.

I should have had a decoy. There was too much open space between the buck and me. Big bucks give up nothing, and he circled downwind. As good as my scent control was, the giant 12-pointer busted me just as I came to full draw. The savvy buck blew and whirled in one motion. He ran 100 yards, stopped, and stared. I was sick, so sick that I dropped my handheld release on my aluminum platform, causing the buck to snap his head up at me, blow again, and bound away.

I'd read the stories and watched the television shows. I'd never see that buck again. He'd go nocturnal or shift to the neighboring property, or both, right?

Two days later, minutes after arrowing a respectable 135-inch buck from the same treestand I'd had the encounter with the 191-inch giant, he walked right under me while I was giving the lung-shot buck I'd just hit a little time. Damn!

Four days after that, in a gnarled cottonwood less than 60 yards from the stand I spooked the Booner buck from, my buddy killed him.

Do we give white-tailed deer too much credit? Bucks four and older are sage, savvy creatures for sure. Still, I feel like we put these bucks on a pedestal, one where they can do no wrong, and on the rare occasion they do wrong and we don't capitalize on it, our story—for that season with that buck—ends.

I've learned that thinking is wrong. I've harvested whitetail deer in 21 states and chased them from September through January. Guess what? They're just animals.

They make mistakes, and they are far from perfect. Here's why it doesn't matter if you spook your target buck, especially during the rut.

Two States—Two Mishaps

My good friend, Tony Peterson, is a whitetail wizard. It was Peterson who inspired my love of whitetail hunting, and although we're the same age, he mentored me along my whitetail path.

Years ago, while hunting a private ranch in Texas, Peterson shot a respectable buck on a feeder. Feeders are legal in Texas, and due to the massive amount of mesquite, thick brush, and terrain void of waterways that funnel deer movement, feeders are the norm.

Peterson isn't a feeder fan, but he was there to hunt, and during his first evening, he shot a buck. The hit was bad—nonlethal, according to Peterson.

Peterson knew the drill. He drew blood, and lethal or not, that was his deer. All he could do was return to the same ground blind morning and evening and hope the buck would return. Two evenings after his errant arrow, the buck showed up. Tony could see the high chest hit, knew it was the buck, and put another arrow through his lower chest.

"That deer wasn't going to leave the county, let alone the ranch," Peterson said. "That buck grew up there. He'd probably been to that feeder since he was a fawn. Not even a sharp arrow just above the lungs was going to deter him from his food source. Plus, there were lots of does using that feeder."

Peterson had another experience, this time in Iowa on public dirt.

"I'd picked a spot on onX," Peterson said. "It was perfect—one of those spots that jump out at you on an aerial image. Walking in, I jumped a buck out of his bed. A few hours later, I shot the same buck only a few hundred yards from where I spooked him."

What Went Right?

Peterson stayed the course and righted the ship. The Texas buck came back, and Peterson put his carbon arrow where it needed to go.

In Iowa, Peterson stayed the course again. Sure, he jumped a nice public land buck, but Peterson is a public land whitetail warrior—one of the best there is. He knew there were other bucks in the area. The spot was too good to walk away from just because he spooked a deer. The location was so good that the buck he sent scrambling from its bed didn't want to leave it either.

What Went Wrong?

Bowhunting is hard. Tony hit a few inches higher than he wanted, and the deer ducked the string a bit, which made his shot even higher.

In Iowa, nothing went wrong. Peterson found a hotspot and jumped a solid public land buck on his way in. There was nothing he could do. Buck sign was everywhere. Bumping deer is part of the deal, especially when you're exploring public land you've never hunted before.

An Oklahoma Blunder

It was the perfect spot—a single, big elm in the middle of tall native grass with narrow hardwood strips on both sides. The timber was dense, and a wheatfield surrounded the island of trees and grass.

My only concern was the space between the tree and the downwind wheatfield. I had to give up something and based on my boots-on-the-ground data and aerial imaging via my HuntStand app, I wanted my scent blowing toward the back wheatfield.

That's precisely where the eight-point with a kicker off his right G-2 walked. He popped out of the timber on the only trail that connected the two timber blocks that went behind the tree and winded me. The date was November 16, and it was 1 p.m. At 4:45 p.m., the buck—the same buck—was dead.

What Went Right?

It was November 16. Many of the does in the area had been bred. That afternoon, I saw nine different bucks walk the edge of timber/wheat with their noses down. Two of those bucks chased does out of the timber and, from what I could tell, into the next county.

What Went Wrong?

Nothing. Hunting is hard. As much as you try to play the wind, deer are deer and rarely read the script. The buck got behind me and winded me.

Bucks were giving it their all. They knew the window to pass on their genetics was shrinking. After locking horns with another buck 789 yards from my tree stand, I rattled to the buck that won the fight—my buck. He walked at first. When he hit 400 yards and lost interest, I rattled again. He ran the rest of the way in, and I had to holler at him to stop him.

A Nebraska Brute

The buck was a magnet for trail cameras. He regularly showed up on one that required deer to jump a fence or walk through an open gate to connect to an open pasture off a small creek. We sweetened the pot by adding a rubbing post and mock scrape during the late summer.

The big five-year-old (we had trail cam pics) was the first buck I saw on the afternoon of November 1. Everything was going perfectly until a pair of bedded coyotes boiled out of a small cedar patch as he moved toward me. The coyotes ran one way, my buck the other. Three days later, disgusted and distracted—thinking about what went wrong and how I got screwed—I looked up to see the buck standing 40 yards away. I shot and missed. Stay locked in, everyone! It sounds clichéd, but your luck can change in an instant. However, if you're not ready to make your luck when a buck slips up, that's on you. This one was on me.

A year, almost to the day later, I killed that buck after he went through the fence gap.

What Went Right?

It was early November, and big bucks were up looking for does. It was my first sit in the Gate Stand of the year; first sits are typically the best. The wind was perfect, the moon was rising, and the barometric pressure was over 30.00". It was a deer evening.

What Went Wrong?

Nature won. Coyotes and deer don't mix. At 5 1/2 years old, I'm guessing that buck had seen no less than 100 coyotes in his life. He could've been chased by them when he was young. Maybe he was a twin and watched his brother get his guts ripped out by a pack of summertime song dogs. Who knows. Deer experience negative things every single day, just like we do. And just like us, deer don't stop living because something "bad" happened.

I was pouting like an eight-year-old brat who didn't get his Red Rider for Christmas, got a second chance, and botched it. It only took the buck two days after the coyote encounter to come back through the fence crossing.

A True 200"

Even big deer get dumb. In 2023, my buddy Danny Farris stumbled on an Iowa giant he had no idea was living on the small farm he was hunting.

"It was our first night there," said Farris, "and my cameraman and I just decided to go do a lockdown set in the pasture behind my buddy's house."

Farris has an excellent whitetail ground game. He uses a Dave Smith Posturing Buck Decoy and then tucks back into the brush 15 to 20 yards from the lifesize imposter. Farris adds a bow-mounted doe decoy from Ultimate Predator Gear. To a passer-by buck, the scene looks like a buck has a doe locked down.

"Some does popped out of a creek, and this giant was on their heels. The problem was the does got too close to us and blew the whole thing up. I figured that was it; that we'd never see the buck again." (Farris was wrong).

Five days later, he decoyed the buck in again. This time he was alone but stayed on the backside of the 3-D buck decoy at 25 yards and ripped up a tree for an hour before it got too dark to shoot.

"The third encounter was the best," Farris said. "I had him dead. I'd punched my tag and already had him in the truck. That's when I triggered my release due to the heavy clothing I was wearing before I was ready, and I missed the biggest buck of my life. That buck was a giant, and he fell for the same setup three separate times.

What Went Right?

The power of the rut is strong. Farris and his cameraman kept going. The buck fell for the same decoy set, which is an unconventional whitetail tactic that I recommend every bowhunter try three separate times.

What Went Wrong?

The girls screwed it up the first time, and the second darkness came before Farris could get a shot. The third time, Farris admits to not practicing in his cold-weather gear. As he tried to acquire his anchor point, he punched the release.

Final Thoughts

The rut is amazing. Bucks have a month to breed girls. That's it. Deer don't mate for pleasure; they mate to ensure the survival of the species, and females only come into estrus for a short window. During that window, bucks get dumb. If something negative happens, don't fret. Keep hunting, and good things will happen.

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