“nocturnal”

Did this happen to you this past hunting season? Before opening day you found a really good buck using your trail cameras, so you set stands, were all a-twitter—then never saw him again all season. Did you think you did something wrong, and forced him to go nocturnal? Maybe—but probably not.

We all know mature whitetail bucks can be elusive, even nocturnal, but when you track them just after the season you find how simply neurotic they can be.

This is the deer hunter’s calculation. You ask yourself if there are low-impact entry and exit routes that will take you to and from a stand. Can you get a true wind in/near the buck’s likely bedding area? If you’re bowhunting, will you have to cut shooting lanes? Can you afford to risk making this buck even more nocturnal in October?

As a blogger/editor/writer for the fine publications of the NRA, I often field and answer questions from deer hunters. These queries, like the hunters that ask them, come in all shapes and sizes.

Wildlife Research Center has introduced the Active-Branch Mock Scrape Kit, allowing users to create an attractive mock scrape and interaction branch set up wherever desired.

Trail cameras and other innovations have made patterning a buck easier than ever.

For Field Editor Bill Winke, patterning (or the attempt to pattern) is the most enjoyable part of the season.

It took the author a decade to learn these lessons about when, where and how to hunt and kill big bucks. Some of them may not be big news, but any number of them should reveal something for anyone.