“Tag: rut”

Not all of the hottest whitetail action takes place in November. In several places across the whitetail's southern range, the best rut hunts fall in January.

When the rut is in full swing and the bucks are moving that doesn't mean it's time to sit in your stand and passively wait. Use these tips to help you get aggressive with bucks this season.

Maybe you have a sure-thing rut stand, a place of your own where pleasant memories of big bucks tagged play in your head like a deer-hunting show marathon. Good for you. Now go away; this is for the rest of us who must constantly scout, look for new properties and put in the time for our dream bucks.

During the rut, the bucks themselves may not always know where they will be next, so how can you expect to know? Luck will always play a role in your success, but when you play the odds and focus on those things that are predictable, luck will find you a whole lot sooner.

Again and again, GPS-collar movement studies of whitetails find that mature bucks are individuals. There are types, sure. Just as some middle-aged men are homebodies and others like to be out and about, there are categories we can put bucks in—but that really doesn’t help you decipher the specific pattern of an individual deer.

Here’s a week-by-week guide to staying in step with the rut this month to up your odds of tagging the buck you want.

To have the best chance at seeing a buck, you must stay in step with the rut's three basic phases when choosing where to place your stands and which days to hunt them.