does. The trick is to determine where that buck(s) will be opening morning. Scrapes and scrape lines that are freshened as a buck leaves a morning feeding area (the ground clutter will be tossed backwards towards the feeding zone), and rub lines that connect one doe bedding area with another are good places to be at first light.
If the gun season coincides with the peak of the rut, you will most likely want to key in on places does frequent in the early morning, such as feeding areas and preferred bedding sites. I like abandoned apple orchards and overgrown fields adjacent to active agriculture because bucks will often push estrous does off nearby agricultural lots and into brush-choked hideaways at first light. When a buck finally finds a hot doe, he will want to keep her to himself.
Or, you can situate yourself in or near a bedding site preferred by does. These are often located near feeding areas, but they can be up to a half-mile or more away. Bucks will cruise these bedding areas soon after first light in search of a willing doe. They might even bird dog a hot doe all the way from her feeding site, so stay alert.
No matter what stage of the rut you’re hunting, as soon as the local bucks get a whiff of man, they will high-tail it to the nearest security cover. Indeed, if you do not have exclusive rights to your hunting property, other deer hunters can mess up the best laid plans. One of the biggest mistakes you can make under these circumstances is to stick to your plan rather than take advantage of that anticipated early morning hunter traffic. The best audible is to hunt a buck’s escape route.
If you have a good idea where a buck(s) will be in the morning, then you should have a good idea what path they will take to escape the pressure. These trails are sometimes marked by rubs and rub lines, but more importantly they are the most direct routes to the largest, most impenetrable tangles available, such as laurel thickets, deep swamps, thorn apple tangles, and patches of head-high dogwood.
These routes are often so thick that any shot you get will be up close and personal. You might want to consider open sights with a fiber-optic bead
instead of a low-power scope on your rifle or shotgun. Many hunters find they can get on target faster and follow through easier with this set up.
How long can you hunt these hotspots after shooting light? In heavily hunted regions, they are only good for the first hour or so, or as long as the general area remains undisturbed. If you have permission to hunt a large tract of posted property, you might get two or three days of good hunting before the local bucks get fidgety. Remember, you want to hunt relatively undisturbed bucks. After the woods fill up with hunters, bucks will not move willingly during daylight hours. Finding them and shooting them will be all the more difficult.
Weather plays a role, too. One year, opening day dawned with black skies and buckets of rain. It was raining so hard that I stayed in my truck and drank coffee waiting for the showers to subside A few hours later, I quietly sneaked to the edge of a ravine and waited for wet hunters to return to their vehicles for dry clothing and hot coffee. I caught my buck sneaking ahead of such a group less than a half-hour after I entered the woods.
A hunt I experienced three years ago provides another good example. Opening day dawned with bliz-zard-like conditions, including frigid temperatures, howling winds and a half-foot of new snow. I filled a doe tag while hunting an escape route, but the only deer moving were those that were pushed by the hardiest of hunters. Indeed, most deer stayed bedded in the thick stuff due to the storm.
The second day dawned clear and bright, and I caught a fat 8-pointer looking for does near a bedding area. I got that buck because I was in position long before opening light. No one had told him the season had opened the day before.
— Bill Vaznis is a veteran deer hunter and long-time D&DH contributor from western New York.
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