Have you lost track of your bucks???

[T.R. Michels]

This is an excerpt from The Complete Whitetail Addict's Manual, available in the Trinity Mountain Outdoor Products catalog at www.TRMichels.com



The Dispersal Phase
 

 
I often hear hunters say that (during the hunting season) they can’t find the big bucks they saw while they were scouting from late August to mid-September. That’s because the bucks probably weren’t in the same area. Once the bucks (that you may have seen in bachelor groups in late summer/early fall) shed their velvet, they start to become more aggressive, and eventually they won’t put up with each other. While some of the bucks may stay in the same area, m any of them move to new core areas, where they don’t come in contact with other bucks. Some of the bucks may move out of their summer home range to go to their fall home range, which may be as little as a half mile to as far as several miles away. This breakup (dispersal), and fall home range shift, usually occurs within two to three weeks of when the older bucks begin to shed velvet. In the upper Midwest it generally occurs sometime between the first and last week of September. By mid-October the bucks have usually moved to their fall home ranges. If you plan on hunting after October 15 you have to start scouting all over again, because the bucks you saw and hunted from late August to mid-October may have moved to their fall home ranges.
 
 Since bucks usually start making new rubs and scrapes in the areas they use in the fall, the best way to locate them is to look for fresh rubs and scrapes. When you find fresh rubs and scrapes, in areas where they may not have previously occurred that year, you can setup where you can watch that area, to see which bucks are there. Once you find the buck you want you can backtrack its rub route to locate its core area, where you can setup to take the buck.

God bless,

T.R.

[bweyer]

First off I want to say thank you for your information. It got me thinking about how I started seriously hunting whitetails. I read magazines, articles, tuned into anything on TV about them. I also visited your website. Which I found very useful as it has alot of focus on whitetail behavior which applies anywhere. I suppose I'll get to the point. After all I read I was able to take bits and pieces and apply them. Problem is I hunt in Northern MN and many topics don't relate. There is so much about crop land, broken wooded areas, and thats nothing like the big woods. I guess what I'm trying to say is it would be nice to see more info on big woods hunting. I did read Hunting the Big Woods. I think Greg Miller wrote it. I thought it was a good read and rare in the whitetail world. I guess I don't have much of a point, just expressing a view of one northwoods hunter. I guess I'm just curious about your thoughts on big woods hunting?

[T.R. Michels]

I've got tips on Big Woods hunting in my Complete Whiteatail Addict's Manual. I can't post them all here, or I'd have nothing left to sell. LOL