Ever wondered when the best time is to take a mature whitetail buck? Legendary wildlife biologist Al Brothers, a pioneer in whitetail deer management, always believed the earliest opportunity was key. Before the rut, when bucks still follow their summer patterns, experienced hunters know that taking advantage of predictable movement can lead to success. In this story, discover the strategies and secrets from a lifetime of whitetail deer hunting and learn why timing is everything. He and another Texas wildlife biologist, Murphy Ray, started the quality deer management movement with their book, “Producing Quality Whitetails”, in the mid-1970s. I had known both, before the book was written, working with Texas’s then Wildlife Disease Project. When Murphy left the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department to become a private wildlife consultant, I replaced him as the South Texas Technical Assistance biologist working with landowners and hunting groups, establishing and maintaining quality deer management (QDM) programs for whitetail deer hunting on their properties.
At the time of Al’s question, I was visiting his home just before their book was released, admiring several truly impressive whitetail mounts on his office wall. “That one,” said Al pointing to a wide, massive, long-tined buck, “came from here in the Brush Country not far from Laredo. Shot him opening day of the rifle season in early November. I had been watching him come to a waterhole on the back side of the ranch. Shot him at 3 in the afternoon.”
“That big basic 8-point I also shot the first week of the season. Watched him throughout much of the summer and got on to him before the rut started. I knew once the rut got close, chances were he was going to leave the area, or become nocturnal most likely.” Al continued as he pointed out several other impressive bucks he had shot the first week of the hunting season. This was a long time before the advent of trail cameras and the other “modern technology” we now have at our disposal. Back then, hunters used what they had between their ears rather than at their fingertips.
Said Al when I asked him about hunting early, “I’m not a bowhunter. Some of my biggest bucks were taken before archery hunting became popular in Texas. Had there been the October season back when, I might have spent time hunting with a bow and arrow. Because if you want to hunt specific big mature bucks, particularly those you know about, the best time to do so is at your earliest legal opportunity!” Al explained that bucks tend to stay in and maintain their summer and late summer patterns until about a month to six weeks before the beginning of the rut. During those late summer times, bucks, often in bachelor herds, tend to feed in basically the same areas each day, they go to water at the same waterhole each day, and they tend also travel the same corridors from bedding to feeding areas each day. Once testosterone levels increase dramatically as the breeding season approaches, generally, all previous “intel” as to where a buck lived is “out the window”.
I started hunting long before there were trail cameras or the many apps we now have at our disposal to provide us with information that can help us be successful in taking specific bucks. In listening to Al talk about some of the big bucks he had taken, I “re-learned” things I had first experienced when I was growing up. In the area where I lived as a youngster, in the tree- and brush-covered gravel hills north of Texas’ Gulf Coast Prairies, if you did not shoot a buck early in the hunting season, chances were you were not going to take a deer that year.
Later, working as a biologist establishing management programs on private properties, I often saw specific bucks while conducting deer surveys, either from the ground or while doing helicopter game surveys, of which I did many. These were done primarily in late August, September, and October. Quite often, I saw uniquely antlered bucks on one side of the ranch from late summer to early fall. With the onset of the rut, those same bucks would suddenly disappear and appear on the opposite side of the ranch.
One of two bucks, I recall vividly, lived on a ranch northeast of Laredo in the South Texas Brush Country. He had a distinctive white “spot” resembling figure four on his left shoulder. Late summer to early fall I could find him any day just inside the front gate of the property. Then, in the second week of November, the “figure 4 buck” would disappear from the area where he had spent the summer and early autumn. During the rut, I could occasionally find him 12 miles away in the far corner of the ranch. But his daytime movement ceased when he moved. Arriving at his rutting home, he would become nearly totally nocturnal. A friend who hunted that ranch finally took him after three years of hunting that specific buck. During those years, he grew a near Boone & Crockett rack. My friend shot him the opening morning of the early November hunting season before he made his move to the other side of the ranch.
Another buck lived on a rather large ranch northwest of Laredo. Over a six-year period, I watched this buck grow from a 16-inch 10-point as a yearling to a tall-tined typical 10-point with a 32-inch outside main beam spread. I saw this particular buck each mid-October in a brushy creek bottom while doing a helicopter game survey. He lived on the extreme northern edge of the ranch.
As a six-year-old, he was impressive, to say the least. When doing management work on properties, I took many photos before digital cameras. I shot slide film back then. Capturing the buck on slides, I used a projector and “blew up” the photo to life-size. That is how I came to know exactly how wide the buck’s antler spread was. Unlike many extremely wide South Texas bucks, which usually had short tines, this buck was an exception. He had very long tines and long, massive beams.
I made it a personal policy never to tell hunters where I saw truly outstanding bucks on the properties they hunted. But this buck was HUGE, and I feared cougars, which had started showing up on the ranch, might take him and I preferred he be taken by a hunter so his magnificent rack could be preserved and seen by many. I broke my policy and told the ranch’s hunters about the buck and where I had seen him. They spent the entire hunting season trying to find him, several really good hunters!
When the hunting season ended, I learned the buck had never been seen. However, while visiting with the elderly Mexican couple who “took care of the big house, the hunting camp,” they told me every fall, usually the first day of November, for the past five years, the wide buck would show up in their back yard where they would feed him corn along with their horses. According to them, the buck arrived the first of November and stayed in their backyard with their horses until the first week of February. Then he would disappear until he returned the following November. The distance from where I saw him in October to where he spent the rut was just shy of 14 miles in a straight line.
In all likelihood, had I told the hunters about that buck and where I saw him early each fall, they might have had a chance at him. If the caretaker and his wife had told the hunters about where he lived during the rut, then, too, someone might have taken him, sitting on the back porch of the caretaker’s home, which incidentally was less than 400 yards from the rather impressive hunters’ camp. The year I told the hunters about the wide buck was the last year he was seen. Apparently, the buck succumbed to a cougar.
With the coming of trail cameras deer can often be patterned, but mature bucks are still individuals that do not always follow patterns they have seemingly established. Always remember that deer, like you and I, are individuals! But, if there are legal hunting seasons, such as early archery or muzzleloader seasons where you hunt, should you know about an impressive buck, your best “chance” of taking him is far better at the earliest legal opportunity.
This coming fall, I am hunting two properties for bucks that I have been watching in the past, one in northeast Texas and the other in far southwestern Texas. In both areas, the rut generally starts in early November.
I will be hunting moose in British Columbia when our Texas’ Managed Land Deer Permit season opens October 1. But as soon as I get home I’m going to one of those two ranches to hunt for those two deer. I want to “catch” them before the change their late summer patterns.
My intention is to hunt them where there are no existing food plots, deer feeders or deer stands, and no ranch roads which is where the live during the summer and early fall. In the case of the southwestern Texas buck I found him and then watched him from over a mile away from a high hill. The eastern Texas buck I jumped him several times while walking the remote area during late summer.
During early summer I visited both ranches and found places where I can set up to watch relatively open areas in the midst of expanses of forest on the eastern ranch and cactus and thorn thickets on the western property. In July I started baiting with Vineyard Max, a product created in Texas using dried grape skins from the wine industry to which has been added rice bran and chopped corn. Vineyard Max is very “aromatic” but also nutritionally sound for deer, specifically for energy. In Texas, baiting is legal. Interestingly, I’ve found this product attracts deer even in areas where there are no grapes or grape vines.
The only person besides me who knows where they are is the ranch manager, who, in my absences, once a week, is putting out Vineyard Max for me. My hope is the product will attract and hold these two bucks in that immediate area until I have a chance to hunt them. My intention is to hunt them in early October, well before the slightest signs of the beginning of the rut, so I can “catch” those bucks still in their late summer patterns. With the onset of the rut, they likely move to another area.
I seldom personally employ trail cameras. I certainly do not oppose their use, but I much prefer hunting whitetails “old school” with the benefits of finest rifles, ammo, and optics. For me, that equates to using Mossberg rifles , Hornady ammo , and Stealth Vision scopes.
Hunting the late pre-rut and rut, when bucks are coming to rattling horns and are on move throughout much of the day is unbelievable fun. And occasionally, you can take an outstanding buck then. But if you want to take that monster buck you know about, you should consider hunting at the earliest possible legal date and time.
A couple of early-season things I have done in the past that have helped me take bucks I knew about are a bit contrary to what others mostly do. Once I find such a buck…I will, for the most part, leave the area untouched, other than setting up several ambush points in the area. If wearing blaze orange is required, in those places I later plan on sitting and waiting, I hang a blaze orange vest and hat where I’ll be sitting starting at least two months before opening day. If deer in that area are not used to human odors, two months before the hunting season starts, the only time I visit the area, I hang recently worn socks and possibly underwear in the stand I plan on hunting.
Doing these two things, hanging blaze orange and getting deer used to human odors, does two things. Regardless of how deer actually see blaze orange, by the time you actually show up in the stand to hunt, they’ve gotten used to seeing “something” where you’ll be sitting. By putting smelly clothing where you’re going to be sitting, by the time you actually start hunting, they are totally accustomed to that smell and no longer perceive it, or now you, as a threat.
I mentioned earlier about baiting two areas with Vineyard Max. Where I am doing that, we are not required to wear blaze orange while hunting. Often I am the only hunter, especially during mid-week when I hunt, on the 8,000-acre lease and where I have those sites set up it is a long way to where there might be another hunter. By employing smelly socks in those areas, they too will be used to human odors long before I head there to hunt.
I will say it once again, “The best time to shoot a big buck is the first time you encounter him, at the beginning of the hunting season!”
