Look for bucks in hard to hunt spots

This big buck was photographed in a very small thicket.

The hunter who pays attention to deer movements will soon find some out-of-the-way spots where big bucks like to lay up. Some of those locations are easily hunted and some are not.

Some of these out-of-the-way spots are found while hunting other game species. Some of the little hidey-holes where bucks hole up are so small that one wonders if there is enough cover for a cottontail rabbit to hide.

Take it from me: it doesn't take much cover to hide a big whitetail buck. Keep that thought in mind.

Some of my friends hunt in widely scattered locations. Many also hunt upland game birds, cottontail rabbits and snowshoe hares, wild turkeys and other game. The observant ones find hard-to-hunt buck hideaways far more often than people who hunt only one place. Always take note where a big buck is seen & where he goes.

A friend pays attention to such things, and as he walked past an overgrown apple orchard after a hard rain, he spotted a big deer track going over the fence. He'd tried to get his pointer to work into it in search of birds, and the dog refused to go.

Being a patient gent, he walked his pooch around the orchard, and found the way the buck left that orchard. He also noticed that the tracks went past a big pine tree. Two days later he scaled that tree in the late afternoon after putting the dog in the truck kennel, and took his bow with him. Thirty minutes before the end of shooting time a buck that grossed 152 points jumped the fence and walked past his tree.

He's no stranger to seeing big bucks. This one passed the tree at 22 yards, and my friend shot him. It is still his largest buck, but it points out the reasons why hunters should be more attentive to deer sign.

Another guy was out chasing ruffed grouse, and walked past a sumac patch on top of a hill with a good view in all directions. The man stopped to re-tie his boot laces, and was 20 feet from the sumac patch, and out busted a big buck. He was laying up there because most people walked past the sumac without stopping, thinking the cover was much too sparse to hold a deer.

A friend tells the story of hunting ringneck pheasants near a river, many years ago. He was hunting along its edge. A rooster flushed wild at 30 yards ahead of the dog, and he swung and winged the bird.

It caught its balance in mid-air, cocked its wings and soared part-way across the river and landed on a tiny island of marsh grass and a few stunted trees. He checked the water depth, and it was only shin deep, and he crossed. His dog caught some scent, pointed, and as he approached the dog, a big buck jumped up and bolted across the river. He watched the buck splash across, crisscrossed the tiny island, and kicked up a pheasant and downed the bird.

He kept that oddball sighting in mind, and once the firearm deer season opened, he and a friend waded across to the island. One went to the upstream end while the other walked through, and sure enough, they jumped the buck and killed it with one shot.

Talk to some farmers, and they all have tales of bucks laying up in tall weeds along their line fences or next to a barn. They push deer out of swampy little tangles perhaps 20 feet across. These bucks hold in such tiny bits of cover because few people think to look there.

The thing is that bow hunters can dare to be different. They don't have to follow a stated doctrine that everyone throws at them. They can walk through an area so small that it takes less than 10 seconds to get through, and often they find the home of a big trophy buck that no one knows about.

Cattail marshes hold bucks, and I remember a nice buck that a friend shot as it came out of the cattails. He knew that buck was there, and when he shot it, the buck wheeled and dove back into the cattails and died there. Cover can’t be too thick for bucks.

Don't stick with the status quo this year when the bow season opens. Check things out. Know where the tiny patches of heavy cover are in your hunting area, look for those little nooks and crannies, and try to figure where a buck will come from or go to when leaving. That information is knowledge you can put to good use this fall.

Try it this year. It may produce a nice buck that you've probably overlooked for years.