The whitetail rut can be powerful, even when Mother Nature doesn't blow in a cold front. Keep yourself in the woods, and good things will happen.
October 30, 2024
By Jace Bauserman
October's final week is one of the most exciting times of the year for whitetail hunters. Besides being an excellent week to run carbon through a trophy buck, anticipation for what's to come rapidly builds. New rub lines are blazed, scrapes get thrashed, and trail camera activity peaks. Maybe a random new shooter shows up.
Any way you slice it, there's something magical about the October to November calendar flip. A switch goes off — in both the woods and the hearts and minds of those chasing North America's favorite big-game animal.
Still, November offers no guarantees. Mother Nature can blow in a warm spell and slow rut activity. That buck you've been watching all summer and hunting in October may push a doe by your stand at Mach 10, offering no chance for you to cut an arrow loose. Frankly, the rut can be a difficult time of year to wrap your tag on a shooter because of its chaos.
However, there is no better time to be perched 20 feet up, nestled in a ground blind, or hunting off the ground with a lockdown set (more to come on this). Heed these six sure-fire rut tips to boost your chances of a bowhunting-close whitetail encounter.
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Water Wins Whitetails love waterways, whether rivers, creeks, streams, or canals. Whitetails are big drinkers. Research shows that a buck will consume three to five quarts of water in 24 hours. Most often, those slurp sessions are spread out. Add the chase phase of the rut to the mix, and water becomes a big point of focus for many rut hunters.
Big bucks prefer bedding security. Pay attention to oxbows, creek bends, etc., where bucks can find sanctuary and evade predators. Water also funnels whitetail movement. Bucks love to move along riparian habitats with their noses held high, smelling the downwind side of doe bedding areas. Many waterways offer bedding sanctuary. Big bucks love wet, boggy marshes and locales where a running water source makes a land-based U shape. These oxbows are typically loaded with cover. Mature bucks will work as far out on the end of an oxbow or waterway bend and bed in thick cover near the water. Predators don't typically approach from the waterside.
Now is the time to remember those summer water crossings that filled your camera cards with pictures of does and fawns. Though mature bucks likely weren't using those crossings during the summer and early-fall timeframe, they will be now.
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Whether you're sitting on a likely big-buck refreshment station, perched in thick timber along a waterway, or sitting over a well-used water crossing, water wins during the rut.
Move! Depending on your situation, whether you're hunting private or public land, chances are you have stands and blinds already in place. Even if you're chasing the rut on public dirt, you've likely studied your favorite digital hunting app and picked out what you believe are prime rut spots.
During the rut, have the necessary tools to move to the movement. Having pre-set stands and blinds and knowing where to put them is good. However, things change during the rut. Every year, some of my best spots go cold. I may only have to move a few hundred yards from a specific location, but I do it when the deer movement tells me to move.
Two years ago, I watched multiple bruiser bucks work the downwind side of what I deemed an unlikely doe-bedding area in Illinois. With the wind forecasted to remain the same, I moved in mid-day, did a hang-and-hunt, and 20 minutes after getting my Muddy in the tree, I killed a 150-inch buck. Move to the movement.
Also, no matter what time of year it is, I always have a lightweight treestand, sticks, and all the gear I need when a need to move arises.
Wind Changes Rule! As whitetail hunters, we are conditioned to get excited about weather changes. I get this. Few things kick the rut into overdrive like a cold-weather assist from Mother Nature. However, during the past 10 bowhunting seasons, I've tracked and journaled deer movement based on wind shifts, especially wind shifts that happen after more than three days of a wind that blows in the same general direction.
Don't just study Mercury dips; pay attention to changes in wind direction. Last season, after tagging out in Colorado on October 23, I kept my trail cams going like I always do. I record temperature, wind direction, barometric pressure, and moon phase daily in my whitetail journal. Last year, southwest winds blew on November 4th, 5th, and 6th. Buck activity on my trail cams was excellent all day on November 4. Movement was still decent on November 5, but on November 6, my trail cams went cold. With a north wind forecasted for November 7, I grabbed my camera and jumped in a treestand. I saw 9 bucks that morning—two shooters—and my trail cams were popping.
Why?
Deer sense wind and darn sure know when its direction changes. They know they can cruise and smell a ready-to-breed lady from a different direction with the wind change. Hunt that first west after three days of east or that first south after several days of north. You get the idea.
Step Outside The Norm I read a quote once — I wish I could remember where or who wrote it. It was in a hunting magazine, and the two-page spread showed a hunter covered in snow, ice stuck to his beard, rowing a canoe up a public-land waterway. The quote read, "As often as possible, do what others are not doing."
Dang, I love that!
Sometimes, the best way to earn an encounter with a November giant is to get on the ground and use decoys. Over the past few whitetail seasons, I've utilized a tactic set forth by my good friend Danny Farris, Bowhunter magazine columnist and owner of Ultimate Predator Gear. He calls it the "Lockdown set."
Too often, we think we need to be 20 feet up a tree if we plan to hang our tag on a trophy buck, but this simply isn't true.
Farris developed an ultra-effective ground game where he mounts a UPG Stalker Doe to his bow and puts a 3-D decoy 15 to 20 yards before him. Using a low-profile chair, like a turkey chair, Farris gets his back to the brush and sits his bow, which looks like a doe deer, in front of him. He angles the buck so it seems like the decoy is watching the doe. To a passer-by rutting buck, this scenario looks like a buck has doe locked down. It can be pure poison. Farris has shot multiple Pope & Young bucks at less than 10 yards. The game changes drastically when you become part of the decoy set and get after big bucks on the ground.
Call When The Time Is Right A western hunter that chases elk across the Rockies each year, I love to call. However, my mindset changes when hunting whitetails. I rarely call during October. I have no scientific data to back up why. I just haven't had much success with grunt tubes, doe bleat calls, or clashing horns. However...
A single grunt was all it took to bring this November buck, headed in the wrong direction, to 12 yards. My calling mindset changes in November. Still, I don't sit in my treestand and simulate a knock-down-drag-out battle every 20 minutes. During an all-day sit, I may blind rattle three times. I don't go overboard. However, my horns are ALWAYS hanging in my tree or at the ready if I'm hunting from the ground. And my grunt tube is ALWAYS within reach. Over the years, I have had more success grunting to a buck that isn't coming my way than using any other method. I never grunt blindly. I rely on my hands-on research, map studies, and trail cameras to put me in the right areas. Then, I typically only call to deer I want an encounter with and only if that deer isn't coming in my direction.
Stop Making Excuses! This tip has to do with nothing more than grit. For many bowhunters, the rut is a grind. Day after day, all-day sits take their toll on the mind and body. Close encounters where you thought it would happen but didn't can usher in a negative bowhunter psyche. A warm-weather front can slow buck activity, and you'll instantly think about some whitetail article you read where some noted biologist wrote that bucks simply won't rut when temps crawl above a specific Fahrenheit reading. Thoughts of sleeping in or taking a few days off creep in. Ignore those thoughts! If the calendar reads November and you have time to be in a tree, get there.
We tend to make whitetail hunting too hard. Our best asset is time. Keep going and keep working; chances are excellent that you'll fill the freezer if you do!
