Hunting one target buck

[Terry]

Moondoon, very useful post, thank you!

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[Terry]

Well we have some deep snow now, so I am done in the area until probably early November. I have 4 good ambush points picked out, but none are close to bedding. I really think I won't catch him on this land during daylight until he is jacked up on hormones. Probably have 4 to 6 good sits to kill him. Not ideal, but from my scouting I think it's the best I can do.

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[iowa whitetail]

Well we have some deep snow now, so I am done in the area until probably early November. I have 4 good ambush points picked out, but none are close to bedding. I really think I won't catch him on this land during daylight until he is jacked up on hormones. Probably have 4 to 6 good sits to kill him. Not ideal, but from my scouting I think it's the best I can do.

[ Post made via Android ]

I would go late sept and put some cams on the outskirts and utilize the info from them. It will give you alot of info as far as his time of day the side of the land he uses the most. I personally injoy cams it gives you another fun part of the hunt and let's you get Intel without intruding. I've killed several bucks using cams.If you use them year after year you can keep info on young deer until they get mature as well..The bucks my cousin and I killed this year were deer we had on cam for a few years and knew alot about them, some bucks however act totally diff and you have to go off Intel from just current season.I believe scouting for a single buck is good but I think you can over scout and the buck gets to catching on to you and will avoid the area, mabe not totally but enough it makes it harder.Targeting a single buck is something I personally love doing but every buck is so diff that it's pretty tuff to do it every year and tag soup is very possible but when you connect it's pretty rewarding. Good luck.

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[moondoondude]

Whitetailassassin - Private land in MD. That particular property I am talking about is actually 3 different conjoined/connected properties, all located close enough to each other that it is the same herd. The largest of those properties is about 90 acres, all in all I would call it roughly 220 acres.

There are several smaller parcels within it and on the edges of it that are hunted. Just about all of it is hunted. If you walked it you wouldn't think that there would be a chance in that a buck could get age by the number of cameras, bait piles, and stands that you would see. But once a buck gets to be about 3, any of the other guys hunting it would only have a shot in November. Outside of November the older bucks are smart to everything around them... with a very rare exception or slip-up outside of that critical timeframe.

The biggest issue I am having now is hunting pressure. I had six bucks on camera this year only in a one month period on camera that had been shot and survived. I can pretty much guarantee that no one else on here is dealing with that... 2 would seem very excessive but looking back on it, I see 6 bucks showing up on camera in hunting properties as almost unimaginable. I don't know if it's carelessness or what (2 of the bucks I know the hunters that did the maiming, another one of the bucks I have a pretty good idea about, and the other 3 I don't know how they got shot).

Mheichelbech - The "too much info" part is the everything all together factor. I can't tell you with accuracy about how much thinking, planning, and studying goes into taking a big, mature buck - particularly after you follow them for the large portion of their lives. There's "too much" that goes into the first time I see a buck until the day when I finally release an arrow. Every buck definitely has a unique personality, just like a dog does or any other large mammal for that fact, and getting to know that buck, at least for me, is the coolest part and it's also the part that gets them killed. The buck that I plan on taking this coming year was extremely regular and patternable as a 1 year old, very well-traveled as a 2 year old (I would get pictures of him on 2 separate parcels in the same night frequently), and as a 3 year old - he got shot. After he got shot, I think he had some shell shock and he locked down in a thicket (same thicket I killed my biggest buck in), and held in there for the rest of the year. I had a camera in that thicket towards the end of that year and he held up tight in there. This past hunting season, as a 4 year old, he was pretty regular in this thicket and I got a ton of daylight pictures. I even fed him on the outside of the thicket just to get some really good pictures with a nice camera and he would eat regularly in daylight. However, on another one of the 3 properties I hunt, he was unfortunately showing up semi-regularly in late October, through November, and early December. That particular property has 2 or 3 other guys hunting it and they even got some daylight pictures of him and some fortunately narrowly missed opportunities. By December, he excluded himself almost strictly to the same thicket as the year prior, which he is still held up in. I plan on shooting him there next year since he is coming up on his 5th birthday this spring.

I got a couple other bucks that I have been seeing for a few years that will be interesting to watch next year, and may even be bigger than he is next year - but he will be the most interesting buck for me to shoot.

[Lockdown]

moondoon... what do you consider to be too aggressive when setting up a camera near bedding? 100 yards away? 200 yards? I realize there are infinite variables and each situation is different.

For example I'd feel safe setting my camera 500 yards from a buck's bed. Even if he smells where I walked, I would think he'd still get up and stage near his bed and be pretty killable. I've got an area where they do a lot of meandering so the closer I can place the camera, the better. How close is too close?

If anyone else has any input feel free to chime in!

[Swampbuck]

Great question lockdown.... I wonder this as well

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[phade]

There's no rule to the length as due to the limitless factors that go into it. You get a feel for it as you become more epxerienced. If you make a mistake - you've gained something - insight.

A safe zone for a buck might be incredibly small or it could be somewhat larger, depending on the pressure, environment, and the food/water/cover situation.

I do know the closer I believe I am to a buck's suspected bed, and I get a daylight pic of him with what I consider "minimal damage" the more confident I am.