Shooting a stud on the openers

[may21581]

Ok, so with so much focus on the rut and late season with the exception of a few, I would like to open up some discussions on tips and pointers that have led to success on opening day studs! We have discussed summer observation sits, trailcams, spotting and so forth. So for this conversation I would like to get into the finer details.
I've been reading many posts and been listening to some of the senior members talk about these opening day bruisers. I have watched bachelor groups of bucks for a season before and a few others only to see them disperse several weeks before the opener.
Some examples of questions and answers I'm looking for is trailcam strategies and how often you checked them, how did you run your cameras. On summer evening sits at what distances did you keep yourself from spooking them? How many seasons did you watch them and so forth.
I'm working on some season goals and it's time I get more serious about early season and set some goals accordingly. Thanks

[seazofcheeze]

What date is your opener?

[dan]

Cameras can get you in trouble... They are good for locating but not so good to check for activity where you want to hunt. Most of the giants I have shot, or friends shot opening week were seen before they were killed from a safe distance and never hunted till the kill day. No scent, no intrusion till the kill. I have also gotten on quite a few big bucks early season scouting and spot checking with the stand on my back. Fresh high rubs, isolated acorns, etc...

[may21581]

What date is your opener?

Dont have the new regulation book yet but usually around the 28th of september

[may21581]

Cameras can get you in trouble... They are good for locating but not so good to check for activity where you want to hunt. Most of the giants I have shot, or friends shot opening week were seen before they were killed from a safe distance and never hunted till the kill day. No scent, no intrusion till the kill. I have also gotten on quite a few big bucks early season scouting and spot checking with the stand on my back. Fresh high rubs, isolated acorns, etc...

When you say locating, can you elaborate a little more. Example locating a buck on camera say 1/4 mile from hunting spot then applying your preseason scouting info as far as beds, scrapes, rubs and determining if this was probably the deer making the sign? Do you use a spotting scope, binoculars, ect? When you watched the buck out of the station wagon with the sticker " I brake for coons" how far away were you and how often did you go watch him?

[NH Teufelhund]

I have never killed a big buck, just a 2.5 year old and a doe, only been hunting 4 seasons. However, last year I had cameras on bedding entrances on a couple target areas on opening day last year and in two target locations there were mature bucks out looking to be killed on the morning of opening day. I will be at one of those two locations this year, no doubt!

So I recommend you use your cams with next year in mind. Let them soak at least 6 weeks prior to opener at a location you think is prime.

[mauser06]

I'm guessing you haven't watched Dan's videos yet? His YouTube channel is full of good ones....and this website has DVDs for sale. I'd highly recommend them...all of them. Even if you don't hunt certain areas...they all help put pieces together.


A lot of this site and the hunting tactics, the videos etc don't focus on rut hunting. I'd say the majority of us are year round hunters. From the first days of early archery season to the bitter cold end.


As far as cameras, different guys have different tactics. I've gotten away from them. I use them for future Intel and let them sit pretty much all season. Some I put on field edges a long ways from where I hunt as a novelty for my own viewing pleasures and see what is in the area.

You can learn a LOT by leaving a camera sit in a good spot through the season and not disturbing that area at all. You can use various resources to look at moon, weather etc etc on those dates to see when they were coming by. I put one in a spot I considered to be a rut funnel..it was mid September I decided to hunt it because it was a cool creek bottom and apples were heavy and there's a few apple trees down there. I left the camera till Halloween day when I hunted it again . I was absolutely shocked at the deer traffic. It really taught me a lot by doing that. I was able to fine tune how I hunted it in the future.

[hoyt31786]

Cameras can get you in trouble... They are good for locating but not so good to check for activity where you want to hunt. Most of the giants I have shot, or friends shot opening week were seen before they were killed from a safe distance and never hunted till the kill day. No scent, no intrusion till the kill. I have also gotten on quite a few big bucks early season scouting and spot checking with the stand on my back. Fresh high rubs, isolated acorns, etc...

See this all the time with guys i know! They will be showing pictures of a good buck then hes slowly disappearing or going nocturnal and they always ask why lol People get to excited and intrude way to much like you said before you know it a buck they had to hunt is long gone! Ive learned on older age class deer element of surprise is your best bet! First time in the best have options!

[dan]

Cameras can get you in trouble... They are good for locating but not so good to check for activity where you want to hunt. Most of the giants I have shot, or friends shot opening week were seen before they were killed from a safe distance and never hunted till the kill day. No scent, no intrusion till the kill. I have also gotten on quite a few big bucks early season scouting and spot checking with the stand on my back. Fresh high rubs, isolated acorns, etc...

When you say locating, can you elaborate a little more. Example locating a buck on camera say 1/4 mile from hunting spot then applying your preseason scouting info as far as beds, scrapes, rubs and determining if this was probably the deer making the sign? Do you use a spotting scope, binoculars, ect? When you watched the buck out of the station wagon with the sticker " I brake for coons" how far away were you and how often did you go watch him?

Im having a hard time remembering any big bucks I located on camera then killed early season. Its do-able for sure, and I know plenty of people who did it, I just don't run a lot of cameras then and get most intel from glassing, leads, and sign. There is one giant I found with a camera in the bigwoods of Clark county Wisc. "the bear bait buck". He goes a little against some of my teachings in the fact that he bedded near the camera and stayed there till hunted, then I had to go find him.



This buck was hitting my bear bait on a regular basis. I almost shot him opening day but he busted me. Then it was game on... I had not scouted the area much, Only for bear. So I was going in kind of blind. I hunted the buck for 2 seasons till he disappeared. apparently killed by a gun hunter. Searching the area by staying out of the bedding or thick areas I determined that most of his sign was in a repetitively small area. Pink square. I determined the bedding areas without going in them based on land structure and rublines (fortunatly this buck was still a 3 year old and marked heavily despite there being no other big bucks in the area)

I marked the bear bait location in red. thats where I got hundreds of pic's of the buck. (this is the actual spot) The yellow dot is where he bedded watching the bait. the blue squares are where I determined were his core bedding areas. Green lines are his rublines coming out of bedding. purple dots are the spots I hunted.

bearb.png

The buck you mentioned I glassed from the parking lot approx 100 yards from the bed and from the road. I killed him right where I seen him. I was watching him once or twice a week, sometimes more, but trying not to tip my hat.

[DaveT1963]

I think Dan's two stories, if studied, will tell you all you need to know. To kill a mature buck on opening day does not just happen. it takes a lot of fore-thought, planning/thinking, and knowledge of the area. In fact, lacking the above, you HAVE to get aggressive and take chances and even then the odds you will arrow that buck go down.

Also, IMO/IME - there is a huge defense in hunting an area with a # of good bucks present and targeting a specific mature buck.

[Twenty Up]

While I struck out on the Big 10 I glassed and hunted last September, the biggest piece of advice I can offer that I wish I had known was anticipating hunter pressure and where that buck would relocate to.

[UofLbowhunter]

Cameras can get you in trouble... They are good for locating but not so good to check for activity where you want to hunt. Most of the giants I have shot, or friends shot opening week were seen before they were killed from a safe distance and never hunted till the kill day. No scent, no intrusion till the kill. I have also gotten on quite a few big bucks early season scouting and spot checking with the stand on my back. Fresh high rubs, isolated acorns, etc...

When you say locating, can you elaborate a little more. Example locating a buck on camera say 1/4 mile from hunting spot then applying your preseason scouting info as far as beds, scrapes, rubs and determining if this was probably the deer making the sign? Do you use a spotting scope, binoculars, ect? When you watched the buck out of the station wagon with the sticker " I brake for coons" how far away were you and how often did you go watch him?

Im having a hard time remembering any big bucks I located on camera then killed early season. Its do-able for sure, and I know plenty of people who did it, I just don't run a lot of cameras then and get most intel from glassing, leads, and sign. There is one giant I found with a camera in the bigwoods of Clark county Wisc. "the bear bait buck". He goes a little against some of my teachings in the fact that he bedded near the camera and stayed there till hunted, then I had to go find him.



This buck was hitting my bear bait on a regular basis. I almost shot him opening day but he busted me. Then it was game on... I had not scouted the area much, Only for bear. So I was going in kind of blind. I hunted the buck for 2 seasons till he disappeared. apparently killed by a gun hunter. Searching the area by staying out of the bedding or thick areas I determined that most of his sign was in a repetitively small area. Pink square. I determined the bedding areas without going in them based on land structure and rublines (fortunatly this buck was still a 3 year old and marked heavily despite there being no other big bucks in the area)

I marked the bear bait location in red. thats where I got hundreds of pic's of the buck. (this is the actual spot) The yellow dot is where he bedded watching the bait. the blue squares are where I determined were his core bedding areas. Green lines are his rublines coming out of bedding. purple dots are the spots I hunted.

bearb.png

The buck you mentioned I glassed from the parking lot approx 100 yards from the bed and from the road. I killed him right where I seen him. I was watching him once or twice a week, sometimes more, but trying not to tip my hat.

Interesting! Is this pretty well hilly big woods? Possible to see a terrian map? Be nice to see how he bedded with the terrian, if its not to much trouble!

[seazofcheeze]

I think it's tougher with an October 1st opener. I haven't killed any opening day bucks, but I have been close to several opening week in Michigan Oct 1- Oct 7 (wounded one last year, and missed another ). My experience with early season is overlooked, preferred, unpressured food sources, close to bedding. I think a productive early season spot needs all of those factors. I'm sure there are more ways to get it done early season, but that is the recipe that has put me on good deer early, when it has happened.

I am thinking of 2 specific spots. Here is an example of one. There is a small cluster of apple trees in a fence row. The fence row is about a 1/2 mile long and only about 30-50 yards wide in the widest areas. In the middle (middle of the 1/2 mile) there are 3 or 4 old apple trees. There is bedding 100 yards away in a low swampy spot in the middle of an ag field. There is also bedding in the fence row itself about 60 yards from the apple trees in the opposite direction that I approach from. This spot works best on a crosswind.

I have seen 3-5 bucks in a single sit in this area several times early season over the past 2-3 years. They mill around eating apples until dark in this tiny secluded area then head out to the nearby ag fields at dark. These spots are gold but very hard to find. A buddy of mine hunts a very similar setup and has had great early season hunts as well.

I kept getting trail camera pictures in this area of solid bucks, but couldn't find them from the stand. I started bouncing around the property, and eventually sat this area and figured out what was going on. This spot produces every year there are apples...like clockwork. I'm just terrible at capitalizing on it

In summary, to kill a good buck early, I think you need to know the general area he is bedding (within 2-3 acres) or the exact area preferably. The nearest preferred food source (mast trees are my favorite in this scenario, because they are usually obvious). Keep the pressure off. I still run cameras on this property, but about 400-500 yards from my kill tree for inventory and I never go on or near the stand access route until day I hunt. And you need access that doesn't alert the target buck(s) or satellite deer, to the extent possible. Finding all of these in one area is obviously a tall order, which is why I think so many hunters struggle early, myself included as I have only found 2 dynamite early season spots in 10 years of serious bowhunting. Also, as a last note, even in early October, bucks can still be bachelored up and on bed to food patterns, which means 2 things 1. They don't move much, and if they are moving, all of the bucks in a square mile could be together in these very small areas, which means if you aren't in the exact right area, you aren't in the game at all. Again, I think this is why so many people struggle to get on deer early.

[funderburk]

Cameras can get you in trouble... They are good for locating but not so good to check for activity where you want to hunt. Most of the giants I have shot, or friends shot opening week were seen before they were killed from a safe distance and never hunted till the kill day. No scent, no intrusion till the kill. I have also gotten on quite a few big bucks early season scouting and spot checking with the stand on my back. Fresh high rubs, isolated acorns, etc...

I gotta get better at that this year. What do you do when you find none of those sign markers in a certain area? Are you out early enough in the day to bounce to another location and do the same thing?

[dan]

Cameras can get you in trouble... They are good for locating but not so good to check for activity where you want to hunt. Most of the giants I have shot, or friends shot opening week were seen before they were killed from a safe distance and never hunted till the kill day. No scent, no intrusion till the kill. I have also gotten on quite a few big bucks early season scouting and spot checking with the stand on my back. Fresh high rubs, isolated acorns, etc...

I gotta get better at that this year. What do you do when you find none of those sign markers in a certain area? Are you out early enough in the day to bounce to another location and do the same thing?

I keep moving... Success in areas with low big buck densities is dependent on finding an area that has a target animal. Around my house there might only be a target animal on one out of 4 or 5 properties, and I gotta find the area among those properties where he is leaving that sign, Some people have it a lot worse than that... Gotta keep moving.