How to Stay Ahead of the Curve and Take More Trophy Whitetails!

If your going to be consistently successful on bagging big bucks you have to know how to adjust your strategy to what the deer are doing! Here are some tips and tricks that will keep you in the hunt when others are still trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
Deer can change their pattern like flipping a switch!

If you haven’t already noticed, deer have an uncanny way of keeping most hunters in a fog. Many hunters stay consistently behind the curve and typically it takes most at least three days to figure out the deer have changed their pattern. What are they doing, and why? More importantly, how can you capitalize on the current pattern. Many hunters will continue to go back to the same stand time and again because they have always seen deer there in the past or maybe its an easy walk to a stand that has a nice view out of the wind. It might be a field that he has been seeing deer feeding in regularly but all of a sudden he has not seen a deer in three sittings. Deer can change to a new pattern at a moments notice, like flipping a light switch. All hunters are going to get behind the curve from time to time but the best of them learn to quickly recognize a change has happened and adjust their hunting strategy accordingly.

If you are hunting close to home, being a few steps behind may not be a big deal but if you have taken time off of work to hunt or you are hunting a 3 day firearms hunt, you cannot afford to be out of tune with what the deer are currently doing.

A good example of a feeding pattern change happened this year here on my lease in central Florida. Bow season opens here around the third week of September. Baiting is legal here on private land and most hunters typically run a feeder with whole corn. Before the season opened the deer were hitting the feeders hard but just as the opening weekend arrived the deer abandoned the feeders all together. What had happened? The feed had changed! Live Oak acorns had begun to fall and the deer changed their feeding pattern overnight. Deer love corn but will walk right over it to get to an oak tree that’s dropping green-n-whites!

On a hunt in Illinois a couple years ago I was hunting my favorite stand on a point of some planted pines, overlooking a picked corn field. I had been seeing a pile of deer and some really nice bucks, when over night a front blew in and dumped 12” of fresh snow on the fields. The next day, you literally could not find a track on that field, or any other. Overnight, the deer had switched to browsing in the woods. You could walk across a 60 acre field and maybe cut a couple tracks, get to the fence and look over, more deer tracks than you could shake a stick at. The deer were stripping anything with a leaf in reach, even the dead one that had fallen on the snow. That was a 4 day gun hunt and by the time we figured out the change it was to late and we went home empty handed.

If you find some hot sign, hunt it immediately! Don't try to save if for later!

One of the most important tips I can give you is, do not try to save some smoking hot sign for a latter hunt. This almost never works! Typically, you will return a week later only to find the sign dried up and the deer have moved on. How many times have you found yourself hunting something you felt was pretty good only to run across feeding sign that just had the ground pulverized or a line of smoking scrapes and rubs along some ridge and think to yourself, “I’ll come back here in a few days and hunt this”. If you are lucky enough to stumble onto something hot, jump on it immediately! You can bet the farm its going to change and most likely sooner than later.

In the Midwest the scrapes you find in late October freshly pawed on a daily bases will be abandoned by the first week of November as bucks begin a frenzied search for the first does to come into heat. Deer will typically quit a soy bean field as soon as the corn is combined in favor of the easy picking’s and preferred feed.

Many changes in deer behavior can be timed with the season, the harvest of a crop, a weather change, etc.

Always be on the lookout for the next change and learn to recognize a shift in the pattern at the earliest possible time and you will be a more successful hunter, guaranteed!

Good hunting,
Larry Stephens

The Kill Zone for Trophy Bucks!

So you want to kill a trophy buck! There are a few secrets you need to know to increase your odds!

Well, first you have to establish what a trophy buck really is. There are many ways to define a trophy whitetail but as a rule were talking about bucks that score north of 150” gross B&C. Very few hunters would ever consider passing on a shot at such an animal unless he had some actionable intel that something much larger was in the area. Then again that info. may be useless. Depending on the timing of the rut that deer could be 5 miles away on another farm. Regardless of what may be known to be in the area, passing on a 150 probably means your going home with your tag in your pocket.

Of course, the area of the country your hunting has to also be taken into consideration. If you apply this same 150 rule to the south east or even many eastern and western states your probably not going to be eating much deer meat.

The next question is where? A discussion on where to consistently see big trophy bucks leads you to one location…..the Midwest. The Midwest states are going to give you the best odds for putting a trophy in your cross hairs. I would recommend you spend some time looking at the record books, particularly the Pope & Young book. Again, any of the top 10 states are obviously great places to hunt but pay attention to the top 2 or 3 unless you have some specific reliable recommendation on some of the others. On a well managed property in the Midwest it is not unreasonable to expect to see a 150 class or larger deer. Our 420 ac lease consistently produces opportunities at 150 class deer every year. Getting them in bow range and killing them can be another story.

The last question is specifically where? You have a property to hunt but where on that property is going to give you your best chances at a big buck? I have spent all my life hunting Florida. A more difficulty place to hunt there is not! For this reason I find hunting the Midwest states relatively easy. There is a limited amount of cover, the food sources are obvious and the limited cover produces a lot of bottle necks and travel corridors.

Much of the discussion of where depends on two factors, what phase of the rut your dealing with and the weather. If it is unseasonably warm the does are not going to be coming to the fields to feed much in the daylight. Therefore, your not going to see many bucks there. You might catch one first thing, just cracking daylight crossing a field the does are using at night but after that you better be in the woods. For me that means a bottle neck or funnel that connects multiple wood lots or bedding areas. Better yet, a bottle neck next to a section of woods that has been select cut. In the Midwest that’s a prime bedding area if there ever was one.

If you are hunting with a firearm that might effect your decision a little due to the increased range. Obviously, you are going to see more overall deer where you have the greatest visibility, that’s a crop field but the deer have to be feeding on it.

If there is any deer movement at all you can bet some of it is going to be thru a bottleneck. Day in and day out a bottle neck is going to produce the most big buck opportunities. It works anytime deer are moving.

The Bottleneck is the Ultimate Kill Zone for Big Trophy Bucks!

Most bottle necks can be discovered from studying a good aerial photograph. Others, might require a little leg work. Never overlook the opportunities provided by a good bottle neck! Next time your hunting, find yourself one of these kill zones, harvest yourself a “seed” and remember to send me a picture and a thank you.


Good hunting,
Larry Stephens

The Straight Scoop on Deer Calling

Everyone that knows anything about hunting deer has heard of rattling antlers, grunt calls, bleats, etc. but from my experience this seldom draws much more than a pause from most deer. The most common method of attempting to call a deer is the grunt call and is mostly what I wanted to discuss here.

We have all seen the videos. Practically every hunt goes down the same way, a hunter is perched high in his stand, he gives 3 grunts on his call and the camera cuts to a big buck that is on his way to the stand! Well, in case you have not realized it, it just don't work that way. If you pay close attention you will notice the vast majority of those deer show no visible reaction and seem to be already moving in the hunters direction. Rarely do you see the deer moving away from the hunter, hear the hunter call, see the deer react and change direction and proceed to come in. This is not to say it does not happen but it seldom happens as seen on film.

As a matter of fact, If you are blind calling you could be scaring off more deer than you call in. I have seen this happen many times when hunting our lease in Illinois. A 130 class buck comes strolling along and looks like he is not going to come into bow range, I grunt and he turns inside out and vacates the area! You will not spook many deer by grunting but we have some big deer on this property and he was not one of them.

You never know how a deer is going to react but if you have a well balanced deer herd on your property grunting to 2.5 & some 3.5 yr. old deer could get you some negative reactions or you will get the most typical reaction, a pause and look your way, only for the deer to continue on his path.

The deer that are most likely to respond to grunting are small 1.5 yr old and whatever age class makes up the mature class on your particular property. On our lease most of our big bucks are 3.5-4.5 yrs. old. These deer are the ones that can be effectively called. The key is calling to a dominate buck. That's a deer you can call!

My advice to you is not to call to a 125-130 class deer you want to take if you know you have 150's in the area. As a matter of fact never call to an animal that is already coming your way. Your best chance is always to wait silently for your shot as long as your quarry is advancing your way. In calling, you risk giving away your position and causing the animal to hunt you. You also risk educating the animal. On the other hand if the deer is not going to come into shooting range, you may not have a lot to loose in trying to call to him.

Of course, you have to call from the right spot. You cannot call from a tree in the middle of a field. If your a turkey hunter you know what I'm talking about but that's a subject for another day.

One of the best reactions I have ever seen from a buck occurred last year on a hunt in Illinois. I had seen a wide & heavy 11pt several times over the previous 4 days of hunting. This particular morning I had seen him trailing through a spot I had seen some does pass earlier in the morning. He had disappeared into the thick on the hill and had been gone some 45 minutes or so. Next thing I know he appears a 47 yds and is moving along the fence away from me. I quickly decide to grunt at him with my mouth. The first 2 grunts stopped him, the 3 rd. closed the deal! He immediately jumped the fence and by the time I got my bow up he was 15 yards and closing. I shot him when he came out from under the stand at 4 yds. he dropped in his tracks from a muzzy to the spine and scored 151" gross.

To be effective at calling you have to know what kind of deer you are calling to. Is he a sub deer or a dominate deer. Also, you have to call from the right spot and decide if you are willing to risk pushing away a lesser deer.

Good Hunting! Larry