Late season bucks, where to start

redblood

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Jan 22, 2006
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26,098
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Lewisburg
thick cover. also, i know you have a tendency to shoot every deer that comes by.which is fine if thats what you like. but if a mature buck is what you seek, you will need to those other deer cruise on by. i would say a hard pressured late season isn't going to want to cruise into an area where a fresh round of gunfire just rang out.
 

Rockhound

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Apr 4, 2011
Messages
4,898
Yep I'm gonna have to agree with everyone else, if you wanna kill mature deer you are going to have to shy away from the numbers game.

The spot where I killed mine today has produced a 120" buck for the last 5 yrs but I may see 15-20 bucks ( on a normal year, this hasnt been a normal yr for me) and a few dozen does before the right buck come through.

IMO your doing a couple things wrong if you want to kill mature deer you need to hunt that area for those deer only.
#2. If you want to hunt mature deer, hunt mature deer the first part of season, and then as it starts to a close kill a couple if you want. It seems as you have gone about that in total reverse. You can't hunt for numbers first half and hunt mature deer last half and be very successful.

Like imthere said not getting on you, do what you like but if you wanna target specific deer your gonna have to give to receive so to speak.

I passed on 33 bucks last year and some decent deer, but I killed 4 (1 quota) 120"-132" deer and it was a most epic year for me. I have farms where I'll shoot about anything I seen 27 does in a field one eve last week and you can bet I'll do some thinning over the next couple weeks.

Prime example of killing a prime spot, i hunted some thick pines in wayne county that had a group of does come through every day, and the lead doe was huge,old and grey. I killed several deer out of there but one morning i shot that lead doe and i hunted that pine thicket for 2 more seasons without seeing a deer. That really hit home for me.
 

PcDeer

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Joined
Dec 26, 2011
Messages
541
Location
Linden, Tn
Roost 1 said:
I would pick my places,so to speak, where to kill does..
I have places on my properties to kill does and other places are buck only. I hope this makes sense........
This is pretty much my approach to hunting. I have my "honey holes" that I will only hunt when the conditions are right and will only shoot a mature buck in those spots. Then I have a couple spots that are my go to for filling the freezer. Right now I'm hunting heavy cover in the mornings and food sources in the afternoon. Mornings have been good for sightings just not what I'm looking for. And well everyone knows I can't see a deer in the afternoon.
 

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