Bingo GMMAT!. Leave the ladies be till rut time if you want to have a crack at a nice buck. If you want to kill a doe early, do it someplace else where you don't plan on looking for a good buck to come by. Keep tabs on your does though; bedding areas, feeding and travel routes as they may and most likely
will change thru october and into november as food sources change.
ORIGINAL: GMMAT
I've been hunting deer for 2.5 yrs. I'll be entering my 4th season, in 22 days.
Confession...with a caveat.
Until this season....I felt the best way to have a chance at a buck was to hunt the does. While this method has proven "fruitful' for me.....my confession is I no longer feel this to be true.
Scott (Buckeye) and otherstook umbrage with my approach (ideology) in the past....and thinking about it, logcally, now......I can see why. It's really about the LAST thing "I" would NOW try to tell someone I wanted to be successful. With the acquisition of the new land I have.....I'm starting to understand more and more. With the herd dynamics I have here.....again.....I am starting (understatement) to see the light they have been seeing. Point conceded.
The caveat.......
I had no choice (in the past). It WAS "my" best shot. I no longer feel that way, though.....on the new land. My ideology hasn't changed, though, on the "old" properties I can hunt.
So? What's the smart thing to do?
STAY OUT of the doe laden areas until the bucks come to find them.
My confession......change of strategy.......etc...