Early Season ideas

[NKFD13]

Been wondering, what are some of your favorite early season techniques? I mean when late October/early November roll around we all use a combination of calls,lures,decoys to attrack deer but you wouldn't do that Sept-early Oct. So would do you find that works pretty good early in the season?

[Spitfire]

Hunt the food sources!! I personally don't do alot of calling this time of year. I like to find the hot food source, keep the wind in my face and the waiting game begins.

[NKhunter]

I just go out and shoot one. :) :) Actually Matt, Like previously mentioned, food sources. Set up an ambush to intercept the deer coming back from the food source in the morning and to cut them off at the food source in the evenings. Generally field edges in the evening. Trying to hunt field edges in the A.M. generally just blows out and educates a lot of deer. If you want we can get together and scout the woods you just got permission for. I know you're surrounded by crops so you need to factor in the prevailing winds, which crop they are hitting the best and undetected access in and out. I'd guess that without being in that property for several years that the utility right of way clear cut would be a damn good place to start.

[TheCream]

I call often early on, but instead of grunts and other vocalizations you would use in the pre-rut and rut, I use this, mostly:

http://images.outdoorinteractive.net/mgen/276997_oi.jpg

We use it on does early in the season, and it is lethal. I need to buy a new Lil Can because mine is not sounding like it should any more, but that call has claimed a LOT of does in the first 2 weeks of season.

But like others have said, we'll be hunting the food. Food plots, apple trees in overgrown pastures, white oaks...it's all good. :mischeif:

[Fish-n-Fool]

I hunt non-traditional early season areas in search of a mature buck early. I try to hunt as near the thick stuff (sometimes right in it) I know deer are bedding in. I hunt the mornings and evenings, but also slip some warm afternoon hunts in mid day to try to catch a deer milling around after the morning nap.

I also have stands set on trails leading to the feilds, but spend my time hunting the thick cover as I don't try for an early doe and have had poor luck until the end of Oct hunting these areas for mature bucks.

I will say I am NOT the guy to listen to as I have never arrowed a buck in the first few weeks of the season (passed plenty of youngsters). For the last 10 years or so I don't hunt until the bugs are dead, but maybe a couple times and I hunt thick stuff. I have had a couple close encounters doing this, but never connected. I have connected on mid day hunts using the same technique later in the year - late Oct on.

[^FromTennessee]

In early season deer start feeding mainly on acorns and other seasonal foods like persimmon, hackberry, honeysuckle, dogwood, elm, dewberry, acacias, mulberry, mushrooms, wild lettuce, beechnuts, etc. Where I hunt the deer browse on honeysuckle and feed in the fields early and late. Until the acorns start falling and then there field visits get fewer. Because acorns is one of deers favorite food and they don't have to leave cover to get it. So once the acorns start falling I am on a hot white oak somewhere and occasionally on a apple or persimmon tree in the evening. Now for me it has paid off hunting less sign closer to the core area of the buck that I am hunting. I see hunters all the time know where a buck lives and feels comfortable and hunt a hot oak stand over 500 yards away and when I ask them why they are hunting that far away quote (That's where I saw all the deer sign.) Well for one bucks don't like competing for food and as far as that goes he doesn't want to be around the does right now and especially the fawns running around everywhere. Secondly He wants to travel as little as possible. So he wakes up walks to the closes white oak stand eats for a while without having to worry about other deer running around and making him uncomfortable and then he goes back into his safe place, and gets ready to go out and feed in the fields in the cover of darkness. Obviously every buck doesn't do this exact routine but if I am looking for a good buck I hunt a white oak stand or a single tree that I can tell has been used somewhat as close to his core area as I can get without letting him know I there. And using this type of hunting has got me several early season bucks. Some Eating Facts>The average deer eats 5-8 pounds of food per 100 pounds of body weight a day and they drink 1 1/2 quarts of water per 100 pounds of body weight a day in the colder month and double that in the warmer months. But most of the deers foods are 50%-90% water in turn some days depending on there food sources and the temperature they don't have to drink anything.

[Fish-n-Fool]

Hey Tenn - the deer here are no different regarding the acorns. Once they drop the deer will choose them over anything in my area - and I have soybeans, corn, and plenty of alfafa/clover fields as I have cattle around.

When I talk about hunting near/in the thick bedding cover - I am hunting directly adjacent to feeding areas. My favorite set up is currently on the outside edge of a 18-20 acre "pit". The pit area drops nearly straight down on all sides anywhere from 10-30ft. The deer can/will make it up and down the steep ledges (make a lot of noise doing so also). Once in the "pit" it is like a jungle - extremely hard just to walk through in Jan; let alone when the leaves are on. I am 15 yards from the main trail leading in/out of the pit. Directly over the ridge my stand is set is a large oak flat with a river flowing through. Behind me I am 20 paces inside the edge of a 60 acre field that rotates between corn, soybeans, winter wheat, and alfalfa. The main body of woods connecting to this pit area is one of the largest tracts of cover in the County - if not the largest. The deer travel the ridge top on the oak flat and they bed in the "pit" year round. They also run to the "pit" when pressured in other areas.

I believe this pit houses the buck I am looking for every year - It is a buck magnet. After only 2 seasons of hunting this property I have seen multiple mature bucks using the pit and I killed my 07 buck from this stand during a mid day hunt - which I believed to be a 3.5 yr. old, but may have been 4.5.
After I located the spot in 06 and hung a stand I saw the best typical 5X5 I have ever seen on the hoof on the second hunt.:yikes: He passed by me at less than 20 yards, but I could not get a shot. It was third week of October and mid day - he went straight down into the pit and didn't come out on my end at least. A deer taking that same path will be in trouble now.

I know I have a batchelor group using the pit all summer as bedding ground, but there is only one shooter in that particular group and he is a uneven (unimpressive) 6X7 that was a 6X7 last year as well. This buck was run out of the area in late October last year by a smaller, but mean spirited 8 pointer that hung around all year.

I think if you are fortunate enough to find a little jem like this and hunt it carefully, it will pay off huge. It is an all purpose, all year type of spot that holds deer 365 days a year. Believe it or not the guy that owns the property bowhunts. After scouting it out and hanging that stand he tells me he doesn't like to hunt that area because when you kill your deer you have a tough drag ahead:coco: I guess when you have 600+ acres in your backyard you can be picky, but I have had more action and seen far more mature deer than he has since I've hunted it - go figure!!!

[Yeley0437]

Early season idea Kill a 180 class buck or bigger :bouncy: ................at least its a good idea

[OLDHAT]

Early season ends around October 10th, we've been dealt a pretty good hand with the season coming in early as you have from season opener until around Oct-10th to hunt the summer patter (which means a field edge becuase the bucks will be doing damn near exactly what they are doing now).


Then you have Oct-10th until around Oct-25th which kicks everyones ass, we refer to it as the "lull" as you will think all of your deer are gone....belive me, it kicks everyone's butt. Then you ahve the great period between Oct-25th until Nov 15th for the primte stage of the rut.....Then come around the 16th you have the youth gun season which is just like gun season but all the dads have their kids check in their deer. Well, then you get about a 10 day window with spooky deer then comes the gun opener. So now we are into to MId-December and the deer shift onto a winter pattern...so hunt the green stuff.

IN Ohio, you have the 10 days of the bow season opener to kill a good buck...this to me is just as easy as the rut. Then you have the "lull" that sucks, then 10-15 days of rut....that's it, you either get it done by the 1st week of October or you get it done by the 10th of NOv or you will find yourself hunting until January.

Oldhat

[coonskinner]

good time to xperiment...i hunt mostly new spots i've located...sometimes i luck into a real good spot...basically i only hunt beds to food...dont mess with the gadjet stuff...i neva use that stuff...:D