How to bow hunt whitetail deer, preseason scouting, hunting big bucks in late summer

Imagine for a moment, during one of your pre-season scouting trips. You witness an event, which up until now. You believe only happens in a hunting magazine article.

On this particular morning, your plan is simple, get started as if it was the first day of the early archery season for whitetail deer. You awake to the sound of the alarm clock going off at 04:30, the eye opening smell of coffee filling the air, and the rest of the house still asleep.

Dragging your sorry behind out of bed, into the kitchen you are amazed at the fact that timer on the coffee pot once again worked another miracle. The next order of business is to start up the old trusty laptop and check the weather radar.

Overcast skies, and wind direction are both favoring you, following the edge of the soybean field along side the drainage ditch that leads to Giles creek, which empties, into PondRiver.

Driving to “the farm”, which as it happens, is your happy hunting grounds, you find yourself, wanting to kick your own backside. Because, the arrangement you have with the landowner has you parking your truck, trailer and four-wheeler, just inside the gate on the west side of the old barn. Where you lock the gate behind you, keeping trespassers from driving where they are not wanted or welcome, and walk your sorry tail from there.

Walking from the barn, down the hill and across the bottoms, there are rolling hills covered with hardwoods, white oaks, red oaks, and hickories on the left. While on the right are fields of pop corn, and white corn used to make white tortillas, and corn meal. Fields that is a half-mile long divided by drainage ditches every couple hundred yards.

After the mile and a half trek, you come to a bend in the old dirt road. The road turns to the left, along side a large tree lined old creek that runs through the farm. Dividing the front section from the backside surrounded by hardwoods, thickets, and a couple horse shoe bends left by the army corps of engineers, when they straightened the old PondRiver.

Instead of following the old dirt road, you turn right and walk between the thicket that runs along the ditch, and soybean field. The mighty whitetail deer have beaten a path that a blind man could follow. Eating the tops of the soybeans and honey suckle along the way, at its narrowest the trail is two feet wide. While in some areas, the whitetails have eaten an area in the soybean field the size of a house, completely to the dirt.

The area looks like a dance floor, with deer tracks covering every square inch. From the smallest fawn tracks, young doe and button buck tracks, to the large mature doe, and a few monster buck tracks. There is doe poop, buck poop scattered around the clearing on the edge of the field and ditch bank.

Following the trail a bit farther, the bucks have had their way with a few bushes and saplings. Rubbing the velvet off their antlers, scratching that itch, and leaving a sent marker, for all the other deer to smell, and leave their own sent marker.

Suddenly, without any warning what so ever, a monster buck charges out of the underbrush, chasing a smaller buck. You have seen a few mismatches in your life, but the monster buck puts new meaning into the phrase, good ole fashioned ass whipping. The smaller buck is no little buck himself, a shooter buck at least two years old, with a rack in the 140-inch class, and tips the scales at 150 if not 175 pounds field dressed.

The battle raging, another good shooter buck charges out of the underbrush, followed by another shooter who led the way for a couple yearling bucks. Thinking to yourself, this must be one of those bachelor groups you have read about, where the subordinate bucks stand at a distance watching to see which buck is the dominate.

With the time-honored struggle, the two impressive bucks must have lasted for at least fifteen minutes, maybe longer. With the final blow, the monster buck, his superior skill, body weight lunged at the soon to be subordinate buck. The force of the blow, knocking the lesser of the two combatants too the ground, adding injury to insult.

To Your Hunting Bow Hunting Success, Mike

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