What part of archery season is the best?
- Thread starter Dads Son
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PineSapJunky
Well-Known Member
I know in northeast Kansas I want to be in a stand from October 28th-November 13th
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struttingfool
Active Member
I would suggest the first or second week of Nov. #1 is that I am not a full moon kind of guy and if my memory is correct full moon the last week in Oct?????? Hate hunting and fishing under a full moon. Had a lease in Ohio for 6 years and those two weeks were pretty good for rutting activity. Camera activity was twice as much and also sighting of the big boys roaming and fight increased. #2 is that the weather is normally cooler and a better chance of deer movement. Very few freak warm spells in Nov. I remember trick or treating a few years ago in shorts and a tshirt. Nothing worse than going on an out of town hunt and having a full moon and warm weather. Good Luck, Ohio is a tough place to hunt if you are an out of towner doing it yourself. LOTS of corn feeders and if yours isn't full all the time they will find another one. Not a lot of "why" behind my reasons but that's all I got. Hunting is and always will be putting your butt in the tree. You never "really know" At least that's been my experience.
Strut
Strut
catscratch
Well-Known Member
Bingo (I'm in KS though).
j-bird
Well-Known Member
I hunt in Indiana so it's close, but it could still be different. I don't start hunting hard until roughly Halloween time. I do this as I need the urges of the rut to get the boys up and moving. I tend to not have much opportunity to hunt bucks on a feeding pattern in my area. Also consider early October here can still be pretty warm. November in general is my favorite time to be in the woods.
MarkDarvin
Well-Known Member
For me, it's that time period after the first killing frost up until the highs drop below 40. That's about all of October up here. Once the leaves are down, but the clover and plots are still green as can be, that is pure magic.
Kwood
Well-Known Member
If calendar week this year, week of the 5th would be it for me.
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Tap
Well-Known Member
What he said.
I'd also add that action will tend to drop off around the 12th for a week or so, then it'll pick back up again around the 18th or so. The "down turn" around the 12th is due to the bucks locked down with the majority of the does being in heat and then after they are bred, the bucks are back on the prowl.
Some guys contend that the best bucks are taken AFTER that lock down period.
Also,
Buck:doe ratio and the herd's buck age structure will have an influence on buck movement during the rut.
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Elkaddict
Well-Known Member
I love hunting the prerut. Having said that, I prefer the first few days of October when their still predictable in their feeding patterns. When the ruts starts heating up, deer I’ve been feeding all year maybe miles away only to be replaced by bucks I’ve never seen. In other words, to target a specific buck, early season is more predictable for my place.
Tap
Well-Known Member
One thing that I don't like about hunting the early season as much as I like the period just before the mating phase is that those pre-rut sits are such a short-term deal each day. I love to sit all day, from dark to dark. About the only time those mid day hours are productive is after Halloween. Even mornings during the pre-rut isn't as productive as the evening sits. That makes for about a 3 hour (at best) window of predictable buck movement during the early season.
And my herd has a lot of does and the bucks use those does every evening.The does have already gone thru the travel routes and are often down wind of the stand before the bucks get up out of their beds. It's really difficult to slip into a stand without tipping-off the does and once they blow-out, the odds of the buck coming thru is pretty slim. It's tough to find an evening stand set-up in the early season that can be hunted without educating deer. Getting in and out of the stand without a major bust is almost impossible.
Our area is comprised of small properties. 100 acres is a large parcel. If I wreck my 31 acres because of too much early season pressure, it becomes even harder to hunt the bucks when their daylight movement habits become more predictable after Halloween.
I like to try to keep my bucks bedding comfy and secure on my property during early October. They really aren't moving much during shooting light at that time, but the odds of them coming past my stand, after dark, and realizing I was there because of residual scent is just too risky for me. I like to hold off until Halloween when their pattern becomes more geared toward cruising for does than it is during the early season when their pattern is bed to field and back again. If we didn't have so many does that can bust the hunter, a 2 or 3 hour, evening sit in the early season wouldn't be so counterproductive, but hunting her, at that time, is an exercise in deer education.
Plus, there's nothing like the excitement of the rut. The chasing, the scraping and rubbing, fighting, and the bucks' bodies being fully filled-out puts the after Halloween phase way above the early season IMO.
I hunted south central Ohio for years, and the two or three days before Halloween thru the 10th of November were primo. One caveat though, warm weather turns off the evening activity like a switch. Some days I should have been chasing smallmouth instead of hunting.
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TimberlandHollow
New Member
Since 2006 all but two of my archery bucks have been shot a week either side of Nov 7th. Most have been mature bucks. Here's a few of them. From southern Iowa. I'll always be in a tree the first two weeks of Nov! Good luck all!
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