Why Wait for November? Fill Your Deer Tag Now!

As a bowhunter, you might know folks who nearly always have big whitetails on the ground before November. While other guys are longing for the rut, these early-season wizards are making their annual drop-offs at the taxidermy shop.

How do they do it? It’s rarely because they have access to all the best land or unlimited time to hunt. Their main advantages are a steady supply of useful intel and the discipline to be smart about using it.

It’s fun to find a nice shed in March and then get velvet trail camera images of that deer in August. Through such evidence are many bucks named, annual "hit lists" compiled and season plans hatched. But that’s rarely enough intel. Once velvet falls away, many big bucks relocate, become more nocturnal and shift food sources. Don’t fail to anticipate or act on these realities.

Keeping tabs on a target buck long enough to get him tagged is a balancing act early-season experts have mastered. Two bowhunters who qualify are Steve Pinkston and Barry Greenhaw. Although they live and hunt far apart — Steve’s in central Ohio, Barry in northern Arkansas — they’ve enjoyed similarly great success well before the rut.

Both bowhunters rely on fresh intel to help them tighten the noose. But neither is highly dependent on cellular scouting cameras. In fact, Steve prefers to get his images literally in person, through the lens of the handheld DSLR camera he totes on scouting missions.

Barry’s whitetail bowhunts take him not only into his local Arkansas woods but also to distant parts of Kansas and Missouri. To keep tabs on these scattered spots, he relies heavily on trail cameras. The fact few of these are cellular models necessitates visiting to check images, but to Barry it’s well worth the effort.

Steve Pinkston's Farmland Focus

Central Ohio’s mosaic of crop fields, woodlots and waterways is a hotspot for big bucks. Steve has arrowed many over the years, with most of his kills occurring shortly after the state’s late-September opener.

“Early season for me is the goal, frankly. I don’t want to go to November, because I hunt a specific deer every year,” Steve says. “That’s how I’ve done it for the past 30 years, and it’s how I enjoy chasing whitetails. It’s very much in the chase for me.”

After years in the area, Steve knows many of the local deer. Thus, as summer unfolds, he has some idea which fully mature buck he’ll be after. But one predictable yet uncontrollable factor — crop rotation — means scouting and hunting conditions vary greatly over any two consecutive years.

When local fields are in soybeans, Steve uses his DSLR and telephoto lens to document distant bachelor groups out feeding on warm summer evenings. That’s where the deer will be, especially in fields replanted to short-season beans. But even from long range this bowhunter knows to be ultra-cautious.

Steve’s ability to stay under bucks’ radar is enhanced by his mode of transportation. He’s the founder of Hardcore eCycles, a company that grew from his need to get into and out of areas quickly but silently while scouting and hunting.

In corn years, regardless of vehicle choice it’s harder to see late-summer deer. As corn gets tall enough to hide bucks, they move in and stay until the crop is cut. With ample cover and food, and with small internal waterways coursing through the fields, a buck doesn’t even need to leave his hiding place to get a drink.

To overcome this, Steve uses those waterways to his advantage. Sneaking into them with the wind right, he’ll often catch big velvet bucks moving along edges between crop and water, hidden from the outside world but not his camera.

The downside of scouting with a handheld camera is that it limits intel gathering to daytime. If Steve gets a midnight portrait of a giant, it’s on one of the trail cameras he still uses. The positive side of DSLR photos is that as he snaps one, he’s simultaneously observing the deer’s demeanor. Whether done with a camera, binoculars or the naked eye, such study can show if the buck’s a bully that later might respond to calling or a mellow fellow preferring to avoid conflict.

By the opener, Steve has logged details on every sighting of his target animal. And as the season unfolds, he keeps tracking shifts in the deer, the cover and the food – not only farm crops, but even acorns dropping from specific oaks.

This expert likewise keeps a close eye on the sky. He prioritizes hunting after midday rainstorms, due to enhanced evening buck activity then. Conversely, he’ll rarely hunt early-season mornings in any weather.

“For me to hunt a morning then, I need to know specifically that I’ll be able to get where I’m going and have a high-odds opportunity at the target,” he explains. “You can damage your early season by hunting mornings if you’re not careful.”

If all goes well, by the time local kids are gathering Halloween candy Steve has his single buck tag filled. But even then, he won’t stop looking for big deer. He and his camera will be right back out there, following them through the rut and beyond. Next season is always closer than it seems.

Barry Greenhaw's Broad Net of Intel

Especially when you’re targeting big bucks in locations hours apart, there’s no such thing as too much information. So whether Barry’s scouting a nearby Arkansas mountain or making a weekend run to a Kansas pasture, his scouting starts well before opening day and keeps right on going.

“Usually, I’ll try to put out my cameras around July 4 or a little later,” he says. “At that point you can tell what bucks are going to be. What I’ll do is put out a bunch of cameras and just let them sit. I won’t even go back to them for another month. It will be sometime in August before I do my first check.”

Even when a camera picks up a mature deer of interest to Barry, the bowunter is still far from hanging a stand. He knows that even in season, a random live photo can trick you into thinking you know more than you do — especially if taken at night.

“People will show me a picture of a buck and be like, ‘Man, I’ve got a good one. I’m fixing to start hunting him,’” Barry says. “But that picture was taken in the middle of the night. I’ll tell them, ‘You’re not close enough to him. You’re not going to kill him right now.’

This is when a better camera plan helps. Instead of just hoping you’re dialed into the buck’s pattern, increase the info flow. Find out where he really lives and how he’s operating within his range.

“You have to be close to them in early season, because they just don’t move much,” Barry stresses. “They don’t have to, plus it’s hot. They’ll have their preferred food source and a water source, and they’ll usually have preferred bedding. They might have different areas they hit, but that’s all usually pretty confined.”

With early season’s limited movement, it's easy to miss or misinterpret key intel. That’s why Barry now takes a “more is better” approach to cameras. He’ll flood an area with them, gathering extra intel to further define travel patterns.

“With just a few cameras, you might not know if you’re getting photos on the edge of his range or right in the middle of it,” Barry points out. “He could be living on the neighbor and only coming over to you in the middle of the night. Cover your whole property with cameras and you can figure that out a lot quicker.”

To show how helpful it can be to run extra cameras, Barry cites a case of a big Kansas buck he and friends got summer photos of within roughly 40 acres. Once the deer shed velvet his range shrank to about 20 acres, and he went from being on four or five cameras to only a couple. With too few cameras running, this seasonal shift might well have gone undetected.

“We’ve had cameras that were only 100 yards apart but would never get photos of the same buck,” Barry notes. “I think that’s why people miss finding so many of them. They’ll go into a property and throw up one camera in the middle and never know what’s really there. You can’t leave any stone unturned.”

This expert’s multi-state success shows the rewards of flooding an area with cameras outweigh the risks. Be smart, though. Don’t barge right into a buck’s bedroom, but hunt close enough as conditions allow and you should get more early chances.

No Time Like the Present

With every passing day of bow season come more risks. That target buck could bust you and become more nocturnal. He could move onto neighboring land and be shot there. He might fall to EHD or a vehicle. And at any moment he could snap off a tine or even get locked up with another buck. Put it all together and the conclusion is clear: The sooner you can notch that tag, the better.

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