Tagging October Bucks: Most Important Dates and Top Tips

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of whitetail-goers who cherish all of October's 31 days. Still, the month tends to be the whitetail stepchild, trumped by September, November, and December.

September bachelor groups can be ultra-patternable, and November is, well, pure chaos. You never know when or where you'll encounter one of your target bucks. The rut is rocking, and hunters are logging as many hours in stands and blinds as possible. December, if you've got green food sources or some grain fields, is money, especially if Mother Nature breathes in some sub-zero temps. October is that tweener month.

Characterized by warm temperatures and the dreaded October Lull, the first three weeks of the month are often overlooked. Even whitetail gurus, those with outdoor television shows, podcasts, etc., typically tell hunters to stay in bed and not hunt mornings for the first 20 days of the month.

First, I'm not poking fun at the whitetail gurus. Many of them are and have the credentials and trophies on the wall to back up their claims. What I'm suggesting, mainly if you hunt public land or share private land permission with other hunters, is capitalizing on time. Time is a bowhunter's best friend. The more time you put in the woods, the better your chances of punching your tag. October is an excellent month to log hours in a tree or blind, and if you hunt public dirt or share private access, here are some dates and tactics to keep in mind.

Get Close To Him!

My friend, Mark Dury, is a whitetail genius. During October, Mark talks a lot about "feeding them forward." The idea is to put lush green plots in proximity to prime buck bedding areas. Drury kills a pile of big bucks during October.

Mark also understands that not every bowhunter can plant food plots. I'm one of those bowhunters. Aside from a small rye plot on my home turf in southeastern Colorado, which is dying from drought as I write this, I don't have the land or equipment to plant prime food sources.

What I've learned is to become a student of my HuntStand app and locate heavily timbered areas, especially those with some terrain rises and drops, near larger agricultural food sources. Once likely buck bedding near larger agricultural food sources is located, I pin trees for different winds. Knowing my first time in will be my best opportunity to hang, hunt, and kill a buck, I move past perimeter scrapes and rubs and push in to within 200 yards of where I believe bucks are bedding.

Yes, this is risky. Chances are good you'll blow out some does and small bucks during your approach, but chances are also good that you'll have the woods to yourself, and if you hang over a car-hood-sized scrape or a trail with heavy rubs, you could drop the string on a big October buck.

Hunt October 15-18

As an ultrarunner, I'm very much into analytics. Whether training or racing, I track everything. From my heart rate to my VO2 Max to my stride length, it all gets recorded. I apply the same analytical mentality to hunting, and it's paid off in spades.

Branded the dreaded October Lull, the woods are often void of other hunters, especially during the mornings (hint, hint). Another reason I love these four days is that over the past five Octobers, at least one, if not every, shooter buck I'm after on my Colorado lease, walks in daylight. That's actual recorded data. No matter the weather or moon phase, which varies with each season during this timeframe, the shooter bucks daylight.

If the weather is hot, I prefer to sit by water, whether it's a pond, a creek, or a river crossing, during the morning and evening. Make sure, if you're hunting mornings, that you're on a crossing or near a water source you can access without bumping into deer. The goal is to be waiting on a buck should he want to slake his thirst before bedding down, or on a waterway crossing he uses to head to bed.

If the barometer is above 30 inches and the air is cool, with a brisk wind blowing, I love to get around an active scrape or rub line. Food sources, if you have them, are also excellent kill spots during a cold front that hits on or around October 15-18.

Hunt October 24-27

Like many of you, I mostly ignore those "Best Days of the Deer Rut" articles that are so prevalent. It doesn't take an MIT degree to know you need to be in the woods on November 2, November 6, and November 11.

Additionally, I dislike limiting potentially productive hunting to single-day timeframes. I've discovered that when I string together four days with morning and evening sits in the whitetail woods, I typically arrow a mature deer. Keep that in mind when you're planning your hunt calendar. There is something magical about stacking four hunt days together when it comes to whitetails.

My two biggest whitetail bucks, one Booner and one just shy of the mark, were harvested on October 24 and October 25. I killed both bucks within 100 yards of where I believe they were bedded, and both were harvested over a water source.

Regarding analytics, I am unable to use cellular trail cameras while hunting in Colorado. However, after killing both bucks, I pulled a pair of digital trail cameras, and both showed the bucks coming down a trail from prime bedding to the pond. The first buck arrived at the pond eight minutes after the digital trail camera took the photo, and the other arrived four minutes after.

I'm sure if you've read much of my whitetail work, you're sick of hearing about water. However, I won't preach about what I don't know. I want you to win in October. I want you to take down the largest buck on your farm. I'm genuinely rooting for you, and I want you to know that.

Whitetails love water sources in proximity to bedding, and they love waterways. Waterways funnel whitetail movement, so take advantage of them when you can.

Observe & Kill

Yes, it's a new subhead, but it goes with the Oct. 24-27 timeframe. Big bucks know that at any moment, the first doe will come into estrus. The bucks know where the does are and will start bedding closer to known doe bedding areas and areas where does frequent. When hunting a new property, whether private or public, I like to spend a morning in an observation stand. I pick a tree that puts me in the game, but make no mistake, the goal is to put my Leupold binos on a shooter buck and make a move on him.

If you see a shooter buck on its feet, note his exact location on your favorite digital scouting app, and then move to the movement.

I don't wait until 10 a.m., climb down, walk in, hang a set, and leave only to return a few hours later. Whether using a saddle or a lightweight treestand, I return to the area around noon and find a tree that will put me in a good position. I also watch my wind ultra-carefully and set up in a tree that puts the wind just right enough for me and just wrong enough for him.

The key is having some wind. If the wind forecast is calm or between 0 and 5 mph, I don't go. Light winds become unstable, and the chances of getting winded increase greatly. Additionally, a wind between 10 and 20 mph will disguise your approach, and I've found that deer tend to move more effectively when the wind is blowing.

I also like the wind to be marginal. On October 24, 2023, a south/southeast wind blew between 10 and 12 mph. My trail camera and hands-on scouting told me the buck would barely not wind me if he came down the trail, I expected him to, and the east wind component held. If the wind turned straight south, I was dead in the water. The wind held, and buck, with the wind mostly in his face, walked past me at 26 yards.

Final Thoughts

October is an excellent month to kill a mature whitetail, no matter where you hunt. Take some of the advice in this article, blend it with our own, and get out there and punch your tag before the November rut hunters hit the woods.

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