Last month, I stressed 3 tactics I use each October when trying to get in front of a giant whitetail. Taking advantage of bed to feed patterns, hunting active scrapes, and calling in October. October starts out all about food and bed to feed patterns, and ends with whitetail bucks worrying about breeding. November is the same but opposite; starting out with whitetail bucks having breeding as their number one agenda, and ending with bucks back on a bed to feed pattern.
Sounds pretty simple then when strategizing on how to put a giant on the ground. But it’s not really. Big bucks don’t always follow the script we have written for them. Some years it seems almost too easy, and then others we as hunters hunt very hard with very little to show for it. I’d like to think that’s why we do it. If it was easy every year, what would be the point. I’m trying to find a way to get around to the subject for this November…strategies for taking a giant. However, I’m basing these strategies off my experiences last year in chasing some really nice bucks on ground I was familiar with, and new farms I wasn’t.
Most years, I’ll start off my season by hunting bed to feed patterns. In very early October, those patterns can be very spread out as there are tons of food sources available for most deer. It’s the reason I spend so much time creating destination and transition food sources; so that I can have huntable patterns on my land. Those patterns only get better and easier to hunt after the fall harvest as food sources dwindle.
After the fall harvest, remaining food will attract the lion share of deer. This is when hunting transition areas leading out to main food sources really starts to pay off. It’s when scrape hunting peaks, and it leads us right into November. With very little food remaining, hopefully the hunting gets easier? Why? Because deer are no longer spread out across the entire landscape. Except in 2019. A later than usually fall harvest, extremely late in some areas, kept good food sources of corn and beans from being harvested. Deer in my area were spread out resembling what you see in July, not November. This glut of food sources threw plans for many hunters right out the window, myself included. But, hunting November whitetails is still a magical time, anything is possible any day. These are the critical things I learned from 2019, and how I adapted to take a mature whitetail in November.
Observation Sits—I am not a weekend hunter, I used to be, but not anymore. I can hunt almost every day of the season. I say this upfront because taking a day, or two, or many off from hunting to sit observation stands might not work for weekend hunters who only have a handful of days to hunt each fall. However, in 2019 there were many hunts where I chose to sit observation stands or just high spots along fence rows where I could watch and observe deer movement. I did this on days when the winds were variable making it near impossible to sit any hunting stand with confidence. I also made observation hunts on days where I felt little to no confidence in hunting any of my sets.
With deer spread out as they were, I felt the only way to see what was going on was to sit back and observe the most movement I could. By picking a location that allowed me to see hundreds of acres, hundreds of yards in many directions, it allowed me to see what was going on, where deer were traveling, what travel patterns existed going to and from bedding and feeding. I learned a lot, especially on the new farms I was hunting. But one thing that was consistent across all the farms was that by the time November came around, with the fall harvest still not in full swing, there wasn’t a pattern at all. Deer just simply had unlimited amounts of cover and food available. Normally this is somewhat the case with bucks, but putting a pattern on doe bedding and feeding still allows hunters to predict buck movement; as they seek out receptive does. 2019 showed that with unlimited food and cover, narrowing down doe family group movements and thus buck movements would be very hard.
So, what did I gain from sitting observation stands? The knowledge in knowing that hunting the way I always had might not pay off. I would have to adapt. I was used to counting on predicting and knowing travel patterns as a big part of my hunting success. Not in 2019! At least not yet. Some of the observation sits did however pay off in that I found great set locations for future years by observing how mature bucks worked different fence lines and terrain features on the new farms.
Scrape Hunting in November—A very long time ago, I used to think that scrapes were a way for does that were coming into heat to leave their scent behind for a buck to find them. I didn’t understand that scrapes are used by bucks and does all year as a method of communication by leaving scent behind. By studying scrape usage, we now know that even though they are used all year, they do peak in activity somewhere around the end of October.
I used to also think that the majority of scraping activity occurs at night. I was right about that one, but only when you look at all scraping. When you combine all scrape activity and then look at when it occurs, you’ll find or come to the conclusion that hunting them would be an effort in futility. However, scrapes that are located very near prime food sources that are not hunted will see action during hunting hours mostly at dusk and dawn. When hunting pressure is added, the activity goes to mostly nighttime only simply because the animals aren’t getting there until after dark.
Another scraping that occurs during shooting hours are scrapes located in transition areas adjacent to or in thick cover. Again, you add in hunting pressure and the activity can go from huntable, to darkness only.
And a third area where scraping activity occurs during daylight hours are those scrapes located in or on the edge of bedding cover, as long as hunting pressure doesn’t exist.
Now, how do I know this? Because each fall, by mid-October, I transition most or all of my cameras to scrapes. Normally, these cameras are located in easy to access areas where I know I can get in and out checking them without bumping deer. In 2019, I located several cameras in areas that I never access and didn’t pull cards until December. What I found was when deer aren’t pressured, they will use scrapes during daylight, especially in thick cover areas, transition areas, and main food sources that saw no hunting pressure. This is important to know because in a couple examples, I was actually able to hunt these scrapes by having perfect access to the stands. In essence, absolute perfect access and being able to hunt these sets with virtually no detection allowed for some pretty awesome daytime movement and usage on these scrapes. When access and on stand detection wasn’t perfect, daytime usage plummeted after just a sit. The data doesn’t lie! Now, I’m not saying I hunted scrapes non-stop all November. Conditions didn’t allow for it. But my cameras showed that the scrapes described above were hit, with pretty good consistency all November during hunting hours. Had I been on the right one, on the right day, well then, I’d be writing a different ending to this article. Scrape hunting can be successful all November, if done correctly.
Use a Decoy—In 2019, I don’t think I’ve ever had a season where I was so close to killing a giant buck, several actually, and yet not getting the chance. The whole season seemed like a constant struggle in that I was always second-guessing stand decisions. Seemed like I was always just a little off or in the wrong place at the right time. And with deer all spread out over much of the season, narrowing down movements was very hard for me.
I was able to consistently see nice deer, but having them in archery range was the struggle. So it was again on the morning of November 15th. I was getting early morning pictures of several big bucks on a scrape, in a transition area, where I had a ladder stand. I had hunted this stand several times already but access through a cow pasture was perfect. With a south wind the deer had no idea I was there. So once again I headed to the ladder stand targeting one of those big deer. Shortly after daybreak, a mature buck I had pictures of made his way toward me from the east…headed right toward the scrape I was overlooking. He took his sweet time, and then right on que, he circled back to what was primary bedding to the east. Like the rest of 2019, a good buck, out of range.
The one good thing about this ladder stand is its location. To the east, I can see any deer entering or exiting this bedding area. That buck went in but never left. It was now close to noon, and I was sure the buck was still in there. The draw I was hunting was wide enough that if he left the bedding area in the evening, he had multiple options heading back toward my direction…and if 2019 taught me anything is was that I couldn’t count on luck to make the buck walk within range.
I got down, and made my way back around through the cow pasture. My plan was to eat quickly and get back on stand. Again, in the ladder stand overlooking the scrape and watching the bedding area. Only this time, a buck decoy was going to be out in front of me. My thinking was simply this, all I needed was for that buck to leave his bed during daylight, see the decoy, and come in. Any other buck would work too! I knew he didn’t have a doe, he was mature, and would probably not tolerate a smaller buck.
With the decoy out in front of me, a few yards from the scrape, I settled in. I saw a bunch of smaller bucks, a few does and fawns, but no sign of the brute I saw in the morning. Not yet. Unless the buck left the bedding area in the hour I was gone (doubtful), he had to still be in there. And then just as I was hoping, he popped out of the cover and starting working a different scrape to my southeast, just on the edge of that bedding area. He was a long way off. He needed to see the decoy!
He pounded that scrape for a minute or two and then started walking west, but only angling my direction. Once again, a mature buck, but out of range…unless he sees the decoy. And then he did! At first, it was as if he was startled. But then you could see he got mad. He made his way to within bow range in a very long minute and never quite got to the decoy. “The plan worked” I thought as he dropped within sight.
November is a magical time for us whitetail hunters. No doubt, there are other strategies to use during this month. But for me, using observation sits, hunting the right scrapes, and employing the use of a decoy from time to time are great strategies to use in November.