Taking a big buck

Taking a big buck

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Last year during the rut, outfitter Keaton Kelso spotted a monster buck out in the middle of a field. When he stopped to glass him, the deer bolted into a patch of trees and grass no bigger than an acre. The guide thought that maybe that tiny patch of cover was where this old buck was living. They sometimes get largely nocturnal bucks that just hang in a very small area and hardly ever leave.

An overgrown fenceline ran through the little woodlot, so Kelso hung a stand on each side. The next challenge was to wait out the buck. Kelso and his client client sat dark to dark for two days without seeing a deer. Finally, a half hour after daybreak on the third day, the buck got out of his bed and walked down the fenceline, and the client shot him at 15 yards.

Senior Deputy Editor of Field & Stream Colin Kearns: “We have these experts who have had success stories about deer they have shot in the late-season and they explain their tactics for how they shot that deer in the late season whether it is setting your stand by a variety of food plots or organizing a specific type of drive or setting a blind up along a fence line. These are all tactics that are specific to big deer in the very late season.

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