Whitetails 365, if you haven’t noticed already, is mostly about off season habitat and food plotting.  Mixed in are some articles about buying land, or an article mixed in here or there answering reader questions.  But October is here now, the season is open.  It’s time to put aside grand plans of habitat improvements, or bothering yourself with figuring out what type of pre-emergent herbicide to use on your soybeans.  Now is the time to do one thing, and do it well…hunt!

I am a year-round hunter.  When the season ends, I’m already planning and scheming for next year.  And yes, even during the open season, I’m making notes on what I missed, or what I could do better for next year.  Always planning, always experimenting.  But October means the season is open.  And although November is the famous month all whitetail hunters look to, October can be as good or better.  Here’s how!

1.  Bed to Feed Patterns

Giant whitetail bucks never stop eating, drinking, and sleeping.  The whitetail rut has got us so fixated on that time frame, that we forget the season is open here in October some times.  There’s never a better time during archery season to take a giant on a bed to feed pattern than during the month of October.

Whitetails in a farm or mixed agriculture setting really have 3 types of food sources.  Grains, greens, and woody browse.  All summer long, they have done most of their feeding on lush acres of greens.  Green soybeans and lush alfalfa/clover hay is the most common in my world and across much of the Midwest.  But with the coming of October, the once highly attractive soybeans are now starting to turn yellow as the plants end their growing season.  This yellowing of soybeans in my opinion represents one of the biggest shifts in whitetail feeding patterns.  Deer that were once bedding in close proximity and feeding in these green soybean fields, will now shift (sometimes drastically) to find a new lush green food source. This can be a green food plot or a beautiful stand of alfalfa and clover hay.

Find a preferred green food source this time of year and you’ll find deer.  Better yet, if you’ve planted a green food source in a food plot located where you can take advantage of this, now is the time. 

All green food sources will attract deer, but secluded acres are best suited for attracting a giant buck.  A hay field or food plot located along a road can still draw a giant buck, but not usually until after dark.  In any event, a strategy I use is to locate what I feel are destination type green food sources this time of year, and then start running cameras on them (or glassing them if possible) to find out if a target buck is using them.  Because these food sources are generally larger than smaller transition plots that I’ll plant, sometimes a couple cameras are used or setting one camera up on time lapse or plot mode works well.  The goal is simply to locate a giant!  Primarily these food sources in October are lush hay fields of alfalfa and/or clover, or larger green food plots that I have planted. 

If you’ve been following along with my articles, you’ll know that a favorite plot of mine is the transition plot located between bedding and destination food.  This is a great spot to find a giant buck traveling on his way to a destination food source.  In October, many older bucks simply won’t get to a larger destination type food source until dark or just before…making small transition plots or transition areas ideal for a set up.  Every mature buck I have ever killed during October (in relation to food) was killed in a transition type area leading out to bigger and better green food sources. 

The key to success in hunting bed to feed patterns, is to locate the pattern using glassing and game cameras, and then to move in on the pattern as soon as possible.  If you have a giant using a pattern that repeats, don’t be waiting for some scenario of stars aligning or weather pattern to hit, move in and take him when you have the right wind for your scent.  If the pattern exists, but it is after dark, then do just the opposite…meaning hold off until the buck starts moving during daylight; or push deeper toward his bedding area while hunting or with your cameras until you get him during daylight. 

2.  Scrape Hunting

When I was growing up, I didn’t see too many scrapes in October, especially earlier in the month.  They just weren’t there.  It wasn’t until I got access to other hunting grounds with a better age structure that I started to notice scrapes during early October.  Today, I can observe deer using licking branches and scrapes almost all year.  But once October comes around their use really begins to ramp up.  By October of every year, almost every camera I own is located on a scrape or in plot mode watching a food plot.  Even when I’m watching a transition plot with a camera, there is always a scrape in frame. 

The reason…giant bucks can’t help but to visit scrapes even when they are on a bed to feed pattern.  As they go about their business, a scrape is too highly attractive to not swing by and smell or leave scent behind.  For me, I’m locating transition food plots between bedding and feeding and always adding a mock scrape.  But there are times when a giant is using a draw, fence line, or ditch crossing in his travels and bypassing my transition plots all together.  This makes a scrape set up along one of these routes pretty effective.  Here’s the scenario…you’ve located a big deer using a destination type food source but need to find an ambush site, or need to go deeper because he’s not making it to food until after dark.  Setting cameras along routes you have a hunch he’s using is a great way to catch him.  But, setting cameras up along these routes on scrapes narrows your search down very quickly. 

In October, if you’ve started monitoring scrapes, and don’t pick up on a giant buck, move your cameras around until you do.  Usually for me, this means moving them about every 3-5 days or so if I’m not picking up a target buck.  Of course, always be as scent free as you can be and do everything you can not to bump deer while running your cameras.  I like to check my cameras mid-day, during periods of higher winds, or just before or during a rain event.  This helps me to be stealthier.  The last thing you want to do is go running around placing and checking cameras and putting all kinds of human pressure out there by leaving scent behind or literally running into deer. 

By moving cameras around monitoring different areas of scraping activity, there is a good chance you’ll pick up the movements of a great buck.  When you do, there’s no sense in waiting to hunt him as long as the pictures are during daytime.  When I catch a good buck using scrapes this time of year, I’ll move in on him as soon as I can do so with the right wind.  This could be the same day I check cameras…or a week or more as I wait for the wind to change.  In some cases, he will change his pattern before I have a chance to move in which is why if you can move in, you shouldn’t wait.  This is always a problem for the weekend hunter—by the time the weekend comes around, you check cameras, the wind is wrong, and then by the following weekend your target buck has moved.  Even if they’ve only moved a few hundred yards, it’s like starting all over again. This makes moving in quickly critical for the weekend hunter! 

Don’t be afraid to hunt scrapes in October.  Giant bucks will use scrapes all season long.  It has been my experience that it is easiest to pattern a big deer on scrapes during October more so than during any other time.

3.  Calls in October

One of the oldest bucks I have ever killed was in early October.  I was hunting a fence line that led from bedding to feeding.  The spot I was in was a wider section of the brushy fence line and it was full of October scrapes.  The food source was a soybean agriculture field that was starting to yellow, however, the beans that were shaded in the afternoon were still green.  I had but a few days, maybe a week before any deer using this food source would transition to something else.  When that transition away from these green soybeans to another food source happened, the pattern along with the scrapes would be abandoned. 

Being a weekend hunter, I felt strongly that if I didn’t kill the buck I was after on that weekend, very likely the pattern I was hunting would be done.  If I didn’t find another pattern, there stood a good chance my hunting would suffer until closer to the rut.  This meant, killing a giant would have to happen that weekend.  Making matters worse, I needed a north wind to hunt that fence line.  Friday afternoon and evening called for a north wind…then nothing but south winds for the remaining days I could hunt.  It boiled down to one evening sit.

The night was rather windy, even some gusts.  I was situated in a small oak tree even though that was the largest tree on that line.  All night, small bucks and doe family groups made their way past me out to the soybeans a few hundred yards away.  With about a half hour of light left, the wind laid down a bit and it got noticeably quieter.  I felt like I had no control on whether the big buck I was after would show before dark.  I had heard bucks sparring earlier that night and thought I really had nothing to lose by trying to simulate some sparring myself.  So, I did.  I rattled as quietly as you can, mimicking two small 3 pointers pushing around. 

Almost immediately after putting my antlers away in my pack, I heard a deer approaching from the west down the fence line.  It was a giant old buck that was no doubt coming in to see what all the fuss was about.  Early season calling had worked and the buck didn’t go but 50 yards after the shot. 

Since that hunt, I’ve used lite calling very early in the season with success.  My preference is to put myself into a position to never have to call, but under some scenarios it can and will work great.  This is especially true if your target buck is not quite coming out with enough shooting light, and you need to hurry them along just a bit.  Calling can and does work in the early season, but be careful not to overdo it!

Early season hunting can be a great time to take a giant.  Focus your efforts around food, scrapes, and even doing a little calling can help you put a giant on the ground.  Weekend hunters can afford to get a little aggressive too as a giant buck is liable to move before your next opportunity to hunt!