The number 16 conjures positive images and memories for nearly everyone. However, in this case I’m not referring to a special birthday party or select round of hoops during March Madness. Rather, 16 is a reference to three bucks that made for a very special hunting season for my family, the reward of hard work during the off-season.
I’ve written often about our north central Pennsylvania farm. We work hard outside of hunting season to up the odds for an opportunity to cross paths with mature bucks during fall. We enjoy the work, the strategy behind it, and making things better for a suite of wildlife species, but mostly we enjoy the time afield together. Tagging mature bucks is fun, but the success of our season doesn’t hinge on it. Having the opportunity to pursue them on our farm is the goal. That keeps us constantly enhancing habitat and improving our stand setups. It also keeps us on our toes and ensures hunting season is fun. We use three vegetation management strategies to consistently get close to big deer during fall. Here’s the story of how all three paid off in our “Sweet 16” season in 2024.
Screening Cover: Katie’s Bow Buck
It doesn’t matter how good a stand setup is if you can’t get in and out of it without spooking deer. Screening access routes is a great way to be stealthy in your movements. You can screen routes using annual species like Egyptian wheat, corn and sorghum; perennial species like switchgrass; or woody species of brush, cedar and pine trees. We use these along roads, food plots and fields to minimize hunting pressure and allow us to hunt specific stands numerous times per season.
Rather than wearing a stand out after a few sits, we literally can hunt them productively 10 or more times per year because we spook few if any deer on our way in and out of the stand or while we’re in them. This makes a huge difference in our hunting and success rates.
Case in point, we had a good stand overlooking a turkey-foot shaped food plot. We could hunt it afternoons and evenings without spooking deer getting in, but we often spooked deer getting out after dark. A planted screen of Egyptian wheat, tall sorghum and pearl millet created a solid wall to the stand and increased the number of days we could hunt it annually. The screen turned a good stand into a great stand.
We only hunt when wind conditions are correct, but bucks cover a lot of ground during fall, so the more times you can hunt a good spot, the more you increase your chance of being there when a specific buck is in your area. Luck is part of it, but in general, good hunting doesn’t just happen, it’s created. And you create it by putting yourself in good positions multiple times each fall. Screening helps that immensely.
Last fall, we hunted our “corral” stand mentioned above several times in October without wearing it out, largely because of the screening that led to the stand. On November 1, one well-placed arrow had Katie all smiles (photo above). This 3½-year-old buck was photographed in the area many times during October, and we were able to hunt this stand enough times without spooking deer to allow Katie to be there when he was in our area on the first day of November.
Cover Around Food Plots: Bo’s Buck
Food plots are good, and food plots with cover around them are great. This cover can be early successional vegetation (ESV), brush or young woody species, basically anything that provides cover to make deer feel secure. That cover encourages deer to bed nearby and move more during daylight hours. Regardless of how pressured deer are, they don’t become completely nocturnal. That is a myth. They still get up at least seven to 10 times during daylight hours each day to stretch, urinate and defecate. During those bouts, if they feel secure, they’re more likely to step into a hunting plot, oak stand or other opening and grab a snack before bedding back down. That cover also encourages them to approach food plots well before shooting hours fade. They often stay in the ESV, and that’s fine. They may feel hidden, but from an elevated stand you can see them very well.
We have shot some great bucks from these setups. Last year on December 3, Bo and I watched a nice buck emerge from cover with more than 60 minutes of shooting light left. This is not the norm in Pennsylvania with our high hunter density, and especially when deer have been chased for seven-plus weeks of hunting season. Without a care in the world, he walked into the ESV around a winter rye plot and waited.
The ESV was 3- to 4-feet tall, so he felt secure. However, we were 10 feet above ground and had a perfect view of him. I have no doubt he would have eaten our winter rye that night, but without the ESV around it, he likely wouldn’t have shown up until after dark. Cover around food plots is a game changer, and it’s why we have cover around every single food plot on our farm. It’s also why Bo tagged a nice 4½-year-old buck that December day.
Bedding Blocks: Kip’s Mature Buck
For me, it all starts with cover. Dr. Craig Harper and his graduate students at the University of Tennessee have done some outstanding work on using forest stand improvement (FSI) to create bedding blocks. We were fortunate to have our farm be used as one of four study sites and got to see firsthand how the data was collected and analyzed. We use that information and create 5- to 10-acre bedding blocks spread throughout our property.
I strongly encourage you to do this, too. Those blocks provide areas we know deer use to bed in. That allows us to strategically select stand sites to catch deer moving to or from that cover to feed. With known bed sites and feeding areas – food plots and oak stands, for example – you can do a much better job intercepting mature bucks in between. When a hunting plot abuts a bedding block, it can be even better.
Pennsylvania is a one-buck state, and I save my buck tag until both of our kids have filled theirs. Since Katie and Bo had both already enjoyed the adrenaline rush from posing for pics with great deer, I got serious about hunting one unique buck that we had a long history with. We had trail-cam pics of him from multiple years, and I had a single shed antler from two different years on my desk. We had hundreds of pics but had only seen him on the hoof one time. At 100 yards, as Bob Uecker put it, he was “just a bit outside” the range of the crossbow in Bo’s hands. We knew he was at least 6½ and possibly 7½ years old.
On December 6, I was in a tower blind watching a brassica plot that bordered a bedding block. The ground was white, the air was crisp, and snow was falling. About 90 minutes before dark, that old buck stepped into my plot. He stayed close to cover but felt completely comfortable chomping on turnip bulbs and rape leaves in full daylight because he knew, at the slightest hint of danger, one bound would put him in concealment and safety. Make no mistake, he was standing there in broad daylight because of the bedding block and its proximity to food.
Fortunately for me, there was no hint of my presence, and I got to take a picture with him. He cementum annuli aged 8½ years old. Combined with Katie and Bo’s bucks, the collective ages were 16 ½ years – hence the “Sweet 16” season.
By screening entry and exit routes, creating cover immediately adjacent to hunting plots, and establishing bedding blocks, you can dramatically increase your odds of getting close to mature bucks this fall and enjoy your own version of a Super Sweet hunting season. Good luck!