Patterns

[Dressedtokill]

Got a quick question on annual patterns on mature bucks. I have some good info from my previous years as far as trail camera photos and sightings recorded. Have one deer that I am really Wanting to harvest this year but only have last years info to go off of. What do y'all take into consideration when trying to use the previous years info? And do you take cold fronts from the previous year into consideration?

[Wlog]

Food source changes. Different crops, less or more mast like acorns, pressure, logging. Anything and everything matters.

[Lockdown]

If there was a different dominant buck in the area that got shot that could effect things too.

If you have him on cam doing the same thing repeatedly in a small time frame, take wlog's post into consideration and go on weather underground and try and find weather and wind direction tendencies. Try and hunt him during that same time frame and same/similar conditions this season. I'm not an expert with patterning deer, but I would think time frame would trump weather. Unless you're talking snowfall and wintering areas.

[JoeRE]

Yea cold fronts matter. A lot of spikes in rut activity coincide with them. So look for a cold front in late October for example with a strong NW wind. Are they rut based patterns or food based patterns? That is a biggie. Food based patterns are not annual unless the same food is in the same spot next year, they are just about food. Rut annual patterns are the ones you can really dial in on. I look for pre-rut activity and all through the rest of the phases of the rut. I have seen some really consistent late rut patterns.

As Wlog mentioned look at the stuff that is changing too. Food sources may change, that means direction of travel may be different for a rutting buck, toward the does that are on that food, but those spikes in activity will still be about the same time. Hunting pressure changes can mix everything up but the good news is most buck bedding stays the same, in spots where most hunters just don't go.

[Dressedtokill]

All that is good news! The buck I really am after showed up pre rut oct 22 in daylight, missed him that day at 50 yards on video, after a stagnant week of weather and a big cold front came thru and dropped the temps 15 degrees with a good NW wind. Then I got a bunch of night time pics of him and he showed up again on nov 22 in daylight at like 115pm right around the setting moon. Can't remember the weather for that day but I will see if there's any similarity.

[Dressedtokill]

So with that being said would you wait and hunt this area till the end of October? And find that NW wind around the 22 of October! I know that's a million dollar question

[Boogieman1]

I've had a lil luck just by figuring out what the buck was doing and when those same conditions exits expecting him to do the same thing. Example: pre rut, cloudy, wind NW buck traveling north on parallel trail scent checking does. But I don't deal with any crop rotation and the ladies sometimes move around a bit and mess it up for me

[Lockdown]

So with that being said would you wait and hunt this area till the end of October? And find that NW wind around the 22 of October! I know that's a million dollar question

Doesn't matter what kind of pattern you're talking, the less intrusion the better.

Great insight from JoeRE as always. I agree with him about the rutting patterns. I see this big time in my rut grove (Oscar's for my old journal followers). The yearlings and two year olds start randomly popping in around oct 20th in daylight. First few days of Nov. Are always hot for bucks of all ages.

The buck I killed last year showed up on cam (at night) 2 days apart from '15-'16 and he was a ghost during the summers and early fall. I've got another buck who cruised in around 10:00 a.m. multiple times both years in the Nov. 9-13th time frame. If he made it he'll be four this year and I expect him to do the same thing again. Not impossible he's big enough to be the new sheriff in town and breaks pattern by locking down with a doe during that time.

In your situation I'd hold off and go after him within days of the 22nd with similar conditions as last year.

[JoeRE]

So with that being said would you wait and hunt this area till the end of October? And find that NW wind around the 22 of October! I know that's a million dollar question

Yep, wait till those conditions in the last week of Oct and expect him to do something similar. Key is not to jump the gun and go in there on the 15th just because we got a big cold front...probably too early.

His nocturnal pattern thru the rut probably resulted from you spooking him after that, or maybe he just noticed in general there was a lot of hunting pressure. When bucks become MORE nocturnal during the rut its almost always due to feeling the pressure. Do you have access to where he beds?

Oh, and this time find a tree closer to his travel route

This year I am trying something new. I have found a couple of giants who are far more killable in late November than any other time. Deer that are likely once in a lifetime for public land, crazy that there are two of them close together. So I am going to try to sit on my tag till then. Will see if I have the self control, staying on the sidelines for 6-7 weeks and giving myself about 10 days at the end of the rut to go after them

[SMS79]

Dressedtokill, Good topic! I'm in a similar situation of having a couple years of history with a particular buck that I'm targeting this coming season. I'm new (since last season) to the Beast, so I've acquired a ton of new ideas that I'm using to develop a game plan for this buck. I haven't however picked up much on how to hone in on a pattern from previous year's intel. I think the only mention of it I recall coming across so far is in a podcast interview JoeRE did (W2H maybe?). I'm planning on going back and re-listening to that soon. Also looking forward to more input on this thread.

This year I am trying something new. I have found a couple of giants who are far more killable in late November than any other time. Deer that are likely once in a lifetime for public land, crazy that there are two of them close together. So I am going to try to sit on my tag till then. Will see if I have the self control, staying on the sidelines for 6-7 weeks and giving myself about 10 days at the end of the rut to go after them

Thought for you, Joe: if I recall from podcasts and previous posts, you seek out and scout as many areas and spots as you can so you've always got multiple options to hunt whatever conditions may be present at the time. With this extraordinarily unique "problem" ( ) you've got on your hands, it could make for a unique opportunity for in-season scouting some of your other areas. Definitely makes for a little bit of a perspective shift. Good luck with the whole self-control thing.

[Stanley]

I like to use previous years intelligence as a starting point. For example the area a buck lives in. Most of the bucks I have knowledge about are killed by other hunters as the season wears on. This doesn't mean the "area" itself has been killed off. I hunt a lot of private properties but do not have exclusive hunting rights on any of them.

The best pattern you can have, is seeing the buck you are after a few days in a row. Doesn't happen often for me but that is what I look for. To me, if I can find a good water hole that bucks use that is dynamite. I believe water is a more consistent draw than a food source. This won't hold true if your hunting a swamp. Then a food source may be the better find.

Remember, the one most important part of the equation is the bedding area. If you throw everything else you think you know or understand out the window and concentrate on where the buck spends his daylight hrs. I guarantee you will hang some on the wall. Too often we tend to complicate things with moon phase, barometer, cold fronts, warm fronts, sunny days, windy days and the list goes on. You need to know where the buck is coming from and that would be the bedding area.

Sounds simple and it is just that simple. Once you know where the buck is living during the daytime, you can then fine tune on how to set up on him. If you don't know where the buck is living, does it really matter what the moon phase is? I think not. It takes a long time for this to sink in and for some it never sinks in or they refuse to let it. I think you've heard it said "you need to hunt the best spots" So what are the best spots in an area?

[Grasshopper]

I always thought of the rut patterns to be based off of a certain doe in an area coming into heat about the same day each year. I've often wondered if that is a genetic trait passed down through generations. I figured that bucks in the area smelling that a doe is getting close in a certain area by way of scraping and start to frequent the area more often. Do mature bucks remember from year to year where they've had successful rendezvous, and when they happened?
What I often see on my cameras is a day or two of bucks moving like crazy then nothing for a few days. On another camera a quarter mile away I'll see a lot of the same bucks showing up during the days when nothing is happening on the other camera. Sometimes there are just really great conditions and all of my cameras are getting action. There is nothing worse than being a day behind each flurry of rut activity.
I've heard people say that the rut tends to start high then moves lower as things progress. I think they feel the does move lower to avoid being pestered by 1.5yr old horn balls. My thoughts are that they are seeing initial signs of the rut high, because they are closer to the bucks beds and they are starting to move more in daylight. In my area does often bed lower closer to ag fields when they feel like the rut patterns have moved lower they are seeing bucks cruising doe bedding and dropping into thermal hubs to seek out the ladies. Also cruising what Dan calls parallel trails. I still feel like hunting high in the thermal tunnel area is a safe bet then. Especially because of the higher likelihood of finding stable winds.

[JoeRE]

I don't know if its hereditary, but I do know some does come around early, seems like the same every year until they die or dry up. I had 3 years in a row that I had crazy rut-type hunts around an early doe in heat Oct 25-28th each year. Found her by luck the first year, the next year passed a couple really tempting bucks after her and the third year should have killed a brute walking in a trance after her but didn't have the right setup to get it done. All in the same doe bedding area, seemed likely the same doe.

Dressedtokill, Good topic! I'm in a similar situation of having a couple years of history with a particular buck that I'm targeting this coming season. I'm new (since last season) to the Beast, so I've acquired a ton of new ideas that I'm using to develop a game plan for this buck. I haven't however picked up much on how to hone in on a pattern from previous year's intel. I think the only mention of it I recall coming across so far is in a podcast interview JoeRE did (W2H maybe?). I'm planning on going back and re-listening to that soon. Also looking forward to more input on this thread.

This year I am trying something new. I have found a couple of giants who are far more killable in late November than any other time. Deer that are likely once in a lifetime for public land, crazy that there are two of them close together. So I am going to try to sit on my tag till then. Will see if I have the self control, staying on the sidelines for 6-7 weeks and giving myself about 10 days at the end of the rut to go after them

Thought for you, Joe: if I recall from podcasts and previous posts, you seek out and scout as many areas and spots as you can so you've always got multiple options to hunt whatever conditions may be present at the time. With this extraordinarily unique "problem" ( ) you've got on your hands, it could make for a unique opportunity for in-season scouting some of your other areas. Definitely makes for a little bit of a perspective shift. Good luck with the whole self-control thing.

Thanks yea you are right. I plan on focusing more on scouting in October thru much of the rut....the problem is I will have that darn open tag chewing on my brain the whole time and the more I scout the more bucks I will find. I know, what a terrible problem to have, I will shut up

The whole reason I am on to these deer is I spent even more than usual time scouting thru the season last year after I filled my regular tag early. So yes the strategy can work.

[Dressedtokill]

So with that being said would you wait and hunt this area till the end of October? And find that NW wind around the 22 of October! I know that's a million dollar question

Yep, wait till those conditions in the last week of Oct and expect him to do something similar. Key is not to jump the gun and go in there on the 15th just because we got a big cold front...probably too early.

His nocturnal pattern thru the rut probably resulted from you spooking him after that, or maybe he just noticed in general there was a lot of hunting pressure. When bucks become MORE nocturnal during the rut its almost always due to feeling the pressure. Do you have access to where he beds?

Oh, and this time find a tree closer to his travel route

This year I am trying something new. I have found a couple of giants who are far more killable in late November than any other time. Deer that are likely once in a lifetime for public land, crazy that there are two of them close together. So I am going to try to sit on my tag till then. Will see if I have the self control, staying on the sidelines for 6-7 weeks and giving myself about 10 days at the end of the rut to go after them

I can't get any closer to his bed! This is a 30 acre farm in the middle of a downtown The last farm in this town. Had 20 acres planted in soy beans last year and guess what...... farmer planted soy beans again this year! Farm holds a pile of does and the way this farm lays out the best shot I can get is where I'm at. Should have had a 30 yard shot on him last year but didn't clear the one limb out of my shooting lane from the direction he came! LESSON LEARNED..... the hard way! So how close to the 22nd should I wait to hunt this deer?

[JoeRE]

No more than a couple days before that if conditions are right. One of those gut based judgement calls though.

If we don't get that big front till Halloween do not fret just wait till then. Just about every year we get at least 1 of those in the last 10 days of October. That 10 day period is what I would look at.