Strike while the iron is hot by having a variety of hunting locations in mind. This means having done enough scouting so that you know which oak trees are dropping acorns or which apple trees are producing.

Find the deer’s preferred food source — say, a hidden apple tree in close proximity to a bedding area or cornfield — or even better, the latest, hottest scrapes and rubs.

Divide your stands into categories and hunt them only when the optimum times come around. Generally, I use early-season stands, rut stands and late-season stands. You won’t find me sitting in a prime rut stand until the rut really gets going. And, if the rutting signs are not steaming hot, I’ll hold off until the bucks get active.

I’ve been lucky enough to find a few stands that produce consistently in both morning and evenings. But more often, it’s either one or the other. Don’t waste your hunting hours during unproductive periods of time.

OPPORTUNITY MAY KNOCK TWICE
Everyone make mistakes. You may miss an easy shot or spook some deer while entering your stand.

That happens to everyone from time to time, but how rest of the season will go is often determined by what you do next.

When a buck is hot on a doe, you can often get away with a mistake or two. If you miss a buck or spook one, stay put instead of packing your bags and heading home. If there’s a hot doe in the area, likely she’ll drag him — or some other buck — past your stand again in the next few hours.

When she comes out of estrus, however, it’s time to move again.

Because it’s the rut, almost anything can happen, even at midday. Sometimes, in fact, the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. period offers the best opportunities. Hunters who remained on stand long after everybody else headed for the diner have bagged many a buck in the middle of the day.

KEEP A LOGBOOK
To help me track hunting areas, situations and patterns, I write on my aerial maps all kinds of information, such as the location of productive apple trees or oak stands, the dates they drop their apples, the locations of other hunters and when they hunt, how crop rotation affects an area from year to year, where the rub lines are found and more.

Last season, for example, the crop rotation around my best rut stands was the same as it had been six years before. On the adjacent property, a large cornfield offered early-season cover for several mature bucks.

This encouraged them to funnel past my stand as they headed into a thick bedding area.

Because the crops were the same, I kept my eye on an established rub line that had been well used that very first season. Once I saw that it had become active again, I needed to hunt only two days before connecting on a nice buck.

Without keeping my historical data, I might have overlooked or forgotten these details, and my season could have ended much differently.