By Larry Weishuhn
“Is it over or just beginning?” Asked Chris Avena when we met in Dallas at the annual 2023 DSC Convention and Outdoor Show. I could not help but smile. I knew where he was heading, with his round about question that was aimed primarily at post-season scouting.
“It’s actually both! Just finished our regular whitetail season, but I’m still hunting whitetails thanks to the Managed Land Deer Permit on the property I lease in western Texas and a couple of other places owned and managed by friends. On those properties we can continue hunting until the end of February or until we have taken our quota of both bucks and does. With that system I cannot use tags on my license, only tags provided to the landowner based on number of bucks and does that should be removed depending upon the current population and that property’s on-going long-term wildlife management program.” Before Chris could respond I continued, “I still have three bucks and eight does to take on my lease, plus a couple of buck tags on properties owned by friends.”
“Gracious, what are you going to do with all that venison?” asked my long-time friend and editor of American Outdoor News.
“Some will go into my freezer. It’s been a pretty lean deer year. But I also provide venison to family members and a bunch of friends, including those who are on a low cholesterol diet, as well as to a local church which distributes venison to those families in need of food. Not a single ounce of the deer I take goes to waste!” Chris nodded in agreement!
“The beauty of this late hunting is that when bucks are finished with the rut, they are hungry. Hunting food sources works extremely well. Often with these late hunts we see bucks that for whatever reason escaped being seen during the regular season. And, I’m hoping that will be the case this year.”
“I’m hunting a buck I chased during the regular season that avoided me at every turn. The ranch hands saw them several times. I saw him and another buck nearly as big; both high, wide, massive handsome 10-points in the 150 to mid-160 B&C range, only one time. Both came in from behind where I waited in ambush, but they turned and ran before I could get turned around to shoot. This on property managed by Double A Outfitters (325-576-5054).”
“Another buck, I saw chasing a doe. He ran the doe to within 25-yards of Brandon Houston, with whom I partner in H3 Whitetail Solutions (wildlife management consulting company and other things) and work with on his new “DSC’s The Journey” TV show on CarbonTV.com and me. Brandon and I got great chasing/rut footage. He was a mature buck, a tall-tined, wide and massive 9-point. I seriously thought about shooting him, but then decided it would be better to pass him for the time being, but then hunt him after the rut was over. After that encounter I had only seen him a couple more times at a great distance. He’s one of those bucks I hope to again find.”
“That sounds great, but I was really thinking about what you were doing to start scouting for this coming fall’s hunting season!” commented Chris.
I continued our conversation that indeed I planned on doing a bunch of winter scouting on properties that were not on Texas’ MLDP and even doing so on the property I was still hunting.
Winter-time and very early spring, to me are great times to scout for the upcoming hunting season nine to ten months away. I start getting serious about winter scouting about the time bucks begin casting their antlers. That time frame varies from late January to into April on some of the properties I hunt.
The January through February scouts often also involve predator calling. I dearly love calling coyotes and bobcats in particular. In some states shooting bobcats, considered furbearers, also requires a special license or tags. Always check local and State regulations regarding calling and taking predators. Too, some States allow night-time calling, as we do in Texas. But, other States only allow hunting during daylight hours.
As a wildlife biologist with many years of “real world” experience, I am keen on predator control and removing coyotes and bobcats during the late winter before spring’s “fawn drop”. Calling predators with mouth blown calls is something I truly love. But I also really like using Burnham Brothers’ new “Freq” electronic call, which broadcasts the high Hertz sounds made by distressed prey species and heard by predators. There is no other predator call on the market that comes close. Coyotes can hear up around 45,000 Hertz; bobcats upwards of 65,000 Hertz. All electronic calls other than the “Freq” can only produce 20,000 Hertz. This is one of the reason electronic no longer attract predators, as they once did.
The beauty of hunting predators is it can be combined with looking for cast or shed antlers. At the same time roaming through the woods, I also look for rubs and scrapes made during the fall just past.
Over many years of looking for shed antlers, I have learned numerous things. Finding a buck’s cast antlers tells me he not only survived the hunting season, but also has dropped his antlers and is starting to grow a new rack. Perhaps more importantly it tells me where he was at one point in time. Many older mature bucks are home-bodies. They have restricted home ranges that they know intimately. Throughout the years as a wildlife biologist working on many different properties, and as a hunter I have seen and/or taken older mature bucks within less than 100-yards of where I found their sheds. Does not always happen, but has happened often enough to know if I find the shed of a big mature buck the immediate area is a great place to hunt for that particular deer.
While looking for places to call predators I am also continually looking for scrapes and rubs. I look for both that appear to have been used for years. Bucks often return to the same place to set up their scrapes. On one of the ranches I have been involved with for a lot of years, there is a scrape which has been active for the past 19-years. It is at the mouth of a long canyon that leads to a spring. Once trail cameras came to be we got photos of 23 different bucks that visited that scrape during a three-day period. At least eight of these bucks, most people would have considered mature. Over the years as the tree grew three times the scrape shifted to another low hanging branch, but some bucks continued to scrape in the original site, which over a period of time grew bigger and deeper. I state 19-years, that is how long I have watched it. The scrape was already being used when I found it, how long I have no idea. On my property I have several huge and ancient liveoak trees with branches that reach ground. Here too I have been watching a scrape that has been active for the past 8-years.
I really like finding these type of long-active scrapes, they not only indicate bucks on the property, but there’s a good chance there are mature bucks on the property which continue to use the same scrape each year.
The same can essentially be said about rubs. I like to find and see bucks on big trees, particularly those which show sign of having been rubbed previously, as evidenced by the tree trying to grow back around the exposed trunk. Trail camera photos these days will show quite of a buck will return to run on the same tree year after year. Again, not every buck for bucks are as individual in their “doings” as you and me. But many bucks do return to rub on the same tree each year, particularly once they start feeling the rutting urge.
Winter scouting has changed considerably in the past year. Today we have apps such as HuntStand (which has updated maps, including landownership maps) and numerous others. We have Google Earth for maps of the property we hunt. When I started hunting we had topographical maps, if we were fortunate, later photo-ed maps from governmental agencies. Back then I spend considerable time drawing my own maps. On those maps I drew an antler where I found a shed, a rubbed tree where I found rubs, and a couple of scratches where I found scrapes. These days all you have to do is drop a pin and you can return to exact place later.
I often get tickled about how easy it is these days to scout for deer, using GPS style units, trail cameras, and the like. In some ways it also makes me a bit sad. As I have often said, “Today we have put at our fingertips what we use to house between our two ears!” Woodsmanship has been replaced by technology. But then if properly used today’s extensive technological advances can also make us better and more efficient hunters. But never forget, just about the time you think you have an old, wily whitetail buck “figured out”, he will most likely teach you he’s learned a new trick!