Most of you guys who are always looking for buck hunting tips are good hunters. You practice shooting your bows and make sure you have everything in tune before the season. However, when shooting your bow well before the season starts, you’re building up all this adrenalin and when opening day of bow season comes, you want to hunt hard like my neighbors.

You’re going out every morning, every evening, taking your showers and doing your scent control, getting up early and going to your best stands. buck hunting tips you happen to see a mature buck on opening day, you get pumped! You don’t even want to go to sleep that night. buck hunting tips All you can think about is getting out there and having that buck walk within shooting range. You want to get to him before someone else gets a crack at him because after all, you want to be the first guy among your buddies this year to get a nice buck.

Hunting Season Buck Hunting Tips

Buck Hunting Tips #1

When you hunt day after day after day in October, and you’re not seeing your buck, you start second guessing your stand location, you start guessing your theories, and your set-ups. Even though they were okay, you were just making your move too early on a big buck. It’s still hot out and mature bucks do not move when it’s hot, buck hunting tips especially when it’s hunting season. buck hunting tips You can’t force the issue.  buck hunting tips Pace yourself.

Buck Hunting Tip #2

You only have 1 or 2 days at the beginning of bow season to shoot a mature buck while he is still in his summer pattern. After that, they go very nocturnal. This is called the October lull. There’s nothing you can do about it. If you really buck hunting tips need to enjoy the outdoors this time of year, you’re better off going fishing.

Buck Hunting Tip #3

Here’s what I do during the October lull. buck hunting tips  spend as much time at home with the family as I can.

The only bowhunting I do is with my daughter in one of our doe harvest food plots on the weekend. Then when Halloween comes, buck hunting tips I can be in my treesaddle almost everyday during the first 2 weeks of November which is the best time of the season to shoot buck hunting tips a mature buck.

Don’t be the guy who over-hunts through the month of October. You’ll burn out your stands, burn out your wife and family, and just when the hunting gets good with the pre-rut, around halloween, your wife turns to you and says, “You’ve been out hunting everyday for the last 30 days. It’s about time you stayed home and spend some time with the family.” This can lead to you having to go shopping or finishing the honey-do list while your buddies are out seeing and shooting big bucks during the pre-rut.

The best buck hunting tips for shooting big bucks every year is all about off-season preparation, and knowing when and where to pick your spots during the season. buck hunting tips.  Other than luck, it takes understanding whitetail behavior, developing a plan, and hunting with confidence.

For more buck hunting tips, visit my video training series on shooting mature bucks.

Let me say right from the start, I love the great state of MI. I was born here and will probably be buried here. There is so much for an outdoor loving sportsman to do, a guy just can’t do it all. Having said that, let me also say that I don’t like many of the hunting regulations the MI DNR has in place.  Many of their policies are driven by the almighty dollar, the anti-hunting crowd, and supposedly are designed to cater to sportsmen without seemingly having little regard for the health of its wildlife, namely whitetail deer.

The MI deer herd is so out of whack it’s not even funny. Over 700,000 hunters get 35 days to shoot two bucks with a firearm and 80 days with a bow, including a crossbow, not that I’m against crossbows at all, I’ll probably have to use one someday myself. But with all those days to shoot 2 bucks, can you say annihilation of the buck population?

In many areas there are not enough bucks to breed all the does. That results in a lot of does coming into estrus in December and even January.  Whatever bucks are left, run themselves ragged deep into the winter when they should be conserving energy and building their nutrition level for the harsh MI winters. Bucks that go into winter in poor shape have a deeper hole to climb out of in the spring nutritionally, if they even make it at all, resulting in smaller antlers the following fall.

Need proof? How many deer hunting TV shows or videos are filmed in Michigan in which mature bucks are consistently harvested with a bow? Hmmm.

Many attempts by the MI DNR have been made to try to increase the doe harvest instead of decreasing the buck harvest to one buck per hunter per year period like most states. Now there is a MI early doe  season with firearms that starts on Sept. 16-19. Does anyone believe that with the ” brown it’s down” mentality of many hunters, if a big 140″ class buck, while in his summer routine, gives him a shot, that all hunters will be able to keep the safety on? No Way!

Poaching is already way out of hand. Now we’re going to give these poachers a license to go out with a firearm while it’s still summer? Gimme a break. It will result in more bucks being MIA before the season starts. Most MI hunters never even see a trophy buck during hunting season and some will not be able to restrain themselves. You know who you are.

The other reason I don’t like the MI early doe season is that most of the mature bucks will be totally nocturnal by the opening of bow season Oct 1. Not only because of the MI early doe season, but also the early youth hunt on the following weekend just before the regular bow opener. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the youth hunt. We need to recruit new youngsters into the sport. All 3 of my daughters took does with a bow during the youth hunt. I just wish the youth hunt was the only firearm season before the bow opener.

After all, MI just legalized crossbows to help more hunters shoot more bucks and does. Why do we need yet another firearm season to kill does while it’s still summer? It’s too hot, many deer will go to spoil if not found soon after being shot, and mature bucks will go nocturnal even before the youth hunt!

There’s a lot of things that should be considered and changed for the sake of the health of the MI deer herd. I could go on and on with more reasons but it won’t do any good because money talks and the MI DNR would never do anything that could decrease revenues coming in.

At a time when we all see so many TV hunting shows and videos of big bucks being harvested, these policies will only result in more MI hunters becoming discouraged and deciding to give up the sport or spend their hunting budget dollars out of state where better deer management is taking place. Either way, MI loses out on more revenue and MI hunters lose more voices to keeping the anti hunting crowd from taking away more outdoor privileges.

I believe the MI early doe season is just a way to raise more revenue without any consideration of the deer herd’s well being.

I would love to hear what you think. Feel free to leave a comment below.