White Tailed Deer Rut – Pre-Rut Whitetail Strategies

White Tailed Deer Rut

The temperatures at night start to graze the bottom of the mercury barrel. The amount of available sunlight decreases on a daily basis, and whitetail bucks slowly go mad with wanton desire. Rubs and scrapes appear on the edges of fields and along trails in high-interaction areas. Deer activity intensifies during daylight hours as a sudden influx of animals crossing highways and country roads at night increases. This stage of the whitetail breeding season is commonly referred to as the pre-rut.

Selecting the right stand location at this time of year can result in a close encounter of the monster buck kind. It’s an extremely exciting time to be in the deer woods. There simply is no better time to identify, isolate and exploit the common behavioral traits of mature whitetails bucks than during the pre-rut.

Although the timing of the rut fluctuates across North America — the farther one travels south, the later the rut occurs — the tactics described here will work throughout the entire range of the white-tailed deer.

We all know what happens during the rut. Bucks are running around like wild dogs in a helter-skelter manner, chasing every hot doe that crosses their path for miles. Sure you see a lot of bucks during this time of the year, but patterning those bucks and trying to close-in on one particular buck is a nightmare at best.

So why am I discussing pre-rut whitetail deer tactics in the middle of February you ask? Because there is no better time to be searching the woods for the sign that will lead you to a pre-rut stage monster buck this coming fall than right now! White Tailed Deer Rut

Buck Lairs

Continuously monitoring and scouting various trail systems can lead to areas that big bucks prefer to roam. Virtually living solitary lives for most of the year, big whitetails often select the nastiest, most impenetrable piece of real estate in an area to call home. These areas are normally located in sections of timber where deer feel safe.

Cedar swamps, standing cornfields, briar thickets, brush-choked streambeds and pine plantations are all areas that offer protection and provide concealed daytime movement. For this reason, bucks will often establish their bedding areas — or core areas — nearby. Mature animals will routinely use this type of cover to move from one section of the woods to another.

Although bucks tend to let down their guard during the heat of the rut, safety is still their No. 1 concern throughout the pre-rut period. The odds of arrowing trophy deer are excellent in places where they feel secure. Identifying and studying these areas will earn you the opportunity to harvest a true wall hanger.

Setting up over trails that link feeding and bedding areas can still produce good results. Bucks will continue to use early-season trails, making short visits at food plots and crop fields as they slowly extend their range into neighboring territory. These excursions focus on assessing the breeding status of local doe concentrations, and storing energy for the rigors of the upcoming rut by quickly consuming high-energy chow.

In most cases, trophy bucks choose to travel on less-defined trails that skirt heavy cover. Rarely will you see a mature deer traveling through open timber or crossing an open field at this time. Keeping a low profile is standard operating procedure, but the one weakness bucks have in sustaining an anonymous lifestyle is the uncontrollable habit of leaving behind evidence of their existence. Accurately interpreting and processing this information can be a tremendous aid in devising a plan of attack. White Tailed Deer Rut