Tricking Mature Bucks

A former bowhunter who now mostly observes and guides has learned some valuable lessons in how to kill old bucks.

It was opening morning of the 2023 rifle season, and I was in the perfect spot. I was in a box stand on a powerline that runs through our property in Laurens County.  But unlike the many years in the past, I didn’t have a bow in my hand. Heck, I didn’t even have a gun. I was guiding a good friend of mine, who hadn’t deer hunted in more than 35 years, and he had never killed a buck. It was my job to get him that first buck.

Deer had been crossing the powerline and pouring into the food plot all morning. There were plenty of does and small bucks to be seen, but I knew we could hold out for something bigger. I was watching one direction toward Turkey Creek, and Jamie was looking in the direction toward the highway. It was just past 9:30 a.m. and the sun had already climbed above the trees when I saw him step out of the thicket. It was the biggest buck I had on camera on the property, a high-tined 8-pointer that I had judged to be 4 1/2 years old.  It was a magnificent sight as the sun hit his tall tines and he majestically walked toward us.

“There he is,” I said as I got my binoculars on him. Several seconds later, the buck turned broadside and stopped for the perfect shot.

I said, “shoot him,” but nothing happened. The buck started walking across the powerline and stopped, and I said, “shoot him.” Once again, no shot. As the buck approached the opposite edge of the powerline next to the thicket, I said “shooo” and my .308 that Jamie had borrowed fired. I saw dirt kick up, and the buck charged into the thicket. It was a miss.

In my excitement, I didn’t take into consideration that Jamie had to turn around 180 degrees, get the gun up, get it out the window and on the buck and shoot. I also didn’t take into consideration that Jamie probably needed some more time on the practice range before the hunt. Between my lack of foresight, Jamie’s buck fever and a long 140-yard shot, it just didn’t happen. Jamie was sick to his stomach about missing the nice buck, but I told him that is why we call it hunting and not killing.

I reminded him of the two times I had county-record bucks within 10 yards of me and I couldn’t put an arrow in them. It just comes with the territory. I told him you learn from your experience, and a good hunter never makes the same mistakes twice. The very next day, Jamie made a perfect, 130-yard shot on a beautiful 16-inch wide 8-pointer. It was a very nice first buck.

Jamie Cassidy with his first buck ever, taken after learning some hard hunting lessons the day before.

That opening-weekend hunt was just a brief example of one of the great hunts we’ve had the past few years.  The reason we saw so many deer and so many mature bucks revolved around how we hunt the property. As an exclusive bowhunter of more than 20 years, I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to tricking mature bucks into stepping out. Fooling them, or at least watching them with their guard down, has been my focus for many years. Now that I am no longer bowhunting, I designed my hunting property to maximize success, and I used my bowhunting knowledge to do it.

One thing I realized years ago is that every time I step foot in the woods, I’m a threat to the deer. I know that sounds arrogant, but it’s actually a bad thing. I’ll give you an example. One afternoon at my mother-in-law’s house, I watched out the window while two does ate peanuts in the field behind the house. My mother-in-law was going back and forth on the back porch and in the yard watering flowers. The deer watched her the entire time she was out there, but they kept on eating and flicking their tails like everything was all right. She came inside and asked me to get something out of my truck, and as soon as I walked outside, the deer immediately ran out of the field. They saw me as a threat, but they didn’t see her as a threat. She had gone just as far in the yard as I had, but she didn’t move and carry herself like I did. The deer knew the difference.

Flash forward 10 years and I have figured out a way to use this to my advantage. Using this method, you can fool mature bucks into thinking they are safe. However, before I jump into the nuts and bolts of how we hunt our property, let me give you some back story on how I discovered it.

I didn’t hunt for more than five years. After my dad died and my group of hunting buddies went our separate ways, I just didn’t want to hunt. I still loved spending time outdoors, so I’d ride my mother’s electric golf cart around our property just like she does most days. What I wasn’t doing was walking in the woods scouting and leaving behind human scent. I have a couple of friends who wanted to deer hunt, so I decided I would take them on a few hunts. I was amazed at how many deer we would see. Some days we would see so many deer that it was hard to remember how many we had seen. Why did we see so many deer? We had plenty of food, we hadn’t left any human scent in the woods, and we weren’t a threat.

David Johnson is a good friend of mine, who mainly bowhunts in Kansas and Florida. He is as good as they come with a bow in his hands, and he has a room full of Pope & Youngs to prove it. Some of them are even from Florida. I asked David the secret to his success, and he told me that he leaves his deer alone. On his hunting property, he drives in and fills up his troughs and feeders, and he immediately leaves. He doesn’t walk around, he doesn’t scout, he doesn’t put up new stands, he leaves the deer alone. He already has his stands in place, and he uses cell cameras to monitor his deer herd.

After he fills up his troughs, he honks his truck horn three times to let the deer know the feeders are full. According to his cell cameras, he has had deer eating at his trough 90 seconds after he leaves. Those deer don’t see David as a threat. During deer season, when he sees his target bucks show up on his cell camera, he slips into is ground blind when the wind is right, and the rest is history. This method has worked for him year after year.

This is what I have tried to accomplish on my farm, but I’m set up for gun hunting and not bowhunting. I drive an electric golf cart all the way to each stand. I would rather have a deer see the golf cart and run off than have one smell my trail where I walked in.  Deer aren’t scared as bad when they see that electric cart as opposed to smelling human scent. Having a deer smell fresh human scent is about the worst thing that can happen to ruin a hunt. Having a deer see you is second on that list, and then having one hear you is last.

I usually park my electric golf cart as close to the box stand as possible. During the summer, I cut out a spot of thick brush next to the stand to try and hide it, but they can still see it if they get close enough. I have had a few deer walk all the way up to it and look at it intently. They get nervous and leave, but that is a trade-off that I am willing to make. Seeing an inanimate object is less of a threat than smelling fresh human scent on the ground.

About 20 years ago, I was hunting in Alabama on a huge clover field. I walked to a ladder stand, and when I got to the corner of the field, I cut across the field to save some steps. I hunted that same field the next day but instead of cutting across the corner of the field, I walked the road all the way around. I had some does come out and feed, and they eventually crossed the trail I walked the day before across the field. My scent from 24 hours earlier was still strong enough to scare the deer out of the field. That means they could most likely smell my scent on that trail for at least another day or two. It may not be enough fresh human scent to scare them after that length of time, but a mature buck doesn’t care. He is going to avoid all human scent that is strong. So every time we hunters walk to our stands, we are leaving behind scent for the next 48 hours that is letting deer know we have been there. Mature bucks won’t tolerate that. This is why I ride an electric golf cart all the way to the stand. The mature bucks won’t cut my trail.

My box stands are Sportsman’s Condos, a one-piece molded plastic stand where the only scent that can leave it is through the small windows. This greatly reduces the amount of scent we leave behind. I also use a strong cover scent, like Bowhunter’s Fatal Obsession or Scrape Juice. This also helps reduce the amount of human scent the deer can smell. Deer can smell human scent from great distances. They smell human scent just about every day, but it’s just in low concentrations. It is the higher concentration of human scent that scares the deer. If the concentration they smell is low, it doesn’t scare them. The combination of less walking and a strong cover scent reduces the human scent the deer can smell.

One thing you need to consider if attempting this method of hunting is that I am using an electric vehicle that doesn’t make any noise. This method won’t work with a gas-powered ATV. You need something quiet. Deer know about gas-powered ATVs, and they consider them a threat.

I was once watching a buck slowly browse across a bottom.  My neighbor on the other side of the ridge was hunting and decided to leave early. I heard him slam his door, crank up his truck and drive off. The small buck looked in his direction and listened closely for a few minutes, but it then went back to eating.

About 30 minutes later, someone else on the other side of the ridge cranked up an ATV to leave. As soon as it cranked up, that small buck came unglued. He ran the opposite direction of the ATV and was visibly scared. That ATV was a threat. I learned a great lesson that day, deer don’t like ATVs, and trucks don’t scare them as bad. The electric golf cart I use doesn’t make any noise and doesn’t seem to spook them unless they see us. Even then, they will still eventually come back out. It’s not the same threat level as smelling human scent.

While I just described how to reduce your scent and trick big bucks into thinking you are not a threat, I have a friend who tries to be a threat on purpose. He is the most skilled hunter I have ever seen, and he doesn’t even hunt very much. However, if he does decide to go hunting, he usually shoots something big. He owns a cattle farm, so he is in and out of his property every day feeding and watering his cows. He sees deer all the time, and they see him. He is not a threat. However, when he decides to hunt, he does one of the most genius things I’ve ever seen in the woods. He goes in and puts up a ladder stand in a creek bottom. He cuts his shooting lanes and leaves the limbs right there. When he decides to hunt, he walks to the ladder stand just before daylight and hangs his jacket on the stand. He then covers his head and neck to reduce scent and quietly slips back out and around the field to where the big bucks will go when they avoid that ladder stand. He is using the ladder stand as a decoy. He knows the big bucks will avoid it, and he uses a climbing stand and climbs so slowly that the deer can’t tell he is climbing. When the big deer slip around to avoid that ladder stand, he is waiting for them. He has killed multiple big bucks doing this.  He says it works just about every time, but he only hunts a couple of times a year if at all, and I believe him. I’ve seen his trophy wall.

A mature buck is always going to be a mature buck, and he’s going to be hard to kill. They just don’t move and act like younger deer.

However, if you use the techniques I described above on your hunting land, you will see many more deer than you usually see. And when those small bucks start running around the does having a good time, the big bucks know it. After a while, they will let their guard down because they haven’t smelled any strong human scent. Their ego won’t let them stay hidden in the thicket if all the other bucks are out and about.

And when those big boys step out, it’s then time to do our thing. Happy Hunting.