It has long been the opinion of most deer hunters that certain hunting methods are best for hunting whitetails (meaning “all whitetails”), and that certain hunting aids are best for taking trophy bucks. The “trophy buck” distinction is an admission something extra is needed to take older bucks.

1. One of the first things I learned about wild whitetails was that there are five different behavioral classes of whitetails: fawns, yearlings, mature does, 2 1/2- to 6 1/2-year-old non-breeding bucks, and dominant breeding bucks, all of which have somewhat different habits, behavior and levels of elusiveness. Bucks that have survived four or more hunting seasons are generally the most elusive of them all, meaning, they are the most cunning or intelligent of whitetails.

2. Having long been studying older bucks (64 years) with hopes of improving my odds of successfully hunting them, I have learned that no two older bucks survive being hunted by wolves and humans the same way.

3. Moreover, aside from being particularly skilled at identifying something dangerous, once deer discover something is dangerous, they generally avoid it for the rest of their lives, never making the same mistake at the same sites, year after year. Yet most deer hunters hunt them as if they do continue to repeat the same mistakes at the same sites every year.

4. Complicating matters, no two older bucks avoid hunters—more correctly, “avoid being seen by hunters”—the same way. What this means is, I cannot provide you (or myself) with a set of hunting instructions equally productive for taking all bucks 4 1/2 years of age or older. What I can do, however, is provide you with a set of examples of how I managed to take different older bucks, doing different things, that would have very likely enabled them to avoid being seen, much less taken, by most other hunters.

My sons and I traditionally finish our scouting, trail work and stand site preparations two weeks or more before our firearm deer hunting season opens. This gives deer time to recover from all our shenanigans.

During the last day of a usual long weekend, a few years before wolves reduced our deer population to three per square-mile, my son John and I decided to check out one more small area we had overlooked. About the first of September, while following a deer trail leading into the area, we came upon an antler rub obviously made by a big buck while shedding velvet.

Originally, it was an alder bush about five feet tall. Now, it was a shattered pile of dead and twisted branches with much of its bark missing, prompting me to say, “I’d sure like to see the buck that did this.”

About 100 feet further along that trail, we discovered a recently made antler rub on the trunk of a quaking aspen nearly six inches in diameter, adding to the realization that we were treading into an area frequented by a particularly large buck. Some small chunks of bark on the ground around the base of that aspen were still damp. The ground was dry, however, and thus far we had not yet discovered well-defined deer tracks.

We did soon find identifying droppings made by that buck, which is typical. They were clumped, meaning they were buck droppings, and shiny, meaning they were made very recently, within a few hours. Individual droppings stuck together in that clump were a bit more than an inch long, leaving no doubt in our minds that the buck that made all these deer signs was a trophy-class buck. At this moment, it probably wasn’t a great distance away.

What we had learned thus far, however, wasn’t enough to enable us to successfully hunt that buck. For that, we still needed to find a site where that buck was very likely to return to two weeks later (the spot at which to fire at it). It would need to be within easy shooting distance of a site where I could sit on my backpacked stool, without being readily seen by that buck, while the wind was blowing in my face.

About 200 yards southeast was an edge of a recently logged clearcut. In this wilderness region, clear cuts are number-one sources of favorite whitetail summer foods such as green grasses and leaves of various plants, and number-one sources of favorite winter browse such as thin branches of woody shrubs like red osiers and tree saplings. Because feeding areas are sites where whitetails spend a lot of time during daylight hours, they are our most used sites for stand hunting. I therefore asked John to hike to that clearcut to search for fresh and old identifying deer signs made by that buck, while I searched for additional deer signs and deer trails in the vicinity.

We were about to split up on a well-used, connecting deer trail that coursed south, down the middle of an old logging trail covered with deep yellow grass, when we discovered an adjacent ground scrape. It was about 6 feet long and 2 1/2 feet wide. The completely exposed, black soil within it had been recently pawed with such an effort that small clumps of black, yet-damp dirt were scattered widely up to ten feet away, past the south end of the scrape. The scrape itself was deeply dished as if it had been pawed an unusual number of times, and it contained a few distinct deer tracks four inches long.

Crossing this trail on the south end of the scrape was a narrow, much-trampled deer trail coursing east and west. On the east side, it emerged from a large, dense stand of spruce trees 6 to 10 feet tall. On the west side, it disappeared into old an old forest of tall aspens and evergreens. This trail appeared to be solely used by this big buck, being covered only with fresh and old 4-inch-long tracks in soft moss and soil.

When John returned from the clearcut, reporting that 4-inch tracks and clumped 1-inch droppings were common there, I was sizing up a 6-foot-tall spruce tree standing alone in the deep yellow grass of the old logging trail, about 100 yards north of the ground scrape.

“This tree would be a great blind for an open shot at that buck standing by that ground scrape, while the wind is blowing from the southeast to southeast, which is a very common wind direction here on opening weekend. But I wish this tree was a little wider,” I said to John.

“How about adding that tree,” he suggested, pointing to a small, half-dead spruce on the other side of the logging trail.

“Perfect. It looks unchanged,” I said after standing back to inspect my easily finished blind. “Now all I have to do is stomp down the grass behind those trees and along a narrow path leading to where I will sit, so I can get there without rustling this dead grass. Then let’s get out of here to avoid plastering this area with more of our trail scents for this big buck to think about.”

About a half mile away, we halted to talk about what we had found at this site.

“That ground level stand site we just set up is a mile-and-a-half from camp, and it’s taking a lot of fluorescent tacks to mark this trail leading to it, but I can’t help but believe that it will be worth the extra work. That spot has the look of a ‘sure thing’ buck. If the wind is right on opening morning, that stand will be my number one choice, even though I’ll have to leave camp by 5 am. to get there 30 minutes before first light.

“There’s something peculiar about all the deer signs we found there, however. They are most characteristic of a buck that was driven off-range by a dominant breeding buck and is now temporarily living in a small hideaway until the breeding phase of the rut ends. Such bucks commonly renew their limited number of rubs and scrapes daily. If this is true, the odds of taking it on opening day will be even better because that buck will almost certainly be in that same area two weeks from now. Though not a dominant breeding buck, it nonetheless appears to be a very large buck. This makes me wonder what the dominant breeding buck of this area looks like!”

A light breeze was blowing from the southeast on opening morning when our deer camp alarm clock began ringing at 4 am. Unfortunately, according to our weather radio, the wind was forecasted to increase in velocity to 20 mph that day. Moreover, though the current temperature was 45 degrees, by mid-afternoon it was supposed to be in the low 70s, then almost certain to force our whitetails to become nocturnal. Nonetheless, I wasted no time getting ready to head to my first choice of stand sites, figuring the wind and the temperature would not be serious enough to affect that buck’s habits until about 10 am.

With my flashlight beam kept pointed at the ground a short distance ahead, after following my fluorescent tacks on trailside tree trunks nonstop with light footsteps, and keeping my head pointed straight ahead (using the wolf ruse), I finally crept into my little hollow in the deep grass behind my spruce tree blind a half hour before first light, figuring that the buck I hoped to take was currently feeding in the clearcut southeast of where I sat. I used no buck lure, bait, call or anything else store-bought to attract that buck to my stand site and/or inform it that I was there. Instead, I was using the buck’s own scrape to attract it, long free of all human trail scents. Being downwind, I also had no need to use a so-called scent killer or wear special clothing.

The sunrise was glorious, and the dead, retained leaves of a red oak standing about 20 yards south of the buck’s ground scrape hardly rustled all in the light breeze.

By 9 am, however, while growing weary of peering south between boughs of the spruce tree in front of me, wind gusts were beginning to make those red oak leaves rustle much too loudly. Yet I continued my vigil, fighting off the lethargy that always grows during long hours of stand hunting. I even took time to insert my rifle between horizontal branches of my spruce tree blind to make sure my scope would be clear of obstructions, if and when that buck showed up.

By 9:30 am, those oak leaves and bare tree branches were clattering nonstop, the wind becoming strong and noisy enough to chase whitetails back to their bedding areas. It was beginning to appear this would be just another fruitless morning of stand hunting. When I peered into my scope once again, however, a buck with notably large antlers was standing broadside in the grass next to that ground scrape. Only a slight movement of my rifle was necessary to place the crosshairs of my scope on the neck of that buck, where my bullet would be sure to shatter its spine (my long favorite quick-kill target on a deer). At the shot, the buck dropped out of sight into the deep, yellow grass.

The above discovery of the location of a big buck, then taken skilled advantage of, made possible by information provided by its deer signs, paired with a knowledge of predictable habits of such a deer during our hunting seasons, is what successful trophy buck hunting is all about. In future editions of MidWest Outdoors, therefore, I will describe how and why I managed to take numerous such bucks, giving you the flexibility to put things together to create a successful plan to hunt one different big buck—although admittedly not one plan to hunt all big bucks.