Because of all the clever precautions that mature whitetails take to avoid danger while they are most vulnerable—feeding—there is no one-way-fits-all tactic to successfully stand hunt feeding deer, especially older bucks. While scouting for our entire gang of 10 to 12 hunters two or more weeks before our hunting seasons begins, my three sons, a couple of grandsons and I check out up to a half-dozen whitetail feeding areas per square-mile—never selecting only one to hunt per hunter unless it is relatively large and has more than one doe (nature’s most effective buck lures) with young regularly feed in it. Multiple stand sites are generally necessary because, during the two-week period in which we will be hunting, older bucks will be changing their locations almost daily, for lots of reasons.

For one, each of our mature and yearling does will be in heat only 24 to 26 hours on unpredictable days throughout the two-week period beginning November 3. All our deer will suddenly switch from eating green grasses and leaves, to eating woody stems of certain shrubs and young trees in different areas about November 8. They may also be eating red oak acorns for a few days, or for long periods between late August and mid-November.

Severe winter weather, strong winds, unusually warm weather, starving wolves hunting deer during daylight hours, and great hunting pressure provided by hunters making drives—or just a few hunters wandering about on foot from dark to dark—can temporarily shut down all whitetail activities in a square-mile. This makes nearly all our deer either become nocturnal or abandon their home or breeding ranges for the rest of the hunting season.

With all these changes likely to occur, we must be ready to make timely changes in stand sites and hunt in a manner that minimizes alarming deer enough to become nocturnal or abandon their ranges. Stand hunting is best for this where all stand hunters can hike to and from stand sites without being identified as something dangerous by older deer along the way. As important, once a mature-buck stand site is found, everything possible must be done to ensure that stand site is not going to be recognized by older bucks as a dangerous spot to avoid.

We use two kinds of stand sites: 1) those chosen before a hunting season begins, which account for half of the bucks we usually take, typically on opening weekend, and 2) those chosen during a hunting season, which account for the other half of the bucks we take, typically taken during the following week after mature bucks fully understand they are currently being hunted by us.

All scouting and stand site preparations for opening weekend hunting are completed 2 to 3 weeks before opening day, and these stand sites are never approached again for any reason until after the hunting season begins.

One reason is, when we scout, we scout thoroughly, searching for deer signs that add up to “big buck stand site.” For this reason, we always disturb bucks and other deer enough while scouting to make some of them snort and bound away. Older bucks this frightened are very likely to abandon their ranges up to two weeks. We therefore give them 2 to 3 weeks to settle down, return to their home ranges and resume normal (predictable) habits without our interference before the hunting season begins.

Another reason for completing our preparations 2 to 3 weeks early is, we can’t help but deposit identifying trail scents wherever we walk while scouting and preparing stand sites and stand site approach trails. After we are finally done with a long weekend of such work, our hunting area is plastered just about everywhere with fresh human trail scents which are especially concentrated around our newly chosen stand sites—after which it will take four or more days for our trail scents and scents on everything we touch to disappear. The effect of these scents on whitetails, however, generally lasts longer than four days.

Human trail scents this widespread in a hunting area are a major reason mature whitetails living there will temporarily abandon their ranges and/or become nocturnal throughout the rest of a hunting season. By the time our hunting seasons begin, because we kept well away from our chosen stand sites during the previous 2 to 3 weeks, our trail scents will be long gone, and whitetail habits will be normal and predictable again when we finally return to our stands to hunt.

This is only the beginning of what we do to try to make our newly chosen stand sites unexpected by older approaching bucks. To begin with, we greatly limit the trails (mostly deer trails) we use during a hunting season. Within each square-mile we hunt, we use a series of connecting deer trails that form a large irregular circle that crosses multiple deer trails leading to whitetail feeding areas (never crossing feeding areas). This trail is our most-used trail during a hunting season. All our stand site approach trails branch from this one trail.

By limiting our hiking to these trails only, thus minimizing the spread of our trail scents, our deer soon realize we are doing this and are free to move safely about throughout most of their home ranges during a hunting season— the reason our deer do not often abandon their ranges during hunting seasons.

We further combat the potentially ruinous effects of trail scents by using each stand site only once per hunting season, generally for only one-half day. Our most productive stand sites for taking mature bucks are those that have never been used before, provide excellent natural (unaltered) concealment (natural blinds) on the ground or in a tree, and have a solid natural background (to keep our silhouettes from becoming discernable against a starlit or sunlit sky or snow). When used, their locations and approach trails are always downwind or crosswind of where deer are expected to be feeding.

Each site has natural openings only through intervening cover for firing at deer in feeding areas, and each is in unaltered forest cover 20 yards or more back from edges of feeding areas. Viewing small amounts of feeding areas, we’ve learned, is much more productive than viewing large amounts of feeding areas when hunting older bucks.

We consider our mature-buck stand sites to be only as effective as their approach trails, because at no time are we as easily identified by older nearby bucks in feeding areas as while approaching our stand sites on foot. Between us and a feeding area, there must be natural cover or terrain that will make it very difficult or impossible for feeding deer to get more than a very small and very brief glimpse that reveals what we are, and how tall we are (unusually tall moving creatures are recognized as hunters).

Our approach trails (deer trails), especially the last 100 yards, are cleared of branches likely to snap loudly underfoot (cleared while scouting). We walk lightly and nonstop at a moderate pace to and from our stand sites. Hearing your footsteps halt often, or seeing you halt often, convinces older bucks and other experienced deer that whatever you might be, you are stalking them, which is scary, so don’t do it no matter what anyone says.

Once there, if using a tree stand, you must be able to climb to it without deer even 400 yards away spotting you climbing. If exposed, their motion-sensitive eyes will instantly zero in on you every time, even in darkness.

For more insight and tips on how to make the most of the time you spend hunting, check out the articles in every issue of MidWest Outdoors, available by subscribing on our website.