Knowing the reasons why older bucks have been successful at avoiding hunters is how Dr. Ken Nordberg has been able to find his own success in harvesting them.

Every year, it seems, I learn something new about why older bucks are so difficult to hunt. Half of the difficultly is attributable to the bucks. Take bucks 4 1/2 to 6 1/2 years of age—our preferred quarries. They were all that age because they had been successfully avoiding us for that many years, meaning they were very good at it. Unlike other hunters, being stand hunters, they tolerated us, knowing we wouldn’t pursue them or try to sneak up on them. We just walk in, sit somewhere for hours, and then walk away, making us easy to avoid and tolerate, as long as we are a safe distance away (out of site). They also knew we have a habit of sitting in some new spot wherever they were active each day. Different bucks of these ages had different ways of dealing with this potentially dangerous habit of ours.

As their identifying tracks and droppings in snow have often revealed, upon discovering us sitting in a tree or on the ground at what they considered to be a safe distance away, they commonly halted to watch us for five minutes or so as long as we appeared to be unaware they were near; or we were wise enough to avoid moving or making sounds while this was happening, finally turning and walking silently away, tail down, clearly not alarmed. If, however, the hunter lacks patience in such a situation, and begins doing something like raising a rifle or bow, a hasty though silent exit quickly follows.

As we finally learned, if that buck did not bound away or snort or raise its tail, no damage was done. It would thereafter remain in its home range and live a normal life there—except within 100 yards or more (out of sight) of the hunter’s discovered stand site.

Except while does were in heat, our older bucks tend to be almost completely nocturnal; they head to their secluded bedding areas by 9 a.m. and remain there until sundown, except when certain weather conditions occasionally triggered brief periods of extended morning or midday feeding. Some became nocturnal merely upon hearing rifle shots on opening morning, remaining nocturnal until the hunting season ended.

It sometimes took very little to make some of these bucks abandon their ranges during hunting seasons.

Upon merely seeing a hunter halt 100 to 400 yards away and turn to stare in their direction, some were never seen again.

Upon seeing, hearing, smelling a hunter or discovering trail scents of a hunter in or very near its secluded bedding area, a mature buck was almost certain to abandon its home range for the rest of the hunting season—the reason we began staying well away from known buck bedding areas during hunting seasons.

Upon suddenly discovering a stand hunter very near, any older buck of this region that bounded away with its tail raised and fanned, snorting or not, was discovered to be abandoning its range for the rest of the hunting season. Because we typically had only one, sometimes two, trophy-class bucks per square-mile in this region, this prompted us to learn how to hunt without seriously alarming mature bucks.

Later, we also learned it was it was equally important to seriously avoid alarming all other deer as well, especially does in heat or likely to be in heat soon—the world’s most effective buck lures.

Whenever a mature buck has the choice, it will much prefer sneaking silently away, tail down, rather than bounding noisily away. They routinely use other deer like radar, keeping a safe distance downwind where they can detect via smell, sight or hearing when deer ahead, while entering a feeding area, for example, become alarmed for some reason, upon which older bucks slip silently away without danger to themselves.

The other half of why such bucks are so difficult to hunt is us. The trouble with the way most stand hunters stand hunt today is, they place too much emphasis on lures, baits and scent killers, and not enough on hiding themselves sight-, sound- and scent-wise. Stand hunting is still a superior method for hunting older bucks and does, but not the popular form of stand hunting used by millions of stand hunters today: Using the same stand site day after day and year after year; sitting higher and higher above the ground without regard for adequate silhouette-hiding cover; paying no attention to wind direction; using long over-used and ineptly-used lures, baits, calls or foods readily recognized by practically all mature whitetails in America today as bogus and dangerous; especially at stand sites made obvious by unnatural human destruction and construction and reeking with human trail scents used by hunters.

Those same hunters then announce to all deer within a half-mile or more that they have arrived via sounds—gasoline engines, slamming car doors, tailgates and trunks and blowing on calls and banging antlers together without knowing what buck grunts and doe bleats or battling bucks actually sound like. There is nothing in sporting goods stores today that is new to older bucks. They’ve been exposed to them all by millions of hunters year after year, making it easy to identify and avoid hunters using them.

The one and only thing my sons and I have been using during the past three decades that big bucks still can’t routinely keep away from is a newly-selected, never-used-before stand site hidden by superior natural concealment, downwind or crosswind of a site or trail a buck has used minutes to a few hours earlier—a site at which an approaching buck has no present or past reason or clue that suggests you may be there right now. After using such a site during one to three consecutive feeding periods, or taking a buck there, we move on. Most stand sites where older bucks are taken or nearly taken are only productive for taking one older buck (not true of other deer). The reason is, older, much-experienced bucks have a keen eye for subtleties characteristic of your stand sites and they have excellent memories.

If your stand sites all look much the same and you are not well-hidden there by natural, unaltered cover, in a tree or in the ground, older bucks will not only quickly find and identify you there—usually while safe distances away—but avoid that site and all others that have the same appearance the rest of their natural lifespans (1 to 2 years).

If the most common characteristic of your stand sites is superior, not-obviously-altered, natural concealment (meaning your silhouette, your face covered with a camo headnet, blaze-orange clothing and slow movements can’t be easily seen), and you are silent and downwind or crosswind, you can expect to be annually successful at taking mature bucks. Yes, you must move often, and fresh mature-buck-sized tracks and/or droppings must always be near, but such stand sites are free, and some will be productive.

Get more hunting insight and tips from the pros who know in the fall issues of MidWest Outdoors, available by subscribing on our website.