Big Whitetails, Rokslide Style by Les Welch

[robby denning]

Hi All,
Les Welch is one of our writers who's been with us since the beginning. He made our staff simply because he lives in Wisconsin but does very well bowhunting elk in the various Western states and of course, whitetails in his home state of Wisconsin and other whitetail states.

He's a hard-working hunter willing to do what it takes to "make it happen."

Les is on Sitka's prostaff and therefore has tested a ton of their gear. So when the Sitka offered us the chance to test their Whitetail gear (and some other pieces) it was Les I reached out to.

I was going to post this review only in the clothing forum but after I read it, I was so fired up about hunting big whitetails that I figured I better put it in the Whitetail forum.

I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did. Although I'm just a mule deer hunter, I can tell a good buck hunter of any of the deer species in about five minutes- Les certainly knows his stuff.

Les will chime in if you have any questions on the clothing or how he tags "Big East" whitetails.

http://www.rokslide.com/2012-01-09-05-09-42/clothing/406-whitetails-rokslide-style

 

[cwoods]

I really enjoyed the read on this one! I'm not much on the calling game. It has always seemed to hurt me more than help but after reading this I might just have to get a bit more aggressive in this area of my game.

 

[Osprey]

If calling isn't working learn what you are saying and when you are saying it. I hunt HEAVILY pressured public land whitetails in areas where about 3-6 over 3.5 yr old are taken between 300-400 hunters with that said I have several encounters with mature bucks in this area every year and usually harvest a mature one most years. I hunt it mainly for the fact that is so close and I can scout frequently. I find in this area calling only works at certain times and in certain places. For instance blind rattling might work but best done less frequntly and just as a tine ticking in a bedding area. Remember your mature bucks will be in that area before light sometimes 2 hours before you have to beat them or you already lost. Grunting works extremely well but it really depends on time of year and mood of buck the pre rut is the TIME for this and it does work well especially if your trying to pull in a buck just out of range. I;ve had grunting work even in late dec as well to pull in a deer. However make sure you either are prepared to take quartering to shots and practice scent control to a T as bucks especially heavily hunted deer will try to get down wind of the call try using terrain to you advantage as in a more open area etc the big bucks will not go into the open in daylight to check it out and will slink through the thick brush. I've never hunted whitetails were calling wasn't effective as long as timing and what I was saying was correct

 

[Nick Muche]

Killing bucks in the class that Les does consistently is pretty tough on Public Land in WI. Kudo's to you Les, you're doing very well.

 

[Osprey]

x2 hunting and purposly killing mature public land bucks with any consistancy is very challenging on most heavily hunted public land areas. As he said in the article some guys have figured it out and I estimate less than 5% of hunters can consistantly do it in HEAVILY hunted areas. Its hard work, requires you to really have an understanding of everything whitetail, and a work ethic to stick with it and be patient for that chance that may only come once a season. From what I have seen States with shorter gun seasons and/or more book entries your odds are generally dramatically higher of encountering a mature buck compared to states with long gun seasons and few book animals for those reading that are looking at hunting public land whitetails.

 

[MAT]

I don’t think you guys understand just how hard this is in WI. It’s like the line from Dumb and Dumber: “Your chances are one in a million! So you’re saying I have a chance.” The baiting thing has really screwed up hunting here. I don’t care how much time you put into scouting or patterning deer, the first time the bait piles hit the woods everything changes. It makes deer nocturnal for most of the year so the rut is the only time you’ll see any daylight activity. Makes sense, deer don’t need to spend hours browsing for food they can fill up in 5 minutes at a bait pile. My only luck comes from hunting between the piles but no matter what you do you are hunting under the influence of bait. Basically baiting destroyed hunting in WI.

There are some counties where baiting is banned (but not eliminated) due to CWD, but the morons in Madison are now considering lifting the ban because some believe they could never kill a deer w/o it (which wasn’t a problem 20 years ago). We now have CWD prevalence rates approaching 40% in adult bucks which means we will soon see population declines like they have already out west (whitetails are more susceptible than mule deer or elk to CWD). Since the infection rate goes up with age and it’s 100% fatal we will soon have a population where there are not many (if any) bucks over 3 years old. That does not bode well for trophy deer.

It’s a very sad situation here due to legislative meddling by the party that’s supposed to be on our side. They just eliminated a bunch of research positions at the DNR too, apparently we don’t need any of them for scientific wildlife management which btw was invented here (thanks Aldo). There’s a reason you see a lot of WI residents hunting in IA, MN, IL when it used to be the other way around.

 

[Nick Muche]

CWD, while pretty bad in some areas, didn't do as much harm to the deer herd as Earn a Buck did.

 

[elkyinzer]

I like to follow Wisconsin's deer management drama from afar if for no other reason, it is entertaining. They are also kind of a standard-bearer for the CWD thing, which we are just now getting in PA in some spotty areas (a couple way too close to me).

Les, is there a lot of archery hunting pressure where you hunt, as was brought up above? I have heard WI is similar to PA in that the smaller tracts of public close to cities get hammered, but up North deer density is lower but hunting pressure (archery especially) isn't too bad at all. That's why I like to hunt the big woods here, I might only see a deer every three days or so, but I know when I see one there's a much better chance it's a mature buck. There's another site I follow along on but don't really post, and if I remember right, you, or maybe it's some other dude from WI, have killed some pretty massive bucks up North in the big woods over the years. It's really quite impressive to kill big woods bucks with regularity because I know how much scouting goes into it. To kill mature bucks on the heavily pressured tracts is a whole different ball game and one I can't say I've figured out.

 

[ChrisS]

CWD, while pretty bad in some areas, didn't do as much harm to the deer herd as Earn a Buck did.

Interesting. Here in NY there's a little bit of a battle brewing between people that want to see more mature bucks taken and those who don't particularly care what size buck they shoot. The populations are exploding everywhere (we just had a USDA team come to my village of 3,000 to wipe out the deer herd. The original plan was volunteer bow hunters, but the safety patrol got their way - "what if a volunteer shoots my dog or a child?"). I could go on about that nonsense.

The state wants the does killed to lower population. Back in the 80s, deer were scarce and now I can get 7-10 tags a year. But a lot of older hunters still won't shoot does. So the earn-a-buck thing has been kicked around.

Les, is there a lot of archery hunting pressure where you hunt, as was brought up above? I have heard WI is similar to PA in that the smaller tracts of public close to cities get hammered, but up North deer density is lower but hunting pressure (archery especially) isn't too bad at all. That's why I like to hunt the big woods here, I might only see a deer every three days or so, but I know when I see one there's a much better chance it's a mature buck.

Same in upstate NY. I've started hunting the local public areas only during bowseason and then I hunt the ADKs during rifle season.

 

[MAT]

There are 280,000 or so archery hunters in WI. That's a lot compared to other states. I think MN has less than 80,000? So even with a lot of public land it still can be crowded. Baiting has it's biggest impact on the north woods which is where I used to hunt (we have 560 acre deer camp). If you talk to Greg Miller who wrote the book on big woods whitetail he'll tell you he doesn't bother anymore either because of baiting and he grew up here too.

If you are looking up north you also have to figure in the popularity of bear dog "training" from August thru Sept (they even run dogs across a private lands), and now they added crossbows so there are even more "bow" hunters than ever. Last year about 25% of the bow hunters had crossbows yet the buck kill was running 1.5x the vertical bow kill in many northern counties thru the end of October. What that means is these guys are gun hunters targeting bucks with a more efficient weapon. Our legislators on one hand are complaining about low deer numbers yet they just added a significant harvest to the system.

Earn a buck was temporary, CWD is forever. But the real issue with baiting is no one sees deer moving so they assume there aren't any. Some of the worst complaining about deer populations were when we actually had 2 million deer just prior to EAB reducing the population down to carrying capacity. If you know biology (and history) we would have less deer right now if not for EAB.

 

[les welch]

Killing bucks in the class that Les does consistently is pretty tough on Public Land in WI. Kudo's to you Les, you're doing very well.

Thanks Nick! Hope Alaska is treating you well.

 

[les welch]

I don’t think you guys understand just how hard this is in WI. It’s like the line from Dumb and Dumber: “Your chances are one in a million! So you’re saying I have a chance.” The baiting thing has really screwed up hunting here. There’s a reason you see a lot of WI residents hunting in IA, MN, IL when it used to be the other way around.

MAT summed it up well. Baiting extremely alters deer movement. Unfortunately it's still legal so all we can do is work around it the best we can.

 

[les welch]

I like to follow Wisconsin's deer management drama from afar if for no other reason, it is entertaining. They are also kind of a standard-bearer for the CWD thing, which we are just now getting in PA in some spotty areas (a couple way too close to me).

Les, is there a lot of archery hunting pressure where you hunt, as was brought up above? I have heard WI is similar to PA in that the smaller tracts of public close to cities get hammered, but up North deer density is lower but hunting pressure (archery especially) isn't too bad at all. That's why I like to hunt the big woods here, I might only see a deer every three days or so, but I know when I see one there's a much better chance it's a mature buck. There's another site I follow along on but don't really post, and if I remember right, you, or maybe it's some other dude from WI, have killed some pretty massive bucks up North in the big woods over the years. It's really quite impressive to kill big woods bucks with regularity because I know how much scouting goes into it. To kill mature bucks on the heavily pressured tracts is a whole different ball game and one I can't say I've figured out.

I cut my teeth on big woods bucks in Northern Wisconsin. Bayfield County alone pushes 300,000 acres of public huntable land. Yes the deer density's are always lower, and there is pressure. Not the pressure you see in Southern Wisconsin. The difference however is the baiting. There are very few deer, and there isn't an overabundance of food. So when these guys drive the 4-wheelers in and drop a few hundred pounds of corn out, guess what happens? Yes, literally every deer for miles knows it's there. Hunting mature big woods bucks on a normal pattern is very doable once you take the time and effort to figure it out. Throw some corn in the mix and stuff goes haywire quick. Since 2012 I've elected to leave that country. It just isn't worth the time, effort, and gas money to have to fight against those who aren't willing to hunt legally. I'll attach a pic of the buck I killed in 2011. He was the first deer I saw in 59 hours of sitting. The areas I hunt now are still big woods, there are more deer, but lots of pressure. I rarely hunt the same areas each year. Movement seems to be key.

 

[les welch]

View attachment 34929

 

[Nick Muche]

Picture isn't showing up Les, and I'd love to see him!

 

[les welch]

???

 

[les welch]

Did that work? I can see both....

 

[Nick Muche]

Yep, that one worked! Great deer Les!

 

[ChrisS]

Nice baby moose!

 

[Schleppy]

I think there is more to it than to blame the baiters. Hunting is just different these days. In the last 30 years hunting in WI went from a social event that almost everyone took part in to an elitist big buck competition. At this point there is absolutely zero chance of getting permission to hunt land without paying for it and paying big money too. Everyone sits over their food plot and complains about the "baiters" on the next 40 over as if its different. I own land in the big woods and last year I put in a food plot, and last year I also leased property up north. Both firsts for me. I've killed my share of big bucks in the big woods and I love that type of hunting, and I live in west central WI farm country and I also like hunting and see way more deer in the farm country. To me the big difference is the wolf population explosion 15 or so years ago and the absolutely mis-managed out of control black bear population in WI. If you have predators eating a huge percentage of the fawns each year you can stop wondering where all the deer are. I worked for the WI dnr for two years in 2000-2002 and I assisted with the elk calf radio collar project and guess what caused the vast percentage of calf mortality...bear predation. Especially on years where the elk calf after the whitetails and the bears are already on fawn search mode. I was also standing in the office when the biologists brought in the news of the first wolf killed elk. They were all commenting on the success of the wolf comeback and that it had been a hundred years since a wolf killed an elk in WI. But, they didn't stop at one elk and the elk herd is still where it was in 2002. Earn a buck happened at the same time as the wolf population was coming to a peak and that combination killed the good deer hunting in northern WI. The low deer numbers actually force the big bucks to search harder for does and contributes to the winter kill of mature bucks. Lots of reasons for the northwoods deer hunting declining, baiting is just the easy target.