Hot Early Season Whitetails

[TheWhitetailNut]

I'll leave Friday to do some scouting for my western Kansas muzzleloader hunt and I'm pretty excited. That said I have done a limited amount of very early season whitetail hunting (Archery opener Kentucky). Aside from water, shade, and green protein rich feed are there any other things I should be looking for? This place has very little timber so that will concentrate where all 3 can be found. I have 3 days, so I'll glass the best habitat undisturbed for 2 then set a couple cameras and stands before heading home.

 

[WCB]

Get as high as you can and glass. I hunt the Dakotas a lot in the early season in wide open areas (basically cattle country with scattered ag. Like anywhere else bucks like to be isolated and will travel pretty far in open country to feed. One spot it is 1.5 miles from where I consistently find bucks bedding to the food source they get to just after last shooting light. By shooting light the next morning they are within 200yds or so of where they bed. If a guy were to actually hunt the food 95% of the time the bigger bucks aren't there while you can actually shoot them and there are so many deer piled up in the food no way to get out without blowing everything up.

 

[Maverick1]

I'll leave Friday to do some scouting for my western Kansas muzzleloader hunt and I'm pretty excited. That said I have done a limited amount of very early season whitetail hunting (Archery opener Kentucky). Aside from water, shade, and green protein rich feed are there any other things I should be looking for? This place has very little timber so that will concentrate where all 3 can be found. I have 3 days, so I'll glass the best habitat undisturbed for 2 then set a couple cameras and stands before heading home.

How did you hunt go?

 

[TheWhitetailNut]

Get as high as you can and glass. I hunt the Dakotas a lot in the early season in wide open areas (basically cattle country with scattered ag. Like anywhere else bucks like to be isolated and will travel pretty far in open country to feed. One spot it is 1.5 miles from where I consistently find bucks bedding to the food source they get to just after last shooting light. By shooting light the next morning they are within 200yds or so of where they bed. If a guy were to actually hunt the food 95% of the time the bigger bucks aren't there while you can actually shoot them and there are so many deer piled up in the food no way to get out without blowing everything up.

This was really sound advice and helpful. I was able to find 3 bachelor groups scouting.

 

[TheWhitetailNut]

How did you hunt go?

Looked over about 15 different bucks, some in the low 140's. In the end I did not get a shot at the kind of buck I'm looking for so I'll be back again.