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$78 for Bobby Worthington’s Final Quest is money better spent on Little Debbie’s

One thing I found interesting in the book is the best November days to hunt. In his book Come November Gene Wensel said the best days to hunt mature bucks is November 7th thru 17th.
Bobby Worthington in his book Final Quest says the best time for mature bucks is November 2nd thru 10th if the weather is cold. Bobby says that from November 10th to around November 18th or so the bucks will be in hard lockdown. From about November 25th to about December 2nd the big bucks will start moving again. I am wondering why the difference in opinion?
May be the difference in buck to doe ratio where they hunt.
Any opinions?
One primarily hunts in Tennessee and the other in Montana if I recall. So it’s possible that they are both referring to the same behavior at different latitudes.
 
One thing I found interesting in the book is the best November days to hunt. In his book Come November Gene Wensel said the best days to hunt mature bucks is November 7th thru 17th.
Bobby Worthington in his book Final Quest says the best time for mature bucks is November 2nd thru 10th if the weather is cold. Bobby says that from November 10th to around November 18th or so the bucks will be in hard lockdown. From about November 25th to about December 2nd the big bucks will start moving again. I am wondering why the difference in opinion?
May be the difference in buck to doe ratio where they hunt.
Any opinions?
I wonder if this is very location specific to where they hunt?
 
Alright rather than buy more books and dvds I’m offering all expenses paid trips to come help me figure out my hunting areas (terms and conditions apply, room board travel gas tags not included, see rules for details)

Use that snow to your advantage, get your butt out there RFN and let the tracks show you what they can.
 
A Stan Potts gif is all anyone wanting to be serious about hunting needs in their library.
 
Thanks for starting this thread @Plebe, it'll keep me from derailing at least one thread with my random thoughts. :tearsofjoy:

I won't ever claim to be in the same class of hunter of these guys mentioned here but you can't spend 50+ seasons in the whitetail woods without learning a few things along the way, even if you're a guy who needs to learn them more than once like myself. I can honestly say I'd never heard of most of these whitetail experts until I joined this forum. Names like Infalt, Eberhart, Rothar, Worthington, etc. would have meant absolutely nothing to me. I guess I lived a sheltered existence. :tearsofjoy:

However I have to say that since I've started digesting their thoughts on hunting, both online and in written form, I've found validation for a lot of the things I have been doing based on the lessons learned and subsequent evolution of my hunting style through those 50 years of chasing whitetails. In addition I've learned a few tricks from these guys to add to my style that I might not have come across without them sharing their experiences.

That's not to say I agree that everything I've read/garnered from these guys will work in my little corner of the world but all info is good info. I've spent my life hunting in the upland hardwoods of NW Michigan and a lot of the lessons I've learned may not be applicable to the palmettos of Florida or even the agriculture lands of the midwest. You have to be able to cipher out the tidbits and pick and choose those that are applicable to your situation.

For example, in my little corner of experience, I find that hunting buck bedding areas is the best ticket in the early season when bucks are still in bachelor groups and or may be moving mostly in the dark. As my season moves toward late October and rut approaches and begins I shift my focus to focusing on travel corridors and funnels hoping to catch the bucks cruising for does or tending them. Late season, once snow starts to cover the ground and hunting pressure decreases I move my focus to the known late season food sources as the bucks are trying to replenish their reserves to survive the winter. For me all of these involve some level of mobile hunting as I move around a lot in an attempt to prevent getting patterned. In my mind all of these phases are represented in some way, shape or form by the advice given by the "masters". I guess what I'm trying to say in my long winded post is that I adapt my style throughout the season in an attempt to stay with the bucks as their patterns change.

The bottom line, to me anyway, is that only field experience will show what may or may not work for your particular environment and preferred hunting style. Adopt what works for you and keep the rest in mind for potential future use.
Im about your age, slightly younger I believe and I agree with a lot about what you said here….. I’m not trying to minimize the well knowns or the magazine era hunters back in the day…… and I certainly do have wensel’s books, rothaars, worthingtons, etc….. all great stuff….. but my dad and I figured out hunting deer bedding and buck bedding areas more specifically way back in the 80’s…..when the orange hordes were prevalent.

The farm my grandparents owned was pasture and then hardwoods on steep terrain mostly on a side hill in the Allegheny foothills. Dad just had a small beef cow operation and so we didn’t have croplands just grazing pasture. The dairy operations surrounding us had the ag fields. Gun Opener(s) for us was the orange hordes hunting the field edges pushing the deer back to our thick brushy woods above our pastures. That’s where they bedded. So whenever we would go to other farms to hunt we always looked for the interior thick brushy areas and look for beds….. my first decent buck was a half rack 10 I shot sneeking back to its bed in the mid 1980’s. Bow seasons were mostly spent still hunting through thick bedding areas they were bedding in during the day. I didn’t kill a lot of big bucks but I don’t think we had a lot of them back then either. There were certainly nice bucks taken and I was blessed enough to tag a few myself but I agree….. prolly a lot of hunters all throughout the years have figured a lot of this stuff out but just never wrote about it or had a lot of notoriety about it.

But I just enjoy the lore of reading about what other dedicated and serious big buck hunters do and if I learn something along the way….. so be it. It just broadens my understanding even more. But the most important aspect is the admiration for the timeless tradition of hunting which is very uniquely American.
 
One thing I found interesting in the book is the best November days to hunt. In his book Come November Gene Wensel said the best days to hunt mature bucks is November 7th thru 17th.
Bobby Worthington in his book Final Quest says the best time for mature bucks is November 2nd thru 10th if the weather is cold. Bobby says that from November 10th to around November 18th or so the bucks will be in hard lockdown. From about November 25th to about December 2nd the big bucks will start moving again. I am wondering why the difference in opinion?
May be the difference in buck to doe ratio where they hunt.
Any opinions?
Going by observation, and trail Cam data since 2019, Oct 27th to about the 8th is prime time for your typical 2.5 to 3.5 year old.

8th to season close is when the giants start roaming. The only exception was in the 2023 season. It was wicked cold the first week of Nov, cams exploded with bucks of All age classes, then it completely died after the 9th. I saw no chasing and cameras were totally dead.
 
Going by observation, and trail Cam data since 2019, Oct 27th to about the 8th is prime time for your typical 2.5 to 3.5 year old.

8th to season close is when the giants start roaming. The only exception was in the 2023 season. It was wicked cold the first week of Nov, cams exploded with bucks of All age classes, then it completely died after the 9th. I saw no chasing and cameras were totally dead.
In ‘22 Nov. 9-16 with the 12th having the most sightings, in ‘23 my cams had a surge of mature bucks in early October a cold front came in from the 5th through the 8th then again early to mid November. The biggest deer on the private I hunt this year was November 6th. Had some large bucks moving again later November but no daylighting just more mature bucks movement. Tactacam has somewhat of a an analysis function I’m going to
Try to drill down into that more.
 
One primarily hunts in Tennessee and the other in Montana if I recall. So it’s possible that they are both referring to the same behavior at different latitude
I was in a hunt club run by Gene and Barry. I started hunting with them in the late 90's. They both lived in Iowa then. I had many discussions with Gene and he felt that time frame applied throughout the Midwest. They had leases in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas and Montana.
One thing that surprised me about Bobby's comments is the length of the lockdown or rut period, saying it is about 10 to 15 days?
In Iowa and Kansas with a closer to a one to one buck/doe ratio, the bucks may need to move more during the peak of the rut to find a doe.
In Kentucky with a out of balance ratio, the bucks do not go far since hot does are everywhere.
 
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In ‘22 Nov. 9-16 with the 12th having the most sightings, in ‘23 my cams had a surge of mature bucks in early October a cold front came in from the 5th through the 8th then again early to mid November. The biggest deer on the private I hunt this year was November 6th. Had some large bucks moving again later November but no daylighting just more mature bucks movement. Tactacam has somewhat of a an analysis function I’m going to
Try to drill down into that more.
Interestingly, some of the most pics I had this season was Oct 26-28th. Front came through and cams exploded. Unfortunately I worked all 3 days and feel I really missed the boat.
 
One thing that surprised me about Bobby's comments is the length of the lockdown or rut period, saying it is about 10 to 15 days?

Talking about lockdown, peak rut, and the October lull is so easily misleading - particularly when we are all in such different hunting regions. While these behaviors may be driven by photoperiodism they manifest differently in every county depending on infinite factors. I think if you interviewed all these hunting legends you’d find that they give different dates for rut behaviors because they have different definitions of those behaviors.

Personally I love all the conflicting information that’s out there. Lockdown and the October lull make great excuses for the less ambitious hunters to stay home, waiting for a better day.

One thing all these legends have in common is that they are all self taught and they all emphasize woodsmanship and logging countless hours with boots on the ground studying deer in the places you plan to hunt them. So for me, like woodsdog2 said, I love hearing what these legends have to teach but the most important thing to me is learning from my own experiences.

I’ve read Bobby’s book : hunting trophy whitetails. I’ve also been listening to him speak in countless podcasts. Do any of you who have read Final Quest find that he’s provided a wealth of information in the book that he hasn’t already released?
 
I’ve read Bobby’s book : hunting trophy whitetails. I’ve also been listening to him speak in countless podcasts. Do any of you who have read Final Quest find that he’s provided a wealth of information in the book that he hasn’t already released?
That's a support thread question and the answer is yes of course you should buy it. :p
 
On chapter 3 or 4 he's really making me rethink my early season strategy especially on private. Wish I could get the landowner to stop walking around by August/ the end of August at the latest for our Oct. 1 opener. Worthington's experience with pressured public and private mimics mine which has my interest piqued. Now to spend more time finding more terrain funnels. One of the largest deer on this property est. 5.5yr old showed up during daylight hours twice according to my cameras. Once on October 10th and again on November 6th. Everything else was night.
 
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On chapter 3 or 4 he's really making me rethink my early season strategy especially on private. Wish I could get the landowner to stop walking around by August/ the end of August at the latest for our Oct. 1 opener. His experience with pressured public and private mimics mine which has my interest piqued. Now to spend more time finding more terrain funnels.
I'm doing this mobile game/archery since 2016, and I have never ever seen a mature buck in daylight out of the rut. Only twice in thousands and thousands of trail Cam photos have I caught a picture of a mature buck in daylight outside the rut. There's always a chance but I think it's a lot smarter to leave the animals completely unaware you're hunting them till go time.

I'll still hunt early season but in crappier spots I don't mind spookin to enjoy the nicer weather and falling leaves.
 
I'm doing this mobile game/archery since 2016, and I have never ever seen a mature buck in daylight out of the rut. Only twice in thousands and thousands of trail Cam photos have I caught a picture of a mature buck in daylight outside the rut. There's always a chance but I think it's a lot smarter to leave the animals completely unaware you're hunting them till go time.

I'll still hunt early season but in crappier spots I don't mind spookin to enjoy the nicer weather and falling leaves.
I agree so how do some of these guys within just a few miles of my areas seem to be killin' these tanks every season in October????? I just don't understand. Two years ago I had a 140 class eight hitting apples. I had one shot opportunity on him at last light as he walked to the dropping apples the evening of October 5th but he was 50+ yards away following a tall spiker he would run with. I was set up on a six foot step ladder in a corn field about 6-8 rows back with a north-north east wind he came in with a tail wind. The lane ran north south along a public woods line, a grape field and just before (north) of the corn was a swath of alfalfa grass. I was hoping he would hit the apple tree and then move into the alfalfa and then the corn as they were doing....... after hitting the apples he followed the script but instead followed the tall spiker back into the woods line directly away from me instead of continuing to feed in the alfalfa/corn. I didn't want to set up in the woods line along the lane as I've often spooked bucks bedded right in there.
 
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