Late Whitetail Hunt

[87samurai]

Hey everyone im looking for some tips on whitetails. This will be my first time ever hunting them. Will they be i rut? should i use scents? calls? any tips will be greatly appreciated.   

[87samurai]

No tips?

[Gutpile]

Find the does and sit on them. They will be in rut. Scents? I don't use them so don't know how hey work. I don't call either but have tried rattling in the past with no luck. Find the does, find the does, find the does.

[NRA4LIFE]

What Gutpile said.  If you see a mature, solitary doe walking around, get ready.  In the rut, the hunting can be as good during the middle of the day as anytime.   Get out, and stay out.

[Ellensburg]

We put out scents and rattled horns last year for the first time and called in a decent 4X4.... probably just lucky

[87samurai]

Thanks guys. My brother has a few scents so i figure we will try them and see how it goes.

[burnhamrandr]

I have used scents, grunts and rattled and it all works. I am in a treestand with a bow and have done it for years now. When I first did it I was skeptical l, But I am a true believer now

[Colville]

I think Rut is hard to predict. In my NE WA camp over the last 10 years real rut only happened during the late season one time. Every other year we've seen pre-rut pattern. Archers and muzz guys, well they start right where that late rifle ends so they see rut for sure.

Scents work some where we hunt, more the closer you are to the end of the season. The other deal on whether or not the rattles/scents work is the pressure on the ground you hunt. I hunt high pressure public land. We've yet to rattle up a buck. We've had some luck with grunts etc but I'd not call it dramatic. In high pressure areas they just get very spooky. The less pressure the area and the closer to the end of the rifle the more value you get out of all of that stuff.

In the mean time, find rub lines and scrapes. Do that and you'll have a trail that a pre-rutting buck makes the rounds on, sit tight to those spots.

[burnhamrandr]

That whole hunting pressure thing is why I moved to archery, but You are right pre-rut you will have less success for calling and rattling combined with the pressure will make it hard.