With opening day come and gone in most areas, don’t put your hunting gear away just yet.
Seasons in metropolitan areas often run until the end of January and offer some of the best late-season hunting in the country. Deer in urban areas often grow to trophy size due to their age. If they can outsmart cars on the highway, they often live a long life, sometimes never hunted by man.
Todd Amenrud specializes in urban whitetail and lays out his complete plan in an insightful article. Find out how he does it.
What a terrible afternoon! Two horseback riders had ridden by down the neighbor’s property line and now the other neighbor’s boy was out on his ATV tearing up the ground. He was buzzing by so close I had to turn my face because the breeze was blowing the dust in my eyes. Disappointed, I was about ready to get down out of my treestand when I saw a slight flicker of antler in the sunlight. My binoculars picked out a massive buck bedded down within 100 yards. Now I couldn’t move, nor did I want to!
The afternoon went on and I cursed the ATV. It was amazing…that buck was bedded within thirty yards of the ATV trail and it never seemed to bother him. Finally the sun dropped behind the trees and the ATV sounds stopped. A couple does popped-up from their beds and ambled by. There were dry leaves but I could hardly hear them, because even though the ATV noises had stopped, rush hour on the highway sounded like flies buzzing in my ears.
My binoculars stayed glued on the buck. At long last he finally rose-up and stretched. He did a good scent-check of the area, waved his nose in the air and started browsing in my direction. To make a long story short, I drove an arrow through both lungs when the buck reached 22 yards and he expired seconds latter about 100 yards away.
Many whitetail hunters talk about heading to “deer camp” or a lease or club somewhere off in the “boonies.” What many of these hunters don’t realize is when driving through suburbia, they are traveling past some of the best deer hunting there is. Whitetails have flourished in many rural areas. In fact, oftentimes the man-made sections and dividers actually make for more attractive “edge habitat” that whitetails favor.
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