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How to Punch Your Tag in the Early Season

By Ralph ScherderSeptember 27, 2021

Mature whitetails can be killed any day of the season, and data from big game records all across the country proves it. With hunting seasons in many states opening earlier and earlier every year, if you’re not in a treestand the first few weeks of archery, you could be missing your chance at a good buck. 

But like any other time of year, if you want to punch your tag in the early season, you need a game plan. Here’s a few things to consider when it comes to how to punch your tag in the early season. 

Hunt with a Confident Mindset

The biggest problem with early season hunting, I’ve found, is having confidence that good things will happen.  It’s hard to get excited when the foliage is still thick and green and you’re swatting away mosquitoes while sitting on stand in a t-shirt.  To combat this, I stick to short hunts, the first and last couple hours of daylight.

We often hear about the “October Lull” in regards to early season whitetails. Many hunters claim that deer movement just shuts down come early October due to warm weather, or any number of reasons. However, GPS tracking technology and the abundance of whitetail studies currently taking place throughout the country repeatedly show us that whitetail movement increases with each passing day from now until the actual rut. Theoretically, your odds of seeing a mature buck increase, too.

How To Punch Your Tag In The Early Season
Having the mindset and knowing when to make your move is key to your early season success.

Pattern Them

Ask any bowhunter about their favorite time to hunt, and they’ll invariably mention the rut. Indeed, the whitetail rut is a great time to be in the woods. Action can be non-stop and bucks can show up just about anywhere at any time. This can be a drawback, though, if you’re focusing on a specific deer or a “hit list” of bucks. While you’re waiting for them to return to where you had photos of them all summer, they could be miles away chasing does.

When archery season opens, most deer are still in their late summer patterns. They haven’t been pressured yet, and they’re still somewhat predictable – in fact, few animals are easier to pattern than a group of does in early autumn, which is why this is also my favorite time to fill the freezer. Much of that predictability stems from their need to bulk up for winter, and they’ll hit the same food sources time after time until nature tells them otherwise.

Focus on food sources and bedding areas and the natural funnels that connect the two. Trail cameras can help you find the most active trails and funnels, but they don’t always tell the whole story. Nothing beats real-time scouting, and if you find a food source that’s hot, hang a stand and hunt. If deer aren’t arriving at the food source until after legal shooting hours, try backtracking their movements and hunt stands closer to bedding areas.

The world of whitetails is always changing. Where they eat, sleep, and feel safe can change at a moment’s notice, and those changes become even more dynamic as the season wears on and hunting pressure increases, food sources dry change, and bedding areas shift. The first few weeks of the season provide the most stable conditions and offer the greatest opportunity to catch a mature whitetail still in a routine.

How To Punch Your Tag In The Early Season
The early season provides one of the best times of the year to get your buck on a regular pattern.

Capitalize on Storms and Fronts

Don’t’ underestimate the opportunity to punch your tag following a front moving through. Look for storm or cold fronts that might get deer on their feet earlier than usual. I’m especially fond of those mid-afternoon rainstorms that clear out by early evening. Overcast days with strong winds are also good for getting deer moving well before dark. 

Even subtle changes can be enough, such as a ten degree drop in temperature. After consecutive days of hot weather, cooler temperatures can get deer feeling frisky and moving well during daylight hours again.

One of my favorite early season stands was in a funnel between two crop fields. The funnel was a thin strip of woods with thick bedding areas on each side, and a tractor trail ran through it. And if that wasn’t enough, there were two apple trees smack dab in the middle of it all. Talk about a deer magnet! I filled tags there every year during the first two or three weeks of the season before the apples dried up. 

The only downfall was that the biggest bucks generally didn’t visit the tree until after dark, but if I watched the weather and was lucky enough to get a storm front first week of archery, I knew one of the big boys would show up during legal shooting hours.

How To Punch Your Tag In The Early Season
Watch fields after a storm moves through and you'll often find maximum movement by the local bucks.

Three years in a row, that’s exactly what happened. In every case, afternoon rainstorms got bucks moving earlier than usual, and once on their feet, they worked their way toward the apple trees.

Although I lost access to that property, and now hunt primarily Big Woods public land, I still watch the weather. The first cold front of fall, whether it’s late September or early October, is always one of my most productive hunts of the year. It’s not unusual to witness a little bit of pre-rut activity, too, primarily in the form of younger bucks harassing older does. It can make for an entertaining sit.

Utilize Exit Strategies

Many hunters resist the early season simply because they don’t want to burn out stands. If you have limited land and stands to hunt, that can certainly happen. In my experience, though, it’s not overhunting that burns out stands. It happens because I spook too many deer on my way to and from those stands. In essence, the deer began patterning me instead of the other way around.

The most consecutive days I’ve ever hunted a stand was 11, and on the 11th day I killed a nice 10 point. Granted, there were two Sundays mixed in there (you can’t hunt on most Sundays in Pennsylvania), but that was still a long stretch in one spot. My reasoning was simple: I kept getting trail camera pictures of the 10-point visiting the apple trees I mentioned earlier. 

The fact that it visited those trees religiously every evening shortly after dark, and then again after midnight, meant that my presence wasn’t affecting his movements. Also, thanks to the grassy tractor trail that allowed quiet access to the stand, I could slip in and out virtually unnoticed.

Do you have a suitable exit plan to minimize pressure on your property?

Where many hunters go wrong during the early season is that they place stands along field edges and food plots where they’ve been watching deer feed all summer long. That’s fine, but be sure to have an exit strategy in case there are deer in the field after shooting hours. Push them out of the field every evening and deer will show up later and later or start avoiding the area altogether.

The same holds true with all stands I place. I always make sure there’s some sort of trail or creek bottom available nearby that allows me to get in and out with little disturbance. This tactic goes a long way toward keeping stands fresh and reducing the impact of your presence. Remember, hunting pressure is the primary factor that turns whitetails nocturnal. Reduce the effects of pressure and deer will move more during daylight hours, even during the early season.

Mature bucks don’t make many mistakes, and after all hunting seasons have been in a while, which inevitably means more people traipsing through the woods, many of the big bucks on public lands get even more cautious.  

They can turn completely nocturnal if pressure is extreme.  Sometimes the best opportunity to harvest them is during the early season, before they even realize they’re being hunted.

Ralph Scherder
Ralph Scherder is a full time award-winning writer and photographer from Butler, PA, where he lives with his wife Natalie, two kids Sophia and Jude, and an English Setter named Charlie. He has hunted and fly fished all over North America, and God willing, will continue to do so for many years to come.
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