The #1 Mistake Hunters Make During the Pre-Rut (and How to Fix It)

Many hunters misunderstand the pre-rut and end up in the wrong stand at the wrong time. Dr. Grant Woods breaks down what the pre-rut really is, when it begins, and how to hunt it based on real whitetail biology, not just observation. Learn how to identify hot scrapes, travel corridors, and changing food sources so you can adjust your hunting strategy as bucks shift from feeding to seeking receptive does.

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I want to talk about the most common mistake hunters make during the prerut. [Music] The prerut is not necessarily an exact date, but it’s pretty close from starting here to going there. It’s important that I define when the prerut occurs. And that’s when the first does start becoming receptive, which is much earlier than a lot of hunters think until about 25% of the doe’s are receptive. There’s just enough of that scent in the air that bucks are starting to change from that food cover food cover pattern to seeking receptive dose. No matter where you hunt, the rut is going to be along a bellshaped curve. Now, the height and distribution of that curve depends on where you are and the sex ratio of that herd. When I was early on in my research career, I was doing some work in way northern New York where it was illegal to harvest those except for a 3-day archery season. Goodness, it was crazy. There were doe’s everywhere. And that rut based on conception dates. We pulled fetuses out of deer and looked at actual conception date data was spread out over months. That’s a real issue in the north because those early born fawns are going to hit when there’s still snow on the ground. and there was almost no chance of survival. We know a lot about the prerut now as bunches of biologists throughout the whitetails range are looking at fetal data and have built really solid databases. Today we’re talking about hunting based on real biology and not an individual observation. Which brings me to one of the biggest mistakes I see hunters making. We need to follow the biology and what’s known about whitetails versus one observation. just here at the proving grounds last week. Daniel was just hunting a couple ridges over from me and he saw a couple bucks pestering a dough. Very typical of prut behavior. Looked like that dough might have been receptive. Where I was, nothing was happening during the pr-rut and more and more so as that pr- rut progresses to the rut. The action’s going to be where receptive dough is. And the rest of the time, deer are going about their business as normal, but there are some exceptions. Visits to scrapes are going to increase during the prerut. Scrapes are communication hubs. Hey, I’m here. What status are you? How healthy are you? Are you receptive? That’s a scrape. It’s just like that old bulletin board at a church. Hey, I’ve got a worship machine for sale. or if you’re old enough like me to remember the old telephone booth where everyone goes to communicate with someone else. Scrapes are a point of communication. There’s many parts of the scrape. The ground portion, the overhanging limb, and deer use those in different ways. More important than that, we’re talking about the prerut. Deer are going to be walking more and more. Bucks are going to be taking more steps each day based on numerous GPS collars placed on deer. So those travel corridors become really important, maybe even more so than the food sources as that prerut progresses. I know when I say travel corridors, that leaves the bulk of hunters kind of in the cold cuz we think of travel corridors in a country. Little narrow bottlenecks, little patches of timber. It can be tough to find that travel corridor like here at the proven grounds where the bulk of the land is mainly timbered. If you go from Maine down to Florida, over to East Texas, you know, all up and down the Appalaches, southern part of Ohio, all those areas are primarily timbered and not agg. So now you’re looking at saddles or low spot and ridges, elevator ridges, a ridge that gets you from the top to the bottom easier than some of the real steep ridges. You have to look at topographic features to find those travel corridors and not just a satellite image looking at a narrow band of cover between a couple vag fields. The prerut is very dynamic. When you look at that slope of the prerut and rut, that prerut is changing rapidly. So, you can’t just get honed in to a stand or blind and necessarily set there the entire prerut period. And you don’t want to go based on one observation. Oh man, I saw a buck chasing a dough. It’s on. No, you got to trust the biology. Always trust the biology. So, you know, each day during this time of year gets a little bit more intense. And you need to know, are there acorns falling or the farmer harvested local crop? All these things determine where bucks and doese’s which portion of their home range are going to be using. You got to stay tuned in. The prerut is a very exciting time. And part of that excitement is things are changing rapidly and you’ve got to stay tuned in as a serious hunter to those changes to be able to know where to hunt. Not only where to hunt, but how you approach hunt and exit. Remember, alerted deer are very difficult to harvest. So, as these resources are changing, your approach strategy may change. It may be that deer were not in this area pre- daylight, but all of a sudden farmer harvested a crop over here and now they’re focused on a food source here and they’re in there as you’re trying to go to your stand. It takes a lot of skill to really hunt the pre-butt effectively. Growing deer is brought to you by Bass Pro Shop St. Cabllas. Also by Green Cover Food Plots, Winchester, PH Outdoors, Black Widow Bows, Moltry, Steel, Fleet Outdoor Apparel, Morell Targets, Fourth Arrow, Soil Pro Outdoors, Scorpion Venom Archery, KIH Tractors, Burus Optics, and Redneck Hunting Blinds. Let’s go back to scrapes a second. The prerut is the best time to hunt over scrapes. That’s when bucks use scrapes the most. I did my master’s degree on scrape behavior and many have followed up on that. But a lot of scrape behavior happens at night. Just finding a big old car hood scrape doesn’t mean you need to hang a stand right there. It may be happen at night. We use our moltry cameras to kind of monitor that. Not only which bucks or our bucks using that scrape, how many a day is it at night? And the more excitement around that scrape, the more intense the prerut and we know bucks are traveling more. Oftent times I don’t just hunt a scrape. I want a scrape that’s in, you know, conjunction with an acorn tree dropping acorns or a food plot that I know or a travel corridor I know that amps up that time of year. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. It’s not just a scrape. Think about where that deer is morning, noon, and night. Where are they bedded? where they coming from, where they going to, and find scrapes in those areas. And that will make scrape hunting much more successful. Just getting a trail camera picture or seeing a single buck and a scrape doesn’t mean scrapes are hot. You want more than one observation before you justify spending those limited hunting hours we all have. I’ve got multiple moltries out watching multiple scrapes. That tells me, are bucks really using scrapes? Are they backing off scrapes? we’re getting close to the rut where there’s so much sin out there, they’re just chasing doese’s or they haven’t warmed up yet. You need to really put multiple data points together to make good decisions where to spend again those limited hunting hours. Are the scrapes by the field edge really hot just cuz deer spend a lot of time there? That tends to be a pre prerut thing. Once you get into pr- rut, seems like the hottest scrapes are in those travel zones where bucks are moving a lot looking for receptive dose. Scrapes and rubs go hand in hand. So just finding a fresh rub, especially on the field edge, just tells me a buck stood there one time. I don’t know if they’re coming back or not. But finding a rub line that’s fresh that’s being worked. Often is associated with a scrape line and that can mark a travel corridor. It’s not that you’re hunting an individual rub. You’re hunting where bucks are traveling over and over again. And we’re looking for an area that deer are using repeatedly during daylight hours. The best hunters I know going way back to Roger Rothower, Jean Winsel, those guys that were doing a bunch of this before information was widely published about deer biology had figured it out. They had a plan. They stuck to the plan and they tagged a lot of good bucks. Sticking to what we know now about deer biology will make you a better hunter in the field. But it’s really important during the prerut when things are changing really rapidly, probably more rapidly in the deer’s life than any other time throughout the year is being willing to adapt and follow the sign and what your cameras are telling you and hunt accordingly. I think that’s why I like to go back and reread some of those early books from really successful hunters because deer biology has not changed over time. That’s just like reading the Bible, God’s word. His will for our lives have not changed over time. And his direction on how to live a good life has never changed. It never has and it never will. And I encourage each of you to literally seek the creator’s will for your life and apply it daily. Thanks for watching Growing Dear. [Music]