By: Ted Nugent
THE TIME IS NOW!!
Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! The good Lord in deerhunting heaven has thrown the Gonzo DeerSwith and all venison hell is breaking loose in the American deerwoods! Scrapes, scrapes and more scrapes!
I know I’m not telling you all what you don’t already know, but you must admit, we have waited a long, hard, arduous, very testing year for the DeerGods to unleash the fury of late October, and hang onto your safety harness boys and girls, for the real deerhunting excitement has just begun in earnest.
I started seeing scrapes and rubs as early as late September, and gradually they began to multiply at a nice, encouraging pace. I began tweaking every scrape I saw with some Signal11.com bucklure and curiosity scents, and as usual the reaction was instantaneous and aggressive.
It was about that time also when I started created a series of mockscrapes here, there and everywhere as I do every year, and I could tell the lazy boys of summer were morphing into curious and uppity stags of the fall!
I harken back to my earliest years wandering the northern Michigan deerwoods as a boy, and I was virtually clueless as to what scrapes even were. Heck way back then I didn’t really know anything about deerhunting except that I was a deerhunter by design and instinct, and I better pay attention to my deerworld if I was to ever arrow the mighty whitetail deer with my trusty bow and arrow.
I didn’t know what a rub was, was not aware of any deer vocalizations, and I couldn’t tell you what constituted a bedding area or a travel corridor.
Eventually I would begin to pick up on sign and spoor, witness various deer activities and trail preferences, and lo and behold, I slowly but surely zeroed in on potential ambush setups, and eventually I was rewarded with backstraps and much happiness.
Every day in the deerwoods is special, and as fall throttles onward, each day gets better and better.
I wouldn’t say we have hit the peak of buck activity just yet, but based on my own daily time on stand and the tsunami of reports from hunting friends all across the hinterland, we have just jumped headlong into the pre-rut insanity that makes deerhunting all that much more fun.
I have always said the best time to deerhunt is every minute we can manipulate our hectic schedules to get out there. Many of my best deerhunting friends don’t even begin to hunt till right about now, and their success rates tell the tale.
I’ve been hard at it nonstop for over a month, and even though I plodded on through some very frustrating zero-deer days, I still had the time of my life just being out there and learning the never ending lessons of predatorship and the always fascinating lessons ultimately taught by the deer themselves.
Drop what you’re doing, camo up and get out there with gusto right now! The deerwoods are alive with the mighty Spirit of the Wild, and the DeerGods are calling your name!
This magic moment only comes once a year, and to experience the ultimate deer dynamo, it would be real smart for us to get out early and stay late every day we possibly can.
That’s what I’m doing and I am one very happy backstrapping guitarplayer searching desperately for oneness with the deer that drives us crazy.
Do it! Do it NOW!