This journal will chronicle my Rut-cation and review tactics, based on weather and timing, to hunt NE Ohio whitetail deer.  I look forward to sharing this ongoing story with you.   Good Luck Everyone and  – Stay Afflicted with Whitetail OCD  

• Pressure 28.91 and rising
• South West winds 8 MPH
• Temperature
  • Low: 36
  • High: 51
• Moon
• Waxing Gibbous
  • Rise:1:35 PM
  • Set: 11:58 PM

Strategy:

I am hunting the downwind side of bedding cover in the evening

Results:

Today I packed in my XOP lock-on stand today and hung in a small oak tree just off of an overgrown field that is briar and weed-choked making it a perfect bedding area. The oak was up against an American Beech tree that still had foliage adding back and front cover to the stand.

I used a drag rag with doe-in heat to drag through the bedding area leading past my stand. When comparing notes with other friends and they told me that they have been having luck with drag rags earlier this week. I followed their advice. My theory was that a buck would be cruising these overgrown fields searching for a hot doe and follow my scent trail to my stand.

Unfortunately, the deer didn’t read the script and darkness fell without seeing a single deer. I spoke to two other hunters in the immediate area and they did not see anything tonight either. It seems the evening movement is taking a downturn. Time to hunt the AM!

I left my stand in that tree and will be in it first thing in the morning. Same strategy, similar wind. Let’s hope for a better result.

More to come!