How to Develop a Reliable Pattern on Summertime Bucks

The latter is the option for the rest of the whitetail crowd.

Deer are most vulnerable when it comes to limited resources. This might be a lack of quality bedding cover, water, or as is often the case throughout the late summer—some type of highly desirable food source.

Understanding Scarcity in Groceries

When I first set up out on a western river bottom years ago to glass whitetails, I could see a private alfalfa field and several hundred acres of public land. The amount of deer that exited the minimal riverside cover to walk straight toward that lush field was unreal. I’d never seen anything like it. The following morning, I watched the whole thing play out in reverse as bucks left the buffet to head back to the sage flats and patches of willows to bed.

It was a lesson in limited resources. Sure, the bucks would browse along their routes, but the movement was highly predictable. That behavior, when combined with an early September opener, created the most predictable hunting I’d ever seen. The pattern was obvious, and it held up due mostly to a lack of other options.

This has been my experience with hunting the big woods, as well, except for the obvious part. Where deer aren’t easy to see, they aren’t easy to pattern even if you run dozens of cameras. One single hayfield, or truly fresh clear-cut, can change that though. It just requires plenty of scouting.

In areas with plenty of ag and likely mast options, patterning a bachelor group is a different story. It might seem like identifying a scarce but highly desirable resource is a lost cause, but it’s not. You just have to think things through.

Where Are They, and Why?

One of the farms I hunt on features a 100-acre field. It’s bordered on two sides by roads. One is a lightly used gravel road. The other is a well-traveled county road. While the whole field could be a deer draw, and probably is at night, during the daylight hours, it’s a different story. The biggest bucks almost always hang out near a waterway lined with cottonwoods. It’s also just a bit lower and more tucked away than much of the rest of the field.

While the food might not be scarce there, the places bucks can feed while not being visible are very limited. You might identify a loose pattern from some light scouting, but dialing an exact ambush spot takes some effort. You want to find the precise locations that are most appealing to deer and understand why that is (and what could put them off of their pattern).

Maybe the whole beanfield on your lease is secluded, and so there is no reason for bucks to concentrate in any one area to avoid being watched. What else might be in high demand? Shade, water, a low spot with green beans while the rest of the field yellows up?

One of the best spots I’ve ever found for patterning bucks was a private piece I had permission on for a few years in north-central Minnesota. It was a 40-acre parcel with a big cattail slough in the middle. On the north and south borders were hayfields. They would probably have had equal drawing power over the local bucks, but the southern field also featured a small pond 50 yards off the edge.

The bucks bedded all over that slough and fed all over that field, but they would almost always hit that pond first. In the morning, they’d hit it last. In this case, they had two limited food options, but only one of them had a small pond right next to it.

The beauty of a setup like that is that while the field might become less desirable if it gets cut or there’s just a bit too much hunting pressure around it, the pond is always going to be highly desirable.

When you’re trying to keep tabs on bucks this summer in the hopes of turning that pattern into a filled tag opening weekend, ask yourself what it would take to put those deer off. Ask yourself if there is something else, a fence crossing, a section of field edge with white oaks along the edge, some water source, that would keep them consistent even if destination food source changed. Those details, the extra spot-on-spot thinking, is what kills good bucks.

Somewhat Consistent Is Good Enough

As someone who has more shoulder mounts on his walls from September than November, it has become clear to me over the years that it is very rare to get on a perfect big buck pattern. Even those western riverbottom deer will travel slightly differently given the conditions, and whatever influence from predators they encounter.

In this case, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough. If you have a few target bucks hitting the corner of the field three nights a week, you’re onto something. If your trail cameras show some good deer traveling a ridge toward a fresh clear-cut every few days, you’re onto something.

The biggest mistake a lot of folks make when trying to pattern summer bucks and kill those deer early is not hunting because their intel shows inconsistent movement. Deer travel is an inexact science. If you put in the requisite work to tease out a pattern built around some type of scarcity, get ready to hunt even if you believe it’s a coin flip on whether he’ll show. Those odds are a hell of a lot better than you’re going to get at almost any other part of the season.

Plus, when you figure out how to hunt something rare that the deer really want, your target buck might not show–but his big brother might.

For more information on summer scouting, check out these articles: 5 Summer Lies Deer Hunters Tell Themselves, 3 Locations You Need To Put Trail Cameras This Summer, and 5 Ways To Prep For Deer Season This Summer.