In a large majority of the whitetail’s North America ranges, the rut appears to officially have arrived. This is the time when people who sell whitetail-related products will tell you that the magic happens. You will see Instagram posts of rutting bucks that sound like feral hogs cruising through a hardwood funnel. YouTube will explode with videos of nose-down bucks trailing a hot doe. Those times are awesome, and they certainly can happen for any hunter on any given November day.
Just remember that there are other types of rut days as well. The rut can also be a grind. It can be tough. It can be unfair. It’s important to make sure you are aware of that fact. I’ll illustrate this with a recent hunt I had.
I recently had a week-long work conference. Yes, I had an entire week of work in late October/early November, during which I had morning-till-night time responsibilities out of town. This was frustrating, but for some reason the powers that be at my company don’t take the rut into their planning considerations. I spent some time with my fellow colleagues who hunt commiserating and sharing cell camera pictures with each other, lamenting our fortunes and claiming that ‘this is the spot I would have been at this morning.’ We can exaggerate with the best of them.
I had a possible window to get out for a quick afternoon hunt on Friday. Based on the wind, I knew of a historically good rut spot not far from my house that I wanted to hunt. I had good buck activity on camera. All I had to do was finish up my work on Friday with enough time to get out. I diligently completed my to-do list and readied myself for the hunt.
Then I made a big mistake. I went to check my email one last time before leaving. This one silly act spiraled into a 45 minute conversation about a problem that we would need to address the following week. I tried to politely speed the conversation along, to no avail. I was way late and frustrated as I drove to the nearby public land. I loaded up my bag and gear.
That’s when I felt my phone buzz.
It was not my boss, however it was a notification from my cell camera. The picture I received was another hunter moving into the exact area I was planning to hunt, 20 minutes before I got there. Based on the terrain, I knew he would set up in that spot because you can’t go much further until you hit a creek and private land.
Now, I could have thrown a pity party. I could have been mad at another hunter for ‘stealing my spot’ on public land. I could have thrown an internal temper tantrum at the fact that my coworker cost me a chance at getting to this spot before this other hunter. Or just my whole situation in general as a Basic Hunter. And you know what…that’s just what I did. I got mad at the world. I let myself have a three-minute pity party right there at a public land parking lot standing next to my truck.
Then I looked at my options. I counted myself lucky that my camera picked up this hunter and I did not waste a twenty minute walk in only to turn around for a twenty minute walk out. I did have another spot about twenty minutes away that also worked with the wind and had decent buck activity going on. It would be late, but it was another option.
I went to that stand and saw three does. I’d like to say that fate smiled upon me and I saw a target buck that night, but that’s not how hunting works most of the time. The buck I thought would show up came past that stand the next morning when I was on a bus headed for a football game. I was close again, just need to keep at it.
That’s the real rut. It’s tough, it’s competitive, and sometimes just not fair. Have other options, don’t let failure get to you, and keep going. The other option is to give up and figure out a better way to cook tag soup. Me? I prefer backstrap. See you in the woods.