In the thick of it!

I hung a stand last week on the edge of a wooded ridge that has always been a heavy travel spot with lots of scrapes. Question is, should I wait to hunt this spot until the pre rut chasing phase?

Last evening 7 does and 4 fawns came in and were feeding all around me on acorns. I don’t want to wreck this spot before the bucks show up and don’t know if I should be right in the middle of their feeding area. One of the does winded me so should I leave this stand alone until late October?

thats a tough call hard to stay out if your seeing a bunch of deer i say you could hunt it 2 or 3 times a week when the wind is right just my opinion thou i hunt my fav spots 2 or 3 times a week if they bust you give em a few days off then sneek back in is what i would do the bucks will show up soon enough

I guess I would ask myself will the deer be here when the rut does roll around? If they are feeding on acorns, I’m guessing they will be gone or their food choice will change by the time the rut comes. Or is this is just a travel route that happens to have acorns around it. Everyone including myself gets excited about rubs and scrape lines. However, many scrapes and rubs never get hit during the day light so hunting over them will often bring a lot of doe sightings, long days in the stand with but no bucks. The odds of you harvesting a mature buck after you have sat in a stand for a few times dramatically decreases.

So, I guess if that is your #1 rut stand, I would stay out of it, if you can hunt other stands if your situation allows you. Some properties are too small or you don’t have enough land to allow choices like this. So if you have no other stands to hunt from, then I would say you can’t shoot them from the couch and I would hunt it. If you have other stands you can hunt, I would leave this alone!