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    How to Hunt the Nocturnal Buck
    How to Hunt the Nocturnal Buck
    How to Hunt the Nocturnal Buck
    Ebook168 pages2 hours

    How to Hunt the Nocturnal Buck

    By Dragan Vujic

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The majority of the really big bucks only come out at night. After surviving three or more hunting seasons, these whitetails have learned that it is only safe to venture forth when the cloak of darkness descends. They are the nocturnal bucks. But, just because you do not see them in the diurnal hours, does not mean that they are not around. In fact, all of us have probably walked past within a stone throw of a bedded or hidden nocturnal buck and not noticed him. There are probably huge nocturnal bucks where you hunt. However, you may not have seen them. Having harvested several nocturnal bucks in the last several years, I would like to share some insightful information with you. This book describes in detail where to find nocturnal bucks and how to kill them during the daylight hours. The revealed strategies and tactics will bring you within bow range of a nocturnal buck in the daytime. I have also included a few detailed accounts of the nocturnal bucks that I have arrowed down.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateDec 15, 2008
    ISBN9781440113284
    How to Hunt the Nocturnal Buck
    Author

    Dragan Vujic

    Dragan Vujic is a writer and an avid outdoorsman. He resides in rural southern Ontario, Canada where he enjoys a quiet, serene lifestyle. Dragan may be contacted at: draganvujic1205@gmail.com or draganvujic1115@gmail.com.

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      Book preview

      How to Hunt the Nocturnal Buck - Dragan Vujic

      HOW TO HUNT THE

      NOCTURNAL BUCK

      DRAGAN VUJIC

      iUniverse, Inc.

      New York Bloomington

      HOW TO HUNT THE NOCTURNAL BUCK

      Copyright © 2009 by Dragan Vujic

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      ISBN: 978-1-4401-1327-7 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4401-1328-4 (ebook)

      iUniverse rev. date: 12/9/2008

      Books by Dragan Vujic

      Canadian Whitetail Hunting

      Hunting Farm Country Whitetails

      Whitetail Hunting Adventures

      Bow Hunting Whitetails

      Calling Whitetails

      Cunningham Ghost

      How To Hunt The Nocturnal Buck

      Interior_OWAAgray_20081115082405.tif

      Dedicated to my friend, Bruce Novak (Buffalo Bruce), independent contractor, for sharing some great hunts.

      Interior_cropped_20081115082304.tif

      Dragan Vujic with one of the nocturnal bucks that he shot in daylight hours

      Interior_Cover2gray_20081115082948.tif

      Another Nocturnal Buck that Dragan Vujic harvested in the early morning hours

      Contents

      Introduction

      PART I

      WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

      Chapter One Sense of Smell

      Chapter Two Eyesight

      Chapter Three Hearing Ability

      Chapter Four Rubs & Scrapes

      Chapter Five Bedding Areas

      Chapter Six Preferred Foods

      Chapter Seven Tracks

      Part II:

      Effective Hunting Strategies

      Chapter Eight Conventional Knowledge Revisited

      Chapter Nine Traditional Hunting Styles Reviewed

      Chapter Ten Absolute Truths

      Chapter Eleven Kill The Nocturnal Buck In His Bed

      Chapter Twelve Flush The Nocturnal Buck From His Hiding Spot

      Part III:

      Some Nocturnal Bucks That Have Been Harvested

      Chapter Thirteen The Swampland Buck

      Chapter Fourteen The Cunningham Ghost

      Chapter Fifteen The Bean Field Buck

      Chapter Sixteen River Flats Buck

      Conclusion

      A Few Tales

      Apple Eating Buck

      Boone & Crocket

      LESSONS LEARNED

      Unusual, But Productive Season Tom Hutchings

      Bobby’s Buck

      Shelley’s First Whitetail

      Trevor Somers

      Grasslands Buck

      The Newf

      Holding Tight

      The Hullet Experience

      Evening Bow Hunt

      Out of Bow Range

      My First Monster Buck

      Dan’s Deer

      The End

      Endorsements

      Hunt Hard. Shoot Straight. Kill Clean.

      Be proud of who you are and what you do.

      Introduction 

      Over the past forty years, I have harvested a considerable number of whitetails. I have had the benefit of hunting with a wide variety of firearms and several bows, including crossbows. Although I have shot deer at various times of the day, I have killed my most memorable bucks in the magic twilight hours. The passing of time has allowed me to accumulate a lot of knowledge and experience related to whitetail hunting. Every autumn, I have enjoyed a bountiful harvest. Unknowingly, I had gradually slipped into complacency – a comfort zone. I was happy with my tactics and results.

      Unlike other recreational activities, there are no winners and losers in the sport of hunting. There is no competition. No one hands out trophies. Everyone who picks up a bow or a firearm and steps into the woods is already a winner. Anyone who harvests a deer, irrespective of size and gender, is also a winner. I have always enjoyed the art of whitetails hunting for its own sake. Record books and special recognitions have never held any appeal to me. I have never been big on bragging or grandstanding. Assuming that most deer hunters followed a similar philosophy, I continued to savour each moment of each whitetail hunt and continued to harvest what I considered to be average sized bucks in the area. After all, I was not out to impress anyone. I was out to enjoy deer hunting. Having said all of that, I have to admit that, at the insistence of hunting companions, I have entered a few bucks in the record books over the course of time. The mounted heads and majestic racks hang in my living room. However, these harvests were more a matter of chance and luck than anything else.

      Then, one fateful conversation and subsequent recon mission altered my perception of the entire topic of whitetail hunting. A friend of mine told me that impressive as some of my mounted deer heads were, none had the semblance of a dominant buck in any particular region. He further stated that about ninety-five percent of the large, mature bucks (four and a half years and older) probably only emerged from cover under the protection of the cloak of darkness. These were the true monarchs of the deer woods. However, they were also nocturnal by nature. In a nutshell, the really big bucks only came out at night. This explained the large tracks that I had often found and never sighted the buck that they belonged to.

      Hunting these hidden monsters during the daylight hours intrigued me. This appeared to be the ultimate challenge. It would take whitetail hunting to a new and higher level. This was not about impressing anyone, bragging, grandstanding or seeing your picture in a record book. Learning to hunt a nocturnal buck was about challenging yourself and honing your existent skills. This animal would prove to be a lot harder to hunt than your average buck. A successful hunter would have to acquire new knowledge and become more proficient in order to get close enough to shoot a huge buck that only ventured forth in the darkness. The whole idea fascinated me. It was indeed a novel proposition.

      These nocturnal bucks did not vanish into thin air at the first hint of dawn. They had to either bed down or hide somewhere during the day. Just because we did not see them in the diurnal hours did not mean that these huge game animals were not around. On the contrary, they seldom left their familiar home range. The nocturnal bucks were always nearby. However, most of us have probably walked within a few feet of a motionless, well concealed forest dweller without seeing him. In all likelihood, we have done this on numerous occasions. The nocturnal buck, in addition to having nerves of steel, is a master at stealth and deception. He has eluded hunters and predators alike for years in order to thrive and survive. This creature has developed the ability to effectively melt and disappear into any landscape – to become virtually invisible in broad daylight.

      Incidentally, pressured does also become nocturnal, but no one pays attention to this fact. Most hunters will not exert the efforts required to hunt a nocturnal whitetail if the deer turns out to be a doe. What is the fun of harvesting a nocturnal doe? What do you have to show for your efforts? Besides, there are enough antlerless deer visible in the diurnal hours. There is no point in going after a hard to hunt deer with no headgear. Most hunters will focus on trophy bucks. The older the buck, the harder he will be to hunt. Experience only comes with age.

      So, we never saw the really big bucks during the daytime because they only emerged at night. Over the years, they had learned that the dark hours were the only safe time frames to roam about freely within their kingdom. All nocturnal bucks seemed to know that they could chase does in estrus during darkness just as well as during the bright hours. Thus, even the urge to breed was suspended in the diurnal time. Since these wise denizens of the forest chose not to respond to anything during daylight, all efforts at calling, rattling and decoying would prove to be ineffective. Stand hunting would not work either.

      This was an interesting theory that made sense, but I still wanted some hard evidence to support it. Seeing is believing. Visual verification is usually the best confirmation of postulations. Although I had reviewed over a dozen images of huge night marauding bucks that had been captured on trail cam pictures, I was still not convinced. The pictures were excellent and clearly stated the exact time when the buck first appeared. But, I needed more proof. Therefore, I acquired a night vision monocular and headed for the properties where I normally hunted during the day. I arrived around sunset and settled into one of my ambush sites and patiently waited for dusk to give way to the night. Previously, on numerous occasions, I had found large tracks nearby. Tonight, I hoped to see who belonged to these hoof prints in the mud.

      One of the bucks that emerged from cover in the next three hours was absolutely amazing. I had never imagined that a whitetail could attain such body mass and grow such impressive antlers. They were definitively the true monarchs of the wild. This experience was a real eye opener and mind expander. I noticed that the nocturnal bucks followed different trails and came out of different opening than the rest of the herd. But, they fed in the same agricultural fields and utilized the same areas for cover. These magnificent creatures actually lived in the same region that I had hunted for many years. However, I had been completely oblivious to their existence until tonight. This was all the proof that I need.

      Then and there, I resolved to learn as much as I could about hunting the nocturnal buck. The next day, I set forth on a novel whitetail hunting adventure that would take me to unprecedented heights. I started to hunt the nocturnal bucks in the daylight hours. They had to be somewhere. These game animals could not simply vanish into thin air. I accumulated a considerable amount of knowledge in the following few years, mostly through experience, but also through reading a variety of articles. My tactics proved to be effective and I did manage to harvest several admirable nocturnal bucks during the diurnal hours. I would like to

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