By Alex Comstock
As the sun rises and emerges over the horizon, a chill runs down your spine. Not because of the frigid and frosty morning that awakens around you, but because of the “feel” of being in a treestand during the month of November. No matter what, the rut is what excites deer hunters collectively. It’s the one time of year that you can feel as though at any moment, ANYTHING can happen, whether you know of any big bucks in the area or not.
Sit after sit, nothing could be going on. But the thing about November and the rut, is that it truly only takes one moment. But, you don’t know when that moment is going to come to fruition. See if you don’t spend as much time in the timber as possible during this awesome month, you may miss it. That moment might come at 1:00 in the afternoon on a Wednesday by your treestand. The question then becomes, will you be there to witness it?
Though the rut can surely be wild, heck it’s the title of this blog post, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be non stop action for weeks on end, especially if you’re hunting mature bucks. It comes in spurts, but it’s about being ready every minute you’re in the stand during this wild time of year. Because the moment you let down your guard, you’ll be ambushed and have a mature buck chase a doe right by you, and you won’t be ready to act quickly.
While on stand during the Rut, you simply never know when the action could break loose.
So as you prepare for the upcoming rut, embrace the wild. Embrace the fact that just because you might not be seeing deer on November 7th, it doesn’t mean the rut isn’t in full swing. The rut is all about hunting as much as you can, being in the right spot at the right time, and conjuring up a little luck. Get those few ingredients to all come together and it could be pretty wild.
The real question then becomes is can you handle it when it does in fact get wild? Are you able to calm yourself down enough to still be proficient with your archery equipment and send an arrow through a rutting buck at 30 yards? Or will you falter, let the excitement get to you, and send an errant arrow?
It’s not quite here yet, but it’s not far away. 10 days by my count and sweet November will be here. It’s about to get wild out there, and I hope you come out the back end with a successful hunt, but more importantly, no matter what happens, I hope you can learn something from the wild ride.
