Brett Joy's Big Woods Whitetail Tactics, Per Outdoor Life

Outdoor Life shares tactics from Brett Joy of the Just Hunt Club, who hunts mature bucks in the big forests of New England and the Upper Midwest, where deer are few and sign is subtle.

Key points

• Find edges: Joy uses digital maps to spot where habitats meet, such as hardwoods and softwoods, swamps and mature timber, or timber and recently logged ground. He then scouts them in person, ideally a mile or more from a road.
• Buck behavior: Joy believes big woods bucks have larger home ranges and many bedding areas, sometimes miles apart from one day to the next.
• Rut and cameras: He focuses on routes between doe groups and runs trail cameras, mostly on community scrapes, from about October 15 to December 15.
• Key date: His camera survey and a New Hampshire biologist's conception data both pointed to November 19 as the peak.
• Patience: Joy says to plan about a week of hunting, dark to dark, and to stay with the chosen spot.

Quick take

The author says hunters can learn from Joy even if they do not hunt big woods. Joy stresses that doubt and jumping between spots are what cost hunters the chance at a buck.

Read the full story at Outdoor Life.