EMPIRE STATE BUCK

Hunting any new property has it’s challenges. It usually takes a few years to get a property figured out to maximize your harvest opportunities. This year in early fall we acquired permission to hunt on over 400 continuous acres near my home, which is rare in NY. Baiting is not allowed in NY and It was too late in the season to get any food plots in, so we knew getting trail cam pics were going to be a challenge. We had cameras set on some trails only getting pictures of some smaller bucks. As the acorns started to fall photos were sporadic at best since the deer were covering a lot of ground feeding on acorns. Last week while scouting I started to find some fresh rubs on trees that could not have been made by the deer I was getting photos of. I usually don't hunt rub lines but use them to to determine the travel pattern of a buck, but in 3 days I saw 12 fresh rubs so I decided to hang a tree stand in the area. I didn’t see any deer the first few days.I tried using some pre-rut scents and a decoy to possibly encourage the buck making the rubs to revisit the area more frequently.  Last night just before dark he came back through giving me a 16 yd shot opportunity.