Opening Day In America - Midwest

The Quick Buck

There’s no time like the bow opener for patterning and ambushing a trophy buck

- Scott Bestul

 It wasn’t just an oak, it was the oak. My friend Tom VanDoorn—a logger and the best big-woods deer hunter I know—and I had scouted dozens of similar trees within a 10-mile radius of his cabin since dawn, and this red oak stood out like a beacon.

For starters, the giant tree grew like its only purpose was to attract whitetails. Situated 3 miles off the nearest gravel road, the oak had 10 acres of swamp grass to its west, a burbling creek 200 yards to its north, and a thick bedding ridge to its east. Every nearby popple whip had been rubbed, and several snapped cleanly off. Dark, wet droppings surrounded the oak, and tentative scrapes disturbed the duff under its sprawling limbs.

But the tree was most notable for what it didn’t reveal: acorns. Tom knows virtually every oak stand for miles, and our scouting walk took us past scores of promising trees. Some had rained acorns, the nuts ankle-sprainingly abundant. Years of hunting the big woods had taught Tom that these nuts were usually wormy and sour; that’s why there were so many left uneaten. Other trees had a smattering of nuts and decent deer sign; these were worth considering. But the tree we focused on had a hog lot of deer sign and barely an acorn in sight. “The acorns taste so good, the deer literally stand under this tree, waiting for them to drop,” Tom said. “They eat every one, then come back the next day and hope for more. We need to set up here tonight.”

We drew straws for a pair of stand sites. Tom won and set up so he could shoot to the oak itself. I pulled the short straw and hung a stand near a fresh scrape in what we figured was a staging area. I got skunked. But Tom arrowed a North Woods giant—a 14-point, chocolate- horned monster that followed a line of rubs right to the tree and into bow range.