Hi all,

I took a gander at the forecast and decided to take a little "rut-cation". Planning on hunting Thursday evening to Saturday afternoon on public land in southern Oklahoma (bow hunting).

I'm pretty familiar with this specific WMA, but I honestly don't have a ton of experience hunting during the full-on rut (which is what I'm expecting this weekend). I know of several bedding areas, both for does and bucks. I also know of some active scrapes and pretty major travel corridors. I have several mature, shooter-bucks on camera and know the general areas they occupy. I'm having a hard time deciding how to approach the hunt though.

What should my general approach be? Should I be looking at setting up in tight cover, right on travel corridors? Or would you set up on a field edge, where you could potentially see a cruising buck at a distance? In the evening, should I be targeting oaks that are actively dropping acorns, like I would in October?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Woke up at 2am this morning going over all this in my head.

You wanna say what WMA? I assume it’s archery only and no baiting.

Yessir, archery only. Cross Timbers WMA

Hunt where the does are.

Game warden really watches that WMA. He’s aggressive at catching the bad guys. Im not implying you’re a bad guy at all, but just fyi.

Good! I wish they’d do the same back home.

Well, I have a couple feeding nearby right now, so here’s hoping the big boy comes in after em

Good we’ll be waiting on a report come Monday ! Best of luck sir .

Good luck sir. I’m trying to get my day wrapped up in time to hunt this evening.

No buck yet, but I’m feeling good about today. Set up just off wind of a fresh scrape. I’ve had four does walk by so far this morning, so hopefully their boyfriend isn’t far behind.

Well, it didn’t work out for me this time. I spent A LOT of time (12 hours just yesterday) dangling from trees, and didn’t see any rut activity. Saw a few young bucks and a lot of does. Maybe I was just in the wrong spots, but they were all going about their business as usual. Can’t complain though, I love spending time in the woods.

You giving it another shot?