 FORCE
THE BUCK TO COME TO YOU
Build a Honey Hole
EDITOR’S NOTE: Although you may have quality
bucks in the woods you hunt, if you can’t concentrate
those deer to enable you to see them during daylight
hours, you’ll never get a shot at the deer. Dr.
Keith Causey, a professor of wildlife research at Auburn
University in Auburn, Alabama, has hunted and researched
white-tailed deer for over 30 years.
“I build honey holes to take bucks,” Causey
explains. “On the 750 acres I hunt, I fertilize
the naturally-occurring trees, plants and shrubs on
which deer feed.” Causey likes to fertilize plum
thickets but only fertilizes the plum trees on the side
of the thicket where he has his tree stand. Then these
plum trees will produce the biggest and the largest
number of plums and concentrate the deer feeding on
the plums under Causey’s stand. If he hunts next
to a clearcut with a big  honeysuckle
patch on the edge, Causey will fertilize one section
of that honeysuckle. Although the honeysuckle patch
may run for 50 to 100 yards, the vines producing the
sweetest leaves will be the ones Causey has fertilized
close to his tree stand where he will have an easy shot
at a buck. However, Causey’s fertilization program
doesn’t include only soft mast. “I also
fertilize oak trees,” Causey reports. “When
I hunt a hardwood bottom with several nut-producing
trees, I find a tree where most of the deer seem to
eat. Then before the next hunting season, I fertilize
that tree. Because I know the deer will feed around
this tree more frequently than other trees, I use the
fertilizer to help that particular tree create bigger,
sweeter and more nutritious nuts than the other trees
in that section of the land. I believe the deer will
come to the tree more often because of the amount and
sweet taste of the food. I can concentrate the deer
under this tree and often pull them away from the other
trees.”
When using commercially-prepared fertilizers to make
bucks come to you, you need to know what food the deer
prefer to feed on throughout hunting season. Put out
fertilizer before hunting season in specific areas where
you find the deer’s favorite food sources for
each time of the year. For instance, if you know the
deer like plums or persimmons in the early part of the
season, fertilize one portion of a plum or a persimmon
patch. If you think the deer will move next to chestnut
oak acorns, place fertilizer under  the
chestnut oak acorn trees you intend to hunt. If you
know the deer prefer honeysuckle and greenbrier late
in the season, fertilize those honeysuckle and greenbrier
thickets early. By using commercially-prepared fertilizer,
you can create honeyholes for big bucks you can hunt
all season long. However, don’t tell your friends
and neighbors where you’ve made a honey hole,
or they’ll take the bucks you’ve attracted.
You can also build a honey hole by cross-scraping. Many
commercially-prepared deer lures allow the hunter to
create mock scrapes or to leave the odor of does or
bucks at an active scrape. However, you may pull a big
buck into a scraping area through a system of cross-scraping.
Go to an active scrape wearing rubber gloves and rubber
boots. Take a small gardener’s shovel, some ratchet
cutters and Ziploc bags with you. Once you have on your
gloves, scoop up some of the dirt containing the buck’s
urine in the scrape with your shovel. Put that dirt
in the Ziploc bag. Also clip one of the overhanging
branches the buck has used to leave the scent from his
eyes, nose and mouth. Place the branch in another Ziploc
bag.
Take the dirt and the branch to another scrape on another
part of the property. With your rubber gloves on, pour
the dirt out of the bag and into the new scrape. Utilize
a small piece of green twine to tie the branch you’ve
clipped onto the branch the buck will use at  the
new scrape. By wearing rubber gloves and rubber boots,
you’ll leave little odor when you try to fool
a big buck. You have told the buck at the new scrape
that another buck or group of bucks has moved into his
territory during the rut. Because deer are territorially-minded,
the buck at the second scrape will check this scrape
more often to learn which deer use it, especially the
intruder buck that has begun to work his scrape.
Often you can’t see a trophy buck during daylight
hours because to obtain that trophy status, the buck
knows he must hide in thick cover and move only at night
or when he breeds. Utilizing these tricky tactics that
have produced bucks in the past for hunters may force
those older-age-class deer to come close enough for
you to take a shot.
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