As Bo and I moved trail cameras, scouted a new property, and moved stands for the umpteenth time yesterday afternoon, we discussed in detail about how frustraiting of a season we have had so far. In Northeastern/Eastern Kansas and Northwestern Missouri, it appears that we are currently fighting the perfect storm when it comes to deer hunting in October. It seems that every year there is a typical "lull" that occurs during the middle of the month, but our "lull" has lasted for nearly 30 days now and shows no signs of slowing down with the 10-day forecast. The warm temperatures and windy conditions have provided us an early crop harvest, but has limited the deer movement. The bountiful acorn crop (the best in years) provides great nutritional benefits to the herd, but has limited the deer movement. The clear, bright night skies has been great for camp fires, but has limited the deer movement during daylight hours.

After nearly 100 hours of stand time, a couple dozen does, two yearling bucks, and very little activity overall, we are officially in a "lull", but hopefully on the tail end of it. We have hunted near known bedding areas, oak ridges covered in acorns, cut corn fields, standing bean fields and the outcomes have all seemed the same - little to no daytime movement. This has been the same pattern we have been seeing with trail camera photos as well. We are continuously moving stands and cameras though to hopefully catch up with one of our hit listers during this time because you cannot kill them if you are sitting on the couch! If they are going to make a mistake, you want to make sure you are there to capitalize on it!

We do have an update on our two main hit list bucks. Potato Digger and Crab Claw "9" have kept with their same routine for the last three years. Every year, these two will run together all summer and we will get literally thousands of pictures of them. But once that velvet comes off, Potato Digger will force Crab Claw out of the area and both will go nocturnal. Last year Crab Claw moved to the western edge of the property adjacent to us, but this year he has moved into the area where Bo shot his 175" 5.5 year old last year. We knew a good buck would take over this territory, but were surprised to see Crab Claw up there since we have no trail camera pictures of him on this portion of the property in three years. It was really nice to see him show up during shooting hours too. Too bad we were hunting about two hours away that evening. Lets hope he makes that mistake this weekend!

However, this dominance is the primary reason why we have placed Potato Digger at the top of the hit list. He is by far the most dominant buck we have ever encountered and is hurting the property by driving out all of the other bucks. He needs to go and needs to go soon! We will be targetting him and Crab Claw specifically this weekend so hopefully one of these 5.5 year olds will make a mistake and step into range for the Maxxiss.