Bowhunter Ron Welch arrowed this giant buck on opening day of the 2006 season. It is the biggest bow kill ever from Mason County. Taxidermy by Floyd Bolander. Photo by Bill Cooper.

Asked to choose the best time of year for encountering a mature trophy-class buck, most Bluegrass hunters usually pick November, when the rut has deer activity at a peak. Without question, this is an excellent selection. However, for many dedicated bowhunters, the overwhelming favorite choice is August. Despite the sweltering heat, many hunters believe that these few weeks of late summer are about the only time of the year when they can spot a trophy whitetail in the open, away from the dense cover it normally prefers.

At this time of year, the deer are still in their regimented early-morning and late-evening summer movement patterns. They are highly visible as they feed in agricultural fields, pastures, utility right-of-ways and wildlife openings. Though bucks are still in velvet, their antler growth has slowed and racks, for the most part, are fully formed.

Additionally, since 2003, when the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) moved the opening of bow season to the first week in September, hunters willing to devote the last days of August to intensely scouting as many locations as they can, may ultimately put themselves in just the right spot to take a record-class whitetail.

RON WELCH’S MASON COUNTY MONSTER
Mason County bowhunter Ron Welch is a strong advocate of late-summer pre-season scouting. Several times in the past, he’s used that strategy to locate big bucks.

Last August, the hunter was following his regular scouting routine when he received some unexpected assistance from a local farmer, who called to report an exceptionally large buck sighting in one of his soybean fields.

“I had no doubt the fellow had seen a big deer,” Welch said. “But the word ‘big’ means different things to different people. Previous experience had taught me not to form any conclusions before scouting the area -- and hopefully, getting a look at the buck for myself.”

That opportunity came rather quickly. Welch’s job includes a day-and-night rotating shift schedule, and at that particular time, the hunter was getting off at 6:30 a.m.

“One morning, I drove straight to the farm from work and positioned myself in a distant fencerow where I could see the bean field with binoculars,” Welch explained.

“The buck was there, alone, feeding. But I would’ve had no trouble identifying the deer if there had been 50 other bucks with him. The farmer was correct, the deer was definitely an exceptional whitetail, one of the biggest I had ever seen.”

After several minutes, the hunter watched the buck exit the field, pass through a small stand of hardwoods and cross an open pasture, before finally disappearing into a narrow point of woods.

Nearby, an adjacent hollow was filled with impenetrable thickets of brush, briars, and vines. Welch had little doubt the deer was using the dense cover as a bedding area.

“On every scouting trip, the big deer followed the exact same travel route,” he said. “From a hunting standpoint, the situation was ideal. But I also knew that any number of things could happen to alter the deer’s pattern before the bow season opened. My greatest concern was that the 150 yards of open pasture the buck regularly crossed to reach the bean field, just happened to be in full view of a county road. That’s not the best situation for a deer carrying a record-class rack.”

Fortunately, the hunter’s luck held. On opening morning, after parking his truck over half a mile from the site, Welch gathered his equipment and headed for the narrow point of woods between the pasture and the brush-filled hollow. Rather than hang his stand ahead of time and risk the possibility of the buck detecting his scent, he opted to wait and carry it in with him that morning.