The author examines a fresh scrape in a thicket along the Missouri River where bucks like to bed during the day. Many bowhunters believe you can judge the size of a buck by the size of a tree he rubs. Not necessarily so when a big buck lives in a swamp or thicket with small trees. If that's what is available it is not likely he'll go out of his way to find a big tree to rub. Fresh tracks around rubs or scrapes will give the hunter a better handle on the buck's size.

I'd planned on giving this hideyhole a go this past fall when I bowhunted the area, especially during the opening of rifle season when I knew from the previous year's observations deer would definitely be moving to the protective cover around the dugout during the first days of the season. South Dakota allowed bowhunting during the gun season, but I never got a chance to hunt the spot because I arrowed a good buck the second day of an earlier bowhunt, ending all thoughts of bowhunting the hideyhole.

Big, mature bucks have a propensity for seeking out small isolated sanctuaries when hunters invade their normal home range. Each fall in Iowa, I get several reports of bird hunters jumping monster bucks out of small, secluded pockets of cover when they are hunting pheasants and quail. Whenever possible, I try to check out such spots for possible future use. Often these unique little oasis' aren't that important to the landowner and it's easy to get permission to bowhunt them.

Many wise and wary old bucks become seemingly impossible to kill by disappearing into an undiscovered hideyhole during season and venturing forth only after full dark and returning before daylight. Even during the rut, when bucks are supposedly sex crazed and stupid, these hideyhole bucks will sneak out at night, round up a doe and keep her hidden with them in their nook until she's bred, never exposing themselves during daylight hours.

On an early morning several years ago, I spotted a 170-class buck at the edge of a 50- by 100-yard patch of timber in a draw smack in the center of a section of open pasture where I least expected to see a deer, let alone a buck of that caliber. This occurred during the second shotgun season. I got landowner permission and sneaked four gun hunters around the patch, and they still blew the setup and let the Boone-and-Crockett buck escape. I've checked that pocket a dozen times since and never found enough deer sign to warrant bowhunting it.

Ron Wadsworth, an Illinois bowhunter who is also an outfitter, ran into a monstrous hideyhole buck a few years back that tested his skills and luck to the limit. The previous fall, one of Ron's bowhunting clients had hit a monstrous buck in the antler, and shortly after season Ron spotted the buck feeding in a cornfield on his property. That spring Ron found one of the buck's sheds complete with broadhead-chipped main beam.

Ron had an idea where the elusive buck was bedding and in September he was scouting, trying to pinpoint the buck's hideyhole when he jumped the humongous buck from a small weed-grown field situated between two deep draws that led to timber.

Take your time to thoroughly scout a buck "hideyhole" and locate all his travel and escape routes. A buck doesn't pick his secluded nest to make it easy for a hunter to find him and such a spot might be right next to a building, road or natural obstruction. The best way to hunt such a location is to unobtrusively pattern the buck's comings and goings and try to ambush him on the way in or out. If you blow the chance there may be an opportunity for another encounter from a different ambush point.

He located a well-used bed eight feet in diameter in the waist-high weeds midway between the two gullies. The buck could observe traffic on the main road a half mile away and see anyone approaching from any direction except for a small grassy knoll to the north of his nest. He was only a couple jumps from escape routes on both sides, and completely hidden from view.

Ron went back to the area the following day and hung a tree stand in the timbered draw overlooking the most traveled escape route, and then stayed out of the area until the first of November. The first time he slipped in to bowhunt the buck he forgot he had taken three tree steps out of the tree, and couldn't make it up into the stand. He moved down the ridge to ponder the situation and a few minutes later the buck appeared in the timber and walked right under his stand. A few days later he got his chance at the monster buck and missed. He hunted the stand three more days and never saw a deer.

Ron gave up the stand until shotgun season arrived the following weekend, figuring that the minute his neighbor parked on the road and moved to his stand the deer would see him and move down the trail giving him another chance at the buck. On opening day he sat his stand all day long while staring at his neighbor, who sat on the other side of a fence only a few yards away. The neighbor was a persistent hunter and also aware of the big buck's presence.

As much as Ron wanted to take the big buck with his bow, he succumbed to the competition and took his shotgun to the stand the second day. Once again he and the neighbor stared silently at each other and the unoccupied woods all day. Finally, at 3:30 his competition climbed down and left the area. Ron quickly decided to sneak in on the hideyhole in hopes the buck was there. Ron sneaked to within 40 yards of the bed and spotted the antler tips sticking up out of the frost-killed weeds. Two well-placed shots later he had the hideyhole buck of a lifetime.

Mossy-horned, old bucks don't play by the rules. If you're going to be successful in adding one of these sneaky, unconventional, baffling bucks to your trophy room wall you'd best start scouting areas where you'd least expect to find such a buck, 'cause that's the secret of success for "hideyhole bucks."