Best time to hunt whitetail deer

A common question people will ask professional guide services or Kentucky hunting outfitters is, “When do you think the best time to hunt is?” Now, just like Nascar drivers, outfitters do not feel they are the best or know the job better than anyone else. Nascar drivers know first-hand there are greater talents out there, it’s just you have to be so pretty and be able to sell so many t-shirts for sponsorships, as well as having certain doors opened up for you from relationships and family. For many outfitters, these folks just happen to have access to a lot of money or have worked extremely hard to acquire turkey and deer hunting rights for property. By no means are they any more qualified to tell you when the best time to hunt is over an avid outdoor sportsman.   Outdoor hobbies bring together people from all walks of life. It’s a good group who get along no matter how rich or poor. 

Hunting requires a certain skillset that can only be learned through trial and error, but can be learned by all.   The best time to hunt: 

1. At night with a spot light 

2. Any time you are not working  

Ok, so we need to be a little more defined with the question of the “best” time to hunt. What are we hunting? Let’s assume whitetail and not turkey. Are we looking for does or bucks? Let’s assume a trophy whitetail buck. Let’s also assume we are going to follow game laws to create the value of the animal actually being a trophy. You know I get into “participation trophies” and poaching of any sort ranks up there with a non-trophy. It’s not even a participation trophy. Poaching is like going to a grocery store, buying meat and claiming you hunted that animal. It’s a real disgrace. Now if you are shooting does, and not messing up the trophy sport, to feed your family because money is tight, am I allowed to say “good for you” for not sitting back and just collecting a welfare check?   

In Kentucky, you have a chance to shoot a sacred velvet buck. Not many places on Earth has such Kentucky hunting seasons, so the first few weeks in September is a good time to go hunting. The success rates are nowhere near as high as October and November, but again, it’s how much value you put into your effort and how many years it takes you to get a trophy velvet buck. Not many people on the plant have achieved this.   Then you have the rest of September to consider bow hunting, but it won’t be as active as the pre-rut and rut hunting times that tend to be experienced in October through mid-November. The idea is that late September might not offer you the rutting activity, but it does offer you the fact that all the trophy whitetails are still floating around and haven’t been shot at yet. It’s also a time where there is no chance your Kentucky deer hunt is facing the challenge of the animals becoming nocturnal.    Getting into October and November is the crème de la crème of hunting time. The acorns are dropping, the corn has been harvested and it’s mating season.    So when is the best time to hunt whitetail deer?