By Will Brantley

Rut Reporter Will Brantley of Murray, Kentucky, knows the region well. He spends 40 to 50 days each season in the Mid-South whitetail woods. Brantley shot his first deer at age 10 with a sidelock muzzleloader. States covered: KY, TN, WV, VA, NC.

Michelle and I were driving home Sunday after hunting fall turkeys all weekend. It was chilly, raining and nearing lunch time. We were in farm country, and the wide-open fields around us were bright green with their winter wheat cover crop.

I saw the doe run across the road 70 yards from the truck, and assuming there’d be more does behind her, I hit my brakes. The monster buck that appeared--mouth hanging open and oblivious to our vehicle, the road, the little buck behind him, or much of anything else outside of the doe’s rear-end--definitely caught me by surprise. He was a solid 150-inch 10-pointer--maybe even a little bigger--and definitely the biggest buck I’ve seen in person all season.

By Will Brantley

Rut Reporter Will Brantley of Murray, Kentucky, knows the region well. He spends 40 to 50 days each season in the Mid-South whitetail woods. Brantley shot his first deer at age 10 with a sidelock muzzleloader. States covered: KY, TN, WV, VA, NC.

A few bucks are still chasing around here. My father-in-law, Larry Adams, hunted Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving and the only cool, clear morning of the four-day weekend, and watched a pretty good deer activity show.

“We saw a little buck shortly after daylight that I passed on, and then around eight a.m., we spotted this buck across the creek, chasing does on a hardwood hillside over on the neighbor’s farm,” he said.

By Will Brantley

Rut Reporter Will Brantley of Murray, Kentucky, knows the region well. He spends 40 to 50 days each season in the Mid-South whitetail woods. Brantley shot his first deer at age 10 with a sidelock muzzleloader. States covered: KY, TN, WV, VA, NC.

It would be tough to hand-pick worse weather for deer hunting than we’ve had this past week. When the wind hasn’t been blowing 30 mph, it’s been 70 degrees and raining. On top of that, many of the mature bucks in the Mid-South seem to be “locked down” with does.

In fact, as Michelle and I drove a few back roads on Sunday afternoon, she spotted a doe bedded on a thick hillside in a tiny wood lot, no more than 30 yards from the blacktop. I backed the truck up and grabbed my binoculars—sure enough, a heavy-beamed 9-pointer was bedded only a few feet away from the doe. Despite us glassing and talking, neither deer moved. I’ve got no doubt the doe was in heat—but gun season has also been open for two weekends in Kentucky. Right next to the road, those deer were the definition of “hiding in plain sight.”

By Will Brantley

Rut Reporter Will Brantley of Murray, Kentucky, knows the region well. He spends 40 to 50 days each season in the Mid-South whitetail woods. Brantley shot his first deer at age 10 with a sidelock muzzleloader. States covered: KY, TN, WV, VA, NC.

With the chase phase in full-swing, I set out early last weekend to hunt a saddle between two white oak ridges, one of which borders a sprawling clear cut. Along with 299 other hunters, I’d been drawn for a two-day quota gun hunt on public land in Kentucky. This particular chunk of public ground is where I grew up hunting, and is virtually all woods. Deer densities are low there, but it does produce a good buck from time to time.