Gentlemen, welcome to deer season 2025. In this video I’m talking about that late September / early October window—when it’s officially archery season here in Ohio—and why early season buck hunting can feel a little weird compared to late October and November. I break it down into three parts: what a mature buck is doing day-to-day right now, what we can actually pull from GPS collar data (MSU Deer Lab / Mississippi State’s work), and how I apply that on public land to get a real shot at a mature deer. The big takeaways are pretty simple: food is still king, bucks are still running patterns that look a lot like summer, and their core areas are small. The MSU data showed mature bucks averaging around 4,000 yards of movement per day, but they’re not “going somewhere else”—their net change is only a few hundred yards, basically a lap from bedding to food and back. Moon phase didn’t matter much in that dataset, but cold fronts did. When that first temperature drop hits (even 80 down to low 70s), I’m expecting earlier daylight movement. Tactically, my #1 early season setup is the corridor between thick bedding and an evening food source—typically 50–100 yards off the food, not standing in the wide open. If they’re getting to the edge too late, I’ll push bedding carefully, but access has to be perfect: wind is king, don’t skyline yourself, use creek bottoms and screening cover, and don’t educate a buck that’s still fully in his right mind.