Brennen Nading - Iowa - November 1st, 2026
By: Brennen Nading (@nadingbr)
Heading into the fall, I was beyond excited to get after it in the urban unit that I hunt here in Iowa. My sights were set on chasing a buck that I now had two seasons' worth of intel on—a buck I called "Twig". The last couple of years, this particular buck showed up during the first week of October and stayed on the farm all season and even long enough to drop his antlers in the spring. Having picked up his antlers in March, I was hopeful that he would repeat his pattern and show himself again in October. That's when I got thrown a curveball. On October 5th, a big mature buck showed up... the only problem was that he didn't grow any antlers. Yes, I know that sounds crazy, but I am almost certain it was "Twig". I'm not sure if he suffered an injury between spring and fall or what happened, but unfortunately my top target buck was no longer a target at all for this year. I quickly adjusted my plans and began to focus on the next oldest deer on the farm. This was a deer I also had a couple of years of intel on, and I believed it to be 6.5 years old. "Rooster" was a big heavy 10-point, and I was excited to chase him. After a couple of all-day sits, and good activity in late October, I was excited for the calendar to turn to November. On November 1st, we had a memorable hunt. With a few hot does in the area where we were sitting, it was chaos and bucks were running everywhere. At noon, we got lucky and "Rooster" followed a hot doe right under our tree. What a hunt!