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Hunt fresh sign. Nearly every time I set up on fresh droppings/tracks/browse etc. last season I saw deer. Now I just need to be better about killing them. I botched a couple of opportunities when I opted to sit on the ground. Got caught moving.
Can I change my answer to this as well. Another year older has shown this is essentially to any hunt.
YOU can be your worst enemy. Don't hunt a spot if the wind is wrong or your entry educates the buck.
Keep out... wait for better wind and the safest entry.
Spartan
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2021
- Messages
- 469
Be silent, be still.
When you actually do that, every critter in the forest will walk right past you without a care. It is the foundation of every hunt. If you don’t follow those two first steps your hunt will suffer, and it doesn’t matter one bit how much your gear cost, how fancy your camo pattern is, or how many hours you invested scouting and practicing.
When you actually do that, every critter in the forest will walk right past you without a care. It is the foundation of every hunt. If you don’t follow those two first steps your hunt will suffer, and it doesn’t matter one bit how much your gear cost, how fancy your camo pattern is, or how many hours you invested scouting and practicing.
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2019
- Messages
- 8,121
1. High noon bucks are for real during the rut. At this time of the season, do what you must to be in that short window game.
2. Aim for the tangent when shooting from a treestand
3. Look with your eyes not with your head
4. The deer and turkeys don't go home when its bad weather
5. Scout, scout, hunt
6. If you think you need it, you don't. If you know you need it, take it.
7. two is one, one is none.
8. Most hunts are grinds and suck as they usually win, we wouldn't want it any other way.
9. Inside corners are a bowhunters best friend
10. Never let it beat ya!!!
2. Aim for the tangent when shooting from a treestand
3. Look with your eyes not with your head
4. The deer and turkeys don't go home when its bad weather
5. Scout, scout, hunt
6. If you think you need it, you don't. If you know you need it, take it.
7. two is one, one is none.
8. Most hunts are grinds and suck as they usually win, we wouldn't want it any other way.
9. Inside corners are a bowhunters best friend
10. Never let it beat ya!!!
JAYBO
Well-Known Member
TP is over-rated. Merino gator is way softer. Don't ask me how I know.....
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2019
- Messages
- 6,281
Can you elaborate on this one?
Any deer with a bow is a trophy
A very elderly friend told me "movement is what deer see when you don't see deer". He always got a nice buck from the same stump every year.
Similar to what a friend of mine's Dad always told us. He said if you want to kill deer you have to move like a growin turnip.
Sure. Mature bucks are a different critter in a lot of respects and a lot of the time, maybe even most of the time will stay separate from the herd but nearby. There are tons of tactics or approaches that can be applied to hunting them but if your focus is going to be on just killing a mature buck the best spots are generally speaking going to be just off of the main group of deer or the highest traffic areas. That is just a general statement primarily applicable to big timber areas. Obviously in a lot of areas in the midwest where there is much less big timber cover for deer to utilize, they are going to be somewhat more condensed. An early season example for the river bottoms where I hunt a lot would be, if you have a choice between a stand of say 10-12 persimmons in a 50-100 yard area that are all dropping vs a single isolated honey locust dropping pods, 100 times out of 100 I am hunting the honey locust. Wont see nearly as many deer but the odds of seeing a mature buck are way higher.
There is no game animal so magnificent that we should take a chance with our life or the life of another hunter through unsafe hunting practices or unsafe equipment.
If you want to raise good ethical hunters be the example.
You owe it to the animal to be the best hunter you can possibly be... practice, practice, practice and learn from every shot. ( When I clean my deer I actually dissect each one. This way I can see what vitals I actually hit and make note for the next time I have a similar distance and shot angle. Don't laugh but, I also open and dump the stomach to see what the deer has been consuming.... helps me decide on my next hunting spot.
Every deer that comes past your stand may not be a shooter- doe or buck- but each encounter provides real life experience on deer behavior.... some of my best deer lessons have been to just leave my bow hanging when deer enter and just observe.
Unless it is a heart shot and just pouring blood, Use toilet paper to mark blood trails... don't walk on top of the blood trail...don't give up on wounded animal, it's your-responsibility to put in the effort to find it if it is down.
If you want to raise good ethical hunters be the example.
You owe it to the animal to be the best hunter you can possibly be... practice, practice, practice and learn from every shot. ( When I clean my deer I actually dissect each one. This way I can see what vitals I actually hit and make note for the next time I have a similar distance and shot angle. Don't laugh but, I also open and dump the stomach to see what the deer has been consuming.... helps me decide on my next hunting spot.
Every deer that comes past your stand may not be a shooter- doe or buck- but each encounter provides real life experience on deer behavior.... some of my best deer lessons have been to just leave my bow hanging when deer enter and just observe.
Unless it is a heart shot and just pouring blood, Use toilet paper to mark blood trails... don't walk on top of the blood trail...don't give up on wounded animal, it's your-responsibility to put in the effort to find it if it is down.
Every deer that comes by me is a shooter. Sometimes the rules say I have to let them pass though.
When I hunt the wmas with dedicated gut piles I stop to look also.....match the hatch
I totally understand, but this idea of not reaching for the bow every time I see a deer has been the best thing I have incorporated into my bow hunting over the past few years.
Knock on wood... I don't have target panic anymore and my best and first P&Y buck taken last year, my heart rate and breathing didn't change until I hung the bow back up after the shot. I failed to mention that I sometimes pick my bow up to simulate a shot on a deer in my range and to practice my movements in the saddle. My hypothesis, is mind doesn't really know if it is a practice draw or the real thing and therefore doesn't go crazy causing me target panic... hopefully, I didn't just jinx myself
JAYBO
Well-Known Member
10% of hunters kill 90% of mature bucks and 90% of good bucks live in 10% of the deer woods.
This is 100% true. Took us a lot of years to learn. We found a spot we call "two shot" and it was a dream spot for killing a deer. it was a perfect funnel between open prairie and a bluff. But they were all does and 1-1/2 year old bucks, which was perfectly fine with us at the time. My brother and I spent a few years racing another group to be the first ones there. One year I didn't come up to deer camp the night before the opener so I could drive up early - they wouldn't know I was hunting and sleep in too late. Eventually we just let them hunt it and we found other places to go.
