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Who changes tactics/style from Archery to Gun Season? How?

kyler1945

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Dec 4, 2016
Messages
6,877
Location
Willis, TX
I've seen quite a few posts regarding the rudeness, illiteracy, indecency, criminality, and general poor hunting skills of gun hunters. Obviously none of these people frequent this site, it's just "everyone else" out there!

It got me thinking - I've hunted pressured public land for 20 years or so. I've hunted in seven different states. The majority of my time is spent bowhunting because the majority of the season availability is archery, and I also like to do it slightly more than gun hunting. However, I still really like to gun hunt. I have NEVER done ANY of the things folks have reported happening to them by these no good outlaw redneck swine. But as I look back on all those seasons, with me continuing to hunt right through gun seasons at the same frequency, I have NEVER encountered ANY of the behavior folks have reported either.

So, If I'm not doing it, and You're definitely not doing it, someone has to be acting like a chump out there. I guess I am fortunate for my lack of issues with folks. But I also think my behavior, and hunting style could have something to do with it too. I am generally not running into people in the woods. I prioritize sections of property that don't get foot traffic because, well, that's what deer prioritize too. Thickets, CRP, Swamps, Water crossing of any kind, steep terrain, you name it. If it's not walking upright a few hundred yards on flat quiet comfortable ground, most folks aren't interested. I hunt this way in bow season, and I hunt this way in gun season. Sure, the deer move around from pressure, but there's places they usually go that people usually don't. That's where you'll find me from first to last day of season.

I also am allergic to hunting near other people - I spend as much time patterning them as I do the critters. I actively avoid areas I know people will be in.

It makes me wonder if the spots folks are hunting during their holy archery season are easy, obvious, open spots to hunt. And when rifle season rolls around, they're disappointed that a tenfold increase in humans in the woods, has led to "someone being in my spot!".

So, do you hunt in different locations during archery and rifle seasons? Ignore the obvious that deer behavior and food sources change and you change with them regardless of season. I'm talking about specifically changing your tactics or behavior with more "less morally acceptables" in the woods.

I want to get to the bottom of why there's so many accounts of the crazies...
 
I hunt 80% the same. But with rifle season comes the rut down here, and that 20% change is important.

I hunt a lot with a rifle where I aim to have deer at about 30 yards because that's how thick the cover is. But, I love to be able to cover either a:

  • clearcut. Preferably the part of a clearcut with a wet bottom or saddle or hardwood draw or something
  • long stretch of row pines
  • straight piece of road that goes through some really thick stuff (generally only on private land)
  • a marsh
  • the side of a ridge
These areas are magnets for cruising buck traffic. I will take advantage of a rifle's range and the increased deer movement in a heartbeat. Other than that, the song remains the same. High deer density, low hunter pressure, security cover and funnels.

I do usually save my lease for the rut and rifle season, because I have optimized one specific location for all day rut stakeouts and covering as much of a natural flow area as possible.

Also, dirty confession, rifles are way sexier than bows. I love carrying and shouldering a gun. I hate carrying and drawing a bow. It's not the same. And the smell of gunpowder and the sight of rifle smoke drifting on a bitterly cold and bluebird day is almost orgasmic.
 
I haven't gun hunted in 2 years, but I sit in my general area and wish it was legal to rifle or shotgun hunt in my local state parks.

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It makes me wonder if the spots folks are hunting during their holy archery season are easy, obvious, open spots to hunt. And when rifle season rolls around, they're disappointed that a tenfold increase in humans in the woods, has led to "someone being in my spot!".
.

This probably describes me pretty well. In my defense, my obvious, easy archery spots produce annual deer sightings and kill opportunities. I hesitate to leave them just because they are easy or obvious, so long as other hunters don't show up. Sometimes they do, but not like what happens when the orange goes on.

Defense #2: For gun season I try to change things up by driving farther, finding more remote locations, seeking steep terrain, etc. Problem is I find hunters there also. They're frickin everywhere on weekends in gun season in my state! I don't begrudge 'em, and I don't think I'm elitist, I just want a little patch of land to hunt to myself. I'm not super worried about safety and I've never had some of the bizarre encounters mentioned by others. I just don't want to disturb others hunts nor have mine disturbed.
 
Given busy work schedules between me and my son, we hunt opening day of michigan firearms season and then pretty much stop hunting for the year. If there is standing corn on the farm, we might go again, but it will be in a box blind. There really isnt a break for the deer like there used to be. When the firearm season is over, theres muzzle loading. Then theres late antlerless. Pretty much constant pressure till the end of the year. 2 things I dont like, being cold and not seeing deer.
 
When I hunt public, if there is a truck in a parking area I keep going. I also am in my spot at least an hour before legal hunting light. One wma I have hunted there are only 5 parking areas and long straight gravel walk ways. When I go there I am usually in the parking lot around 4 am (legal light is usually 7ish) and start walking. Problem around me is hunt clubs take over WMAs and run dogs. The WMAs turn I to war zones shooting anything brown.
My biggest tactic change, archery season anything inside 30 yards, rifle season anything inside 300 yards, right conditions anything inside 400 yards.
I too am allergic to people!
 
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I follow the same style as ole @Nutterbuster...

Save private spots for rifle

Go in crazy early and stay all day to catch movement after people leave other properties. Also it’s the rut.

Bump and dump and wind bumping with 2 or 3 people...full on deer drives seem dangerous and unethical

Transitions wether topo changes or stem count

When public back corner bedding,near highly pressured private and dating the fat chick
 
Well since this will be my first year rifle hunting, my tactic come saturday is pull up to the EF wilderness and just start walking. I havent hunted wilderness with bow due to not wanting to carry so much gear over a mile. I just gotta get away from people on OHV’s. Im gonna hike a few miles in and set up on a bluff over a creek and just watch. I think this will feel freeing from being stuck in a tree bored to tears with a back ache from sitting in a saddle for more than 3 hours.


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I had one really bad day probably 15 years ago. I had been playing cat and mouse with a. I’ve for a couple weekends. He was bedding in a cypress bottom and that was back when it was against some kind of rule to go busting into a bedding area. I moved to the other side of the bottom over an overgrown firebreak in a spot that allowed me to watch a wildlife opening(my states harrow and see what comes up wild idea of a food plot) and I could the road including my truck that was parked about a hundred yards past the opening. Well before daylight someone drops someone off at the opening. They cross the opening and make their way to a climbing stand about 50 yards from me. They finally see my light but sit in the stand anyway but don’t climb. Just as it got grey light I hear a guy yell “Cory No”. I’ll always remember that. About that time I hear wood ducks and Cory is blasting away as I just tried to get smaller behind the tree trunk. I didn’t say a word as Cory was getting a tongue lashing all the way through the swamp and out the other side. I felt bad for the kid despite him shooting amongst the tree I was in. His Dad had to see me climbing the tree to know I was there and should have let me know they were there. So it’s light enough at this point to see that it’s a middle aged woman in the climber. She apparently felt bad for Corey and walks out toward the road. As she approached the road a truck pulled up. It wasn’t the suv that dropped her off but I knew the truck I had seen it a bunch and always thought he was courteous because he slowed way down when he approached any area I was hunting. She must have been telling him about me being there because she was pointing in my direction and then toward her climber. Well she decides to walk into the woods across the road and the pickup eased on. Then it gets by my truck and stops. Guy gets out lays across my hood with his rifle and sends a shot down range. I was more than a little ticked. Then little while later someone started climbing a pine about 80 yards behind me on the other edge of the bottom. All that before 9:30 in the a.m. That was the day I decided to find a lease or club to hunt.

Me personally I try to avoid confrontation with armed individuals who are experts in their craft. I avoid people in the woods. I guess the rudest thing I will do is walk be someone in their stand. My states public is full of logging roads. Many of these are closed to vehicle access. If you set up on top of one I will gladly smile, wave, and walk by you like your just sitting on a park bench enjoying the view. I feel like I’ll spook more busting brush walking around you than just easing up the road. I also feel like if you don’t want me walking by you you shouldn’t setup on the road.
 
So, do you hunt in different locations during archery and rifle seasons? Ignore the obvious that deer behavior and food sources change and you change with them regardless of season. I'm talking about specifically changing your tactics or behavior with more "less morally acceptables" in the woods.
Been going in the woods trying to fill our freezer for 7 years now. There first 6 were spent on 4 acre parcel that backed to 220 acres. An occasional deer would come through there and I'd sack em. Never ventured out anywhere else cause the stories of folks shooting at shadows and movement on WMAs around here are rampant. Hearing each one was enough to keep me sitting tight on those 4 acres I had access to. Used the same tactic every day no matter the weapon in my hand... sit and wait.

However, last year we bought a place on 16 acres. We moved in in SEP and I hosed the entire season trying to figure out our new land. This year my strategy changed a bit though. Went with a buddy to a WMA during the beginning of archery and had a blast just walking around. It was the first time I've ever set foot on public. Since that trip, I decided to stay out of our woods and go to public until the opener of gun. I figured it would be easier to avoid arrows than bullets.
 
I have hunted from a tree saddle during shotgun but this past shotgun season I wasn’t seeing any daytime movement, just deer on the cameras. I decided to take advantage of the fact I can shoot through light brush etc and go back into the swamp. This was a great decision because I now have a much better idea where the deer bed, their travel routes and so on. Plus it I had bumped a buck I might have been able to take him with my shotgun, not something I’d likely be able to do with my bow.

I also have taken up cross wind spots 80-100 yards from where I expect deer to pass when using my rifled barrel shotgun. To hunt the same spots with my bow would be near impossible.


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I live in a rural area close to a couple of big urban areas with our public lands fairly small and rifle season seeing the most pressure. During the 9 day rifle season, I usually hang it up on public or make damn sure I know where the other guy is hunting. After the first weekend, it's pretty probable someone has walked the public ground you're trying to hunt which can be good opening day for kicking deer up but maybe not so good on subsequent days. Mid-week on public can be productive in some pretty unorthodox areas. One unorthodox area I've ran into that has good numbers of deer and sign is the area between the road and parking lot where applicable. I used to park in the lot and walk deeper into the area rather than walk back out towards the road I came in on (which I think a lot of us do). It's quiet walking back on the road you came in on and if you hear a vehicle coming in it's easy to dip off in a bush or behind a tree so you don't give away your spot. Maybe give it a shot the next time you're out, I was surprised the amount of sign I saw and the amount of deer the couple times I've hunted these areas this year.
 
we mostly hunt here over bait, so when gun season is open, I tend to move away from the bait and go high, as high as possible and 50 yards off if
conditions permit.

a few other spots you get the feel after 2-3 yrs of hunting it , where the deer move when there is a lot of pressure, most years it is the same deal
so I position stands along those travel corridors the deer run when getting pushed.

mid day between 11am and 2pm are prime time, when everyone breaks for lunch.
 
Another thing on gun season. I dont like walking in early. Some of the spots I hunt on private, bumped deer that had I of waited a few minutes for shooting time I could of had a really short day.
 
When bow season starts in michigan the first couple of weeks I usually hunt spots that are easy access. As the weeks go on and the deer start getting pressured and pre rut kicks off I start shifting to a mix of hunting deer and people sign. The first 2 days of gun opener is spent in ole faithful tree, a good hour and half before shooting light,the first day is usually all day sit. After the first 2 days of gun I don't bother getting up for the morning hunts. I leave camp around 8:30 and drive around to see where people are at then pick a spot and go in looking for the fresh sign where the deer have been pushed to and might still move around during daylight. I might sit ole faithful one other time during regular gun season and that's Thanksgiving morning because people tend to come to do deer drives in the morning. I hunt some of the most heavily pressured public land in michigan and usually fill 5 or 6 tags including both bucks tags most years since switching to these tactics years ago. The bucks ain't pope and young but any time you can fill a tag on a pressured deer on heavily pressured land is a trophy to me.
 
I have to change tactics throughout the season because of many factors, not just gun hunting pressure. Early season feeding patterns, then red oak, white oaks, rut travel, gun hunting pressure, late season food, more red oaks, possible 2nd wave of chasing, less pressure in some areas as season comes to a close.

Throughout the season, most of my tactics focus on bedding, food, and avoiding high hunter pressure.


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Archery season is solo. Firearms season is predominantly with family - group tactics like deer drives come into play. it's also more realistic to walk up on deer and shoot them, and not really setting up for sub-30 shots.
 
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