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Why do you not kill the deer you are after?

I was locked in on a good buck last year just down the road from me. It is a dead-end gravel road, so the traffic isn't too bad. I spotted him several times and figured out where he was crossing the road. I went down there and set up in the woods about 10 yards off of the road. The first evening I seen a doe as she walked by me. The second even, it was getting dark, and I sat there as long as I could and as I was getting ready to leave, I heard some familiar sounds of a deer walking my way. It was the buck I was after. He walked within 10 yards of me, but it had already gotten way too dark. I never got another chance after that.

There was this short window where the bucks were moving like crazy, and I saw several good bucks roaming around all hours of the day but as quick as the window opened, it closed.
 
Like most everyone. The real reason is lack of time and more important commitments. Trying to chase an animal that lives where ever it wants to 24/7 versus someone who has to play by a set of rules set forth by a governmental body. On top of that has to work a job, take care of family, and care for the permanent things in my life.
I wish I had more time chase and monitor the deer at the farm I hunt. But not worth the time and money. In the end it's just some minerals on the wall. So far my favorite deer taken have been the doe I shot with my daughter a few years back, and the one she shot last fall. The one she shot seems to be extra tasty every time I cook it.
So I guess the only real reason I didn't kill that deer I'm after is I missed. Cause I'm only after the one I see in front of me I want to shoot.
 
shamus275 said:
Because the family 40-acres I’ve hunted for the last 12yrs since leaving the military has A-holes on all three sides and across the street that illegally bait year round and have conditioned the deer to be nocturnal. The only thing I can do is hunt harder than them during the week and hope they don’t come north for weekend hunting. That’s usually the only way see/harvest a deer.

The family 40 is also transitory property that doesn’t hold deer, the bedding areas are on neighboring properties. I can get within 100yds and usually watch deer go to either property on either side of me.

And the last reason is that I choose to hunt with a longbow so I’m usually just outside my comfort range. Most of my harvesting comes from rifle season and late season muzzleloader when everyone else has called it quits.

There is a giant 14pt that I missed last year with a compound at 40yds after hitting a branch. He’s walking in front of my cams but the odds of seeing him prior to mid November are pretty slim if at all.
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Sounds like you need to MAKE some bedding!!
 
BackSpasm said:
Sounds like you need to MAKE some bedding!!
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I’ve done quite a bit of habitat work over the last few years. Hinge cutting, select cutting the hardwoods, food plots all in an effort to make the property thicker and to provide better food and cover. The deer were bedding just west of the property line and the neighbor went and clear cut the whole east side of his property and ruined that. We cut about 2 acres of red pine out this year around a water hole and it’s getting really thick around that now so hopefully that will start holding deer. It’s my uncles property and he just hunted it the way it was for 40yrs. It’s only been the last few years that he’s seeing the fruits of my labor on the habitat. Last season was the best year we’ve ever had for deer and the neighbors figured out all the bucks were hanging out on our property during daylight so immediately started baiting and that shutdown all the deer movement we had. I hate the neighbors…
 
shamus275 said:
I’ve done quite a bit of habitat work over the last few years. Hinge cutting, select cutting the hardwoods, food plots all in an effort to make the property thicker and to provide better food and cover. The deer were bedding just west of the property line and the neighbor went and clear cut the whole east side of his property and ruined that. We cut about 2 acres of red pine out this year around a water hole and it’s getting really thick around that now so hopefully that will start holding deer. It’s my uncles property and he just hunted it the way it was for 40yrs. It’s only been the last few years that he’s seeing the fruits of my labor on the habitat. Last season was the best year we’ve ever had for deer and the neighbors figured out all the bucks were hanging out on our property during daylight so immediately started baiting and that shutdown all the deer movement we had. I hate the neighbors…
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All that neighbor effort will backfire for them in the long run as long as you have better habitat and less pressure. Baiting will get deer over there but not in daylight if they are hunting hard. Keep the faith and keep improving
 
My answer to this question could be several different answers and, also would have to be have to answered several different ways because it depends on hunting pressure, food, and a ton of other things that could effect the outcome.
I hunt 100% public land and this would be my answer for going after a certain buck (Outside of the rut)
During the rut I would do some research on where he likes to look for does from week to week hopefully through trail camera or previous meetings with him during the rut.
My honest answer to the question would be I either screwed up several things
1 Timing, hunting him during the wrong time in a certain area I know he uses at a certain time of year
2 Over hunting the area therefore telling him that he is being hunted. after this he will ghost quickly.
3 A bad entry way to the spot I plan on ambushing him from which I rarely get to because I scout my way in and do not hunt a spot until I am absolutely certain that its worth a hunt. If that sign is not there I keep going until I do find it.
4 Hunting just like most people hunt, over bait, way too open areas, along wide open transitions ( Hard Transition), etc.
5 not really putting the time and effort in learning how and when the certain buck I am after uses that specific area at a specific time of year.
6 Just being a Lazy SLob lol especially durint hte late summer heat waves.
lol short and sweet excuses :tonguewink: :tonguewink: :tearsofjoy: :tearsofjoy: :tearsofjoy: :tearsofjoy:
 
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Bill Winke just had an article about individual buck personalities in the latest Peterson’s Bowhunting magazine. He showcased two Iowa Giants he followed for four years finally putting on tag on both of them in one year (2012). Both bucks were 7.5 years old. Both were nocturnal, The one larger deer he named Double G4 became less and less nocturnal as he got older and his home range shrunk considerably. He never had pictures of that buck beyond about a 30 acre area!! Typically that’s a core area size not a home range area size. Loppy, the other buck kept moving his core area 1/4 of a mile away ending up almost a mile away from his origins. Loppy however stayed nocturnal his entire life. I have witnessed first hand how viscous bucks can be to one another. Especially subordinate bucks to each other down the pecking order AND dominant bucks to other known subordinates. I have a theory that although bucks are attuned to hunting pressure… super sensitive to it in fact as we all know; however, They are also equally sensitive to collegial pressure from both dominants trying to keep their status and rank and also subordinates trying to raise their status within the herd. My point is that we assume bucks stay the same and exhibit the same personality characteristics throughout their life…. but they can change in a season depending also on their herd status and will either become more dominant, recoil more into submission or fluctuate between the two. It’s hard to know completely what’s going on throughout the season but pressure from you may not be the reason why our targets remain just that. So we shy off from hunting them assuming we pushed them off when perhaps we should be more aggressive or at least aware that we aren’t operating in a vacuum of deer behavior that remains constant but instead is constantly in a state of flux and chaos to some degree.
 
woodsdog2 said:
Bill Winke just had an article about individual buck personalities in the latest Peterson’s Bowhunting magazine. He showcased two Iowa Giants he followed for four years finally putting on tag on both of them in one year (2012). Both bucks were 7.5 years old. Both were nocturnal, The one larger deer he named Double G4 became less and less nocturnal as he got older and his home range shrunk considerably. He never had pictures of that buck beyond about a 30 acre area!! Typically that’s a core area size not a home range area size. Loppy, the other buck kept moving his core area 1/4 of a mile away ending up almost a mile away from his origins. Loppy however stayed nocturnal his entire life. I have witnessed first hand how viscous bucks can be to one another. Especially subordinate bucks to each other down the pecking order AND dominant bucks to other known subordinates. I have a theory that although bucks are attuned to hunting pressure… super sensitive to it in fact as we all know; however, They are also equally sensitive to collegial pressure from both dominants trying to keep their status and rank and also subordinates trying to raise their status within the herd. My point is that we assume bucks stay the same and exhibit the same personality characteristics throughout their life…. but they can change in a season depending also on their herd status and will either become more dominant, recoil more into submission or fluctuate between the two. It’s hard to know completely what’s going on throughout the season but pressure from you may not be the reason why our targets remain just that. So we shy off from hunting them assuming we pushed them off when perhaps we should be more aggressive or at least aware that we aren’t operating in a vacuum of deer behavior that remains constant but instead is constantly in a state of flux and chaos to some degree.
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That is something I have never considered before but it makes perfect sense.
 
woodsdog2 said:
Bill Winke just had an article about individual buck personalities in the latest Peterson’s Bowhunting magazine. He showcased two Iowa Giants he followed for four years finally putting on tag on both of them in one year (2012). Both bucks were 7.5 years old. Both were nocturnal, The one larger deer he named Double G4 became less and less nocturnal as he got older and his home range shrunk considerably. He never had pictures of that buck beyond about a 30 acre area!! Typically that’s a core area size not a home range area size. Loppy, the other buck kept moving his core area 1/4 of a mile away ending up almost a mile away from his origins. Loppy however stayed nocturnal his entire life. I have witnessed first hand how viscous bucks can be to one another. Especially subordinate bucks to each other down the pecking order AND dominant bucks to other known subordinates. I have a theory that although bucks are attuned to hunting pressure… super sensitive to it in fact as we all know; however, They are also equally sensitive to collegial pressure from both dominants trying to keep their status and rank and also subordinates trying to raise their status within the herd. My point is that we assume bucks stay the same and exhibit the same personality characteristics throughout their life…. but they can change in a season depending also on their herd status and will either become more dominant, recoil more into submission or fluctuate between the two. It’s hard to know completely what’s going on throughout the season but pressure from you may not be the reason why our targets remain just that. So we shy off from hunting them assuming we pushed them off when perhaps we should be more aggressive or at least aware that we aren’t operating in a vacuum of deer behavior that remains constant but instead is constantly in a state of flux and chaos to some degree.
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Great points, also I’ll add that some targets just aren’t on your property enough, like mentioned here that one of them kept shifting 1/4 mile. Or they don’t bed there so chances of seeing them daylighting on your land is extremely low, especially outside of rut

I have a buck that I couldn’t kill last year, and haven’t seen yet this year. Though I have access to a fairly large chunk right now, he was near a boarder. I had him on 2 cams, but only once in daylight (over a 4 day period) and that was during rut, prior to season opening(dammit weird FL rut). After that I’d get him on one community scrape near the boarder(between 1-4 am), I’m convinced he beds on the other side of the hard road on neighbor land. That’s the excuse I’m using for not killing him at least, lol


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1 thing that I do that I know has cost me multiple opportunities is I will stop to look at the map/get a drink/listen/etc and I won't think about it and stand there in the wide open. This last season I was walking down toward a creek to see what it looked like and if I could easily get across it late gun season early in the afternoon. I was elevated up on a small hill walking down toward the bottom and I can see the creek is more than I want to tangle with as far as getting across it.....so Im standing there looking at the map and I catch movement and hear something pretty dang close...I look up and a pretty nice buck is walking on the other side of the creek 40yds away. Before I can even react he sees me standing there and bolts. All I had was a running rump shot by the time I got the gun up. He stopped less than 100yds to look back but I had no shot. Dang it

Less than 10 feet from where I'm standing was a blown down tree I could have easily taken 5 or so more steps and stopped to look at the map behind that cover....probably would have been able to kill that buck or at least had a better chance vs stopping out in the open like a dummies.

It's gonna be a hard habit to break...but there's been too many times a deer or pig has just walked in outta nowhere while I'm standing there all exposed and I don't get any opportunity to take a shot
 
Weldabeast said:
1 thing that I do that I know has cost me multiple opportunities is I will stop to look at the map/get a drink/listen/etc and I won't think about it and stand there in the wide open. This last season I was walking down toward a creek to see what it looked like and if I could easily get across it late gun season early in the afternoon. I was elevated up on a small hill walking down toward the bottom and I can see the creek is more than I want to tangle with as far as getting across it.....so Im standing there looking at the map and I catch movement and hear something pretty dang close...I look up and a pretty nice buck is walking on the other side of the creek 40yds away. Before I can even react he sees me standing there and bolts. All I had was a running rump shot by the time I got the gun up. He stopped less than 100yds to look back but I had no shot. Dang it

Less than 10 feet from where I'm standing was a blown down tree I could have easily taken 5 or so more steps and stopped to look at the map behind that cover....probably would have been able to kill that buck or at least had a better chance vs stopping out in the open like a dummies.

It's gonna be a hard habit to break...but there's been too many times a deer or pig has just walked in outta nowhere while I'm standing there all exposed and I don't get any opportunity to take a shot
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Great point and one that I learned first skwerl hunting when I was a kid. Dad told me when I am slipping through the woods to always stop next to a tree to use for a rest in case a skwerl moves close enough to shoot. I try to always do that skwerl and turkey hunting but dont always do it deer hunting. Really good reminder that if you need to stop or pause do it next to cover.
 
Limited time with a family with 5 kids. Hunting public land, I am a meat hunter # 1. If I got the tag and it comes in range its going down. Maybe if I had all the free time or private land to hunt it would be different and id hold out for bigger bucks. But passing on deer doesnt put meat on my table.
 
Deer don't follow the script. And fast decisions require experience to be correct. 1st chance last year, I thought it was a deer i did not want to shoot and it was kind of far. 10 second window closed... 2nd chance, deer came from neighbors, in under me 2 yards from the tree, got a wiff and looked up at me. Bounded off straight away and got behind some trees, I didn't take the spine shot thinking i would get another and didn't. 10 second window closed. 3rd chance, he bedded at 37 yards facing me. After 45 minutes of an uncomfortable position, I decided to slowly move..not slow enough. He knew something was wrong, stood up and walked off. 4th chance deer did not stop after repeated bleats. When he did, I shot under him. Should have re-ranged and didn't. In each of these cases, I did not have enough experience under my belt to execute it perfectly. Playing this game for 7 years now.
1st year shoot everything mentality, shot 7, harvested 5. Few small buck sightings.
2nd year, shot 2, harvested 2. Saw a couple of medium bucks and several small.
3rd year shot 1 harvested 1. Saw a big one or two far away. Started passing on deer.
4th year Got over excited and shot over 2 medium bucks. Harvested 1 medium buck. passed all others.
5th year passed all but 1 medium buck, Harvested him. Saw a few big ones out of range.
6th year passed everything. Nearly had chance at mature bucks 3 time but never quite right.
7th year shot 1 medium buck, botched 4 opportunities, passed all other.
I will have opportunities on deer nearly every hunt. But the big boys are a different beast.
I had some confidence in the opportunities last year, this year should be even better.
 
WISCO said:
Limited time with a family with 5 kids. Hunting public land, I am a meat hunter # 1. If I got the tag and it comes in range its going down. Maybe if I had all the free time or private land to hunt it would be different and id hold out for bigger bucks. But passing on deer doesnt put meat on my table.
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That’s creepily my exact situation and thinking lol
 
BTaylor said:
Great point and one that I learned first skwerl hunting when I was a kid. Dad told me when I am slipping through the woods to always stop next to a tree to use for a rest in case a skwerl moves close enough to shoot. I try to always do that skwerl and turkey hunting but dont always do it deer hunting. Really good reminder that if you need to stop or pause do it next to cover.
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Yes, hunt like you’re being hunted.
 
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