Im gonna give ya’ll the secret to seeing and killing more deer. Once I tell you will say to yourself “Well, DUH, I knew that” and my response will be “The why don’t hunters use this technique?”
It is THE deadliest tatic ……. Rest assured, you do have to prepare, and I will share some preparation techniques with you also.
Too many times, we hunters blame our lack of success on the moon, the weather, pressure, dogs, lack of cover or food, or whatever … when the bottom line is … we failed to prepare for success.
Comprehensive Equipment Prep: How many times have you or one of your pals missed/wounded a deer and said “My scope must be off”? You MUST be passionate about preparing your equipment – overlooking a minute single detail WILL cost you sooner or later!!
Is there a squeek in your stand? Cant fix it while your hunting, but as soon as you climb down, you forget, or think “If I go back and fix it I will leave my scent all over the place and screw the area up”. Fix The Dern Thing!!!!
Does your clothes makes noise when you move? Do you have the correct clothing or proper amount of clothing to withstand the elements in comfort so you can stay on stand long enough or without squirming in discomfort?
KNOW, I mean KNOW KNOW KNOW your equipment inside and out!!!
Knowledge of Deer Behavior: The recent dog threads lead me to believe a large % of deer hunter do not REALLY know deer behavior. Let me give you an example: You get on stand, and 45 minutes after day light a dog (could be a REAL deer dog, or a loosed pet or even a feral dog) comes a barking and runs a doe and her 2 yearlings right under your stand – what do A LOT of hunters do?? They throw in the towel, get down and move to another are or go home PO’ed that a dog messed up a hunt …… never thinking “I have SO much confidence in MY hunting skills and stand placement, and I KNOW that there are more deer on MY land then JUST these 3 deer, I will stay my post, wait em out and bag MY deer”.
You MUST learn and UNDERSTANDING deer behavior. You MUST take the time to learn everything possible about what deer do, where and when they do it, and why!!
Food preferences, moon phases, pressure impacts, how the weather and seasons changing impact the deer, breeding cycles must all be studied and understood.
Knowledge of Hunting Area: There has to be more to stand placement then just “I found a good rub” or “I found a good crossing”. You must know WHY that rub is there, what made that buck be in THAT area??
It does no good for deer to be eating persimmons if you don’t know where persimmions are located on your hunt area. You MUST take the time to be INTIMATE with your hunt area – few hunters take the time to become intimate with each and every detail of the woods they hunt.
"Joe" killed a 210lb 19” 12pnter in hunt unit 30, and you JUMP at the first opportunity to hunt unit 30 … without ever setting foot on hunt unit 30 prior to your first hunt.
You MIGHT get a deer, you MIGHT see a deer – but, that would be blind luck – we are talking about using your skills and knowledge to make yourself consistently successful!!
Shooting Skill: Self explanatory!! It don’t and wont matter if you have a double .700 nitro mag capable of .0000001” 20 shot groups at 10000 yards and a UltraWhopper Super Duper 400 power scope that self aligns itself with laser technology and heat seeking bullets – IF you didn’t prepare and become intimate with your weapon and have the confidence in yourself and your weapon!!
Persistence: By the time December rolls around, deer have become wary and “gone nocturnal” and most hunter give up or stop hunting as hard or as long, managing to “trudge” out on the last few days to make themselves feel good. Between the cold wind and rains and few deer sightings, the deer woods are more vacant – why is that??
Lack of confidence? Lack of persistence? Both? Bottom line, you cant bag a deer if your not out in the woods. Stay out of the deer woods for whatever reason … let a dog make you leave early, wind blowing too hard, moon phase aint right for you, the wife or galfriend gave you chores to do … leave the woods, and you will not be successful.
Your success is not measured in what brand of mineral you put out, or what brand of seed or fertilizer, or that your stand is the latest and greatest in technology or that your gun or bow cost $3500.00 …. Your ability to see and kill deer is based solely on your ability to be prepared!!
Now for that techinique I was going to give you,
SIT STILL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It don’t matter if your on the ground, in a lock on or climber, or on a dog drive, or if your gun or bow hunting – sit still!!!! Even if you spot and stalk – spend more time being STILL then moving!! We say we go to the woods to relax and rest and enjoy – then why do we still hunt in such a hurry???
If you can master the art of sitting still you’ll see more deer!!
Confidence?? If you don’t have the confidence that you WILL see a deer, you will not be able to sit still very long!
Everyone is looking for that one super trick that turns them into a SUPER hunter. Folks, it don’t exist. One squirt of this or that, or a certain camo pattern or a specific brand of bow or gun will not spell success unless YOU do your job!!
You need to have SO much confidence in your deer knowledge that when you pick a stand out, you have the knowledge on when and how to hunt it so the FIRST time you use that stand you kill (if you want to). And then you need to have the knowledge to know how to continue to use that stand site to make and KEEP it productive (can anyone say “overuse” and “rotate”?, LOL) Don’t be scared to give a place a rest. Don’t be scared to do something different – like STAY in the stand and be quiet and still after a dog comes through. I am sure they will be times when no deer appear – BUT – if you done your homework and had the knowledge upfront when you placed that stand where you did, you would KNOW it would be just a mater of time before another deer or more deer came through to visit you!!
It is not ONE thing that determines your success – it is a combination of things, with YOU being the focal point!!
What sets people like Chuck Adams, Greg Miller, Hugh Gaskins apart from the rest of the crowd?
There is something to be said about time and exposure – take me; Greg Miller gets to hunt A LOT more then I do, and he is exposed to more chances and opportunities to hunt then I am …. But that does not mean he is “more successful”.
I went deer hunting a total of 13 times in 2004 –killed 7, shot 2 more that I did not recover, seen well over 100 deer, HIT every deer I shot at, passed up several bucks including 8 in 2 days, and done it all while being accompanied by 2 young children. Some of you may take this as braggin, or tootin my own horn, and I don’t mean it like that, not at all …. Just trying to give you an example and support/encouragment to keep on trying, don’t give up, try harder, go back to the basics and stop blaming some intangible something and learn and educate yourself to be a better hunter!
Even if you are a super hunter, you can give yourself the feeling or thought that you don’t measure up and loose confidence in your skills and ability.
Stay pumped up!! I don’t get to hunt much, but I have enough confidence in my skills and knowledge that I KNOW I am going to kill or see a deer on every outing!! And I almost do, LOL!! The first time I picked up my rifle and still hunted this past season, I killed a 100lb doe and seen 2 bucks, on one hunt, the first rifle hunt of the year.
Out of 5 hunts I killed 5 deer, 5 weekends in a row resulted in 5 dead deer.
I killed one deer this past year that I would guess 90% of the hunters in the woods would have never even seen – and the only tatic I used was “paying attention”.
Even on a dog hunt, I am amazed by the number of hunters that spend more time in their trucks then on their trucks – spend more time listening to the CB to see when the hunt is going to be over then watching and listening for deer.
The old saying goes “for every 1 deer you see, 10 deer see you that you never see”.
And I believe that!!
Stay focused – even if it is 18 degrees and you’ve been there for 3 hours and have 1 hour left and you aint seen hide nor hair of a deer – stay focused!!
If you prepared your equipment, used your knowledge of deer to place your stand to know where and why the deer will be there, used your intimate knowledge of your land to place your stand because you know where and why the deer will be there, you can make the shoot when the opportunity presents itself, you are persistent and you can sit still and quiet – you will see and kill deer!!
There, I gave you the secret to success! 
Good Dogs- $600.00 <br />Dog Box- $350.00 <br />Old Truck- $4,000.00 <br />Hearing a pack of hounds chase Mr. Whitetail in the SC swamps - PRICELESS!!!<br /><br />I came out here to enjoy nature, dont talk to me about the environment
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