Hunting Bucks the Way that Works: The Hard Way

A Crash Course for Hunting Big Bucks
By Ronnie Hemsworth
 

To consistently harvest mature bucks on public land or private land, for that matter, you must hunt smarter and harder than all the other hunters out there while outsmarting the wary old bucks as well.

Preseason:

Get maps and learn them.  Find the pinch points, food sources, water, and ridges. Get on the ground and walk it; know the land like the back of your hand. Learn the structure, cover, and topography; and find the trails, scrapes, rubs, and bedding areas. Go shed hunting in the winter and run trail cams in the summer and try to learn as much as you can about them. Exercise in the summer to stay in shape. Get your bow professionally tuned and set up to fit you. Make sure your guns are dialed in and check it periodically through the season. Hone your shooting skills from different positions and situations and with different obstacles (remembering to watch arrow flight and not line of sight) and distances. Run short sprints before shooting to simulate adrenaline. Get so you don't have to worry about the shot.

Once season starts:

Do not pick one spot and hunt it all season. Deer are too smart, and doing that not only gives yourself away to them, but it also gives yourself away to other hunters. Don't look for a perfect spot. If you do find one, deer won't be there and you can almost guarantee that other hunters will be. Go deeper to the spots where others won't venture. Get a blind and a mobile stand and pick 6+ spots. Never decide where to hunt until the day of—basing your decision off of deer movement and wind direction. Hunt high deer movement areas (hunt does to kill bucks), and use the old grunt tube to draw them in close, if need be. Keep changing it up so the deer can never pin point you. Hunt the places no one else does, because that's where the big boys go. Save your time to hunt on cold snaps and the few days after them. Hunt the rut! You’ll typically want to hunt the first two weeks of November the hardest.

In the stand:

Hunt as long as possible. You'd be surprised how many bucks move between 10-3 on cool days! Remember that deer heavily use the senses of sight, smell, and hearing, so control those factors as best you can.

Smell: Use scent killers and keep your outer layers in a bag full of leaves and never take them out. Wash your under layers in scent free detergent. Try to layer your clothing to prevent sweat. Hunt high spots staying away from holes and low spots where the wind will swirl. Hunt the wind! The use of scent drippers, cover scent, scent attractant, and hunting scrapes can be effective.

Sight: Hunt with cover both in front of you and behind you to break up your silhouette, and stay in the shadows, if possible. Use appropriate camo. Limit movement and wait for deer to look away or be blocked before drawing. Use a decoy (I've never done this but would like to).

Sound: Make sure your stand uses felt to eliminate sounds. Remove debris from ground when using a blind. Wear quiet clothes. Sit still. Use grunt tube to bring them in close. Make sure you have blind spots where the "grunting buck” (you) might be. If a buck comes in, he will be looking for a real deer. Rattling antlers can work, too, but sometimes being quiet is best.

During late season:

Stalk during the day and hunt food sources at dusk (my favorite way to hunt). Be stealthy. The deer will be herded up in bunches, and that's a lot of eyes, ears, and noses to outsmart!

Lastly, be patient! They say it takes an average bow hunter five years to kill his first deer. That’s because it takes about that long to learn the stuff listed in this article the hard way—by making mistakes. I beat the average, and it only took me three years. I just made five years’-worth of mistakes in those three years. :)  Hard work pays off!

 

Photos by: Eric Locker