Buckmasters Magazine

Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy.

We deer hunters sometimes get set in our ways. Year in and year out, we hunt the same areas, put our stands in the same trees, hunt the same times of day during the same periods of the season. We use the same gear and the same tactics. Often, we do this with good reason. It works, and we fill tags. But there are times when we stick to the same routines when we shouldn’t.

When we sense something is wrong, we refuse to change tactics, even when we see the old way isn’t working. We believe if we put in the time, things will turn back to the good old days.

But what’s the saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? A successful hunter isn’t afraid to change his ways.

There’s a piece of property in southeast Pennsylvania where I’ve had permission to hunt for about 12 years. It’s a large chunk of woods — about 500 acres — for the area. Several others have permission to hunt the same tract, and it took me 3 years to find a place with deer sign that didn’t already have multiple treestands.

The area I finally picked is a long flat along a creek that’s bordered on one side by a highway, and the other by posted ground. There’s no place nearby to park, and the edges are thick as the hair on a Saint Bernard in winter. It’s a pain to get to. No wonder no one hunted there.

Once I found the area, I had to figure out how to hunt it. It took me two seasons to find a route to my treestand that didn’t take me right through a core bedding area. Those first two seasons, I constantly pushed out deer on my walks in, regardless of the time of day.

My stand site was along the creek in an open section of timber between two thickets. The route I ultimately chose was in the creek. By picking my way carefully, I could stay in ankle deep water for the 300 yards and bypass the bedding area. When rain swelled the creek to the tops of its banks, I didn’t hunt.

It was the perfect setup, and the first season I had my whole plan in place, I arrowed a dandy 10-pointer as he chased a doe one chilly November morning. The fact that the plan worked was equally as satisfying as the buck itself.

The next season, I returned in late summer to hang my stand in the same tree. Imagine my chagrin when I saw a ladder stand already in position 30 yards away.

I never saw a soul in that area the previous three years, and now there’s a stand 30 yards from my spot?

I later learned another hunter saw me hauling my buck out of the woods the day I shot it. He told me he followed the tracks of my game cart back to my stand location and decided that was a good place to hunt.

I was flabbergasted that another hunter would do that, and also that he would tell me he did it. There was nothing I could do. He had as much right to be there as I did. While I worked to find my own spot away from others, he used me (and probably others) to locate a productive location.

I knew there was no way the other hunter would take the care I did and sneak in via the creek. I knew he was going to bust straight through the bedding areas — just like I did my first two seasons — which meant he’d be blowing out the deer we both hoped to hunt.

Knowing all that, I stubbornly hung my stand in the same tree. I wouldn’t give it up. I did that two more years without even seeing a decent buck. It was difficult, but I finally came to my senses and moved on.

It has occurred to me since then that successful hunters know what conditions they need in order to fill tags. So why are we so resistant to change when those conditions are lacking?

I will never forget the back-to-back years when gypsy moths devastated a mountain ridge near my home. They killed nearly every oak tree in the forest. The acorns dropped by those oaks had been the reason the ridge held so many deer.

For two years, I listened to friends talk about the poor hunting on that ridge. I asked several, “Why don’t you hunt somewhere else?”

The response was always the same: “That’s where I hunt.”

I understand the tradition thing. If you have to go to a certain spot to honor a long-standing tradition, that’s fine. But recognize you’re hunting there for tradition and success is secondary.

If success is your primary goal, then “adapt and overcome,” as the United States Marine Corps says. Knute Rockne often charged, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Stubbornness in the face of failure wouldn’t fly in either camp.

Recognizing that you are being stubborn is the first step toward moving past it. If you’re having trouble getting close to deer, sit down and evaluate what you’re doing and what’s going on around you.

Has anything changed? Change can be big or it can be subtle. If the mature timber stand you hunted one year is clear-cut before the next, that’s a big change that’s easy to notice. A weak acorn crop in your favorite oak stand following three years of good mast production might not immediately grab your attention. You can bet deer will respond accordingly.

A friend in Illinois is a master at staying flexible. Nothing is sacred, and everything is subject to change. All he pays attention to are what the deer and his scouting tell him. There’s a long strip of big timber, more than a mile long, that he hunts every year. But where he hunts on that property from one year to the next depends on the deer.

He’s got trail cameras all through the timber, and he checks them regularly. In years of great mast, he’s likely to stick to the west end where all the oaks are located. When the mast is weak, his cameras are likely to tell him the best activity is around the dense thicket at the east end. When bucks are hard into the cruising phase, he’ll shift to the middle when regular photos of bucks walking the creek during daylight hours show up on his trail cameras. All of that is subject to change based on scouting.

One year I hunted that woods with him, I wanted to go to a tree that’s toward the middle of the property where bucks like to cruise. I’d seen lots of bucks there in the past. My buddy told me all the activity just prior to my arrival had been around a thicket in the south-east corner. I stubbornly sat in my stand for two days and got no shots. When I moved to where he suggested, I tagged a tall 8-pointer.

Neighbors can have a big impact on what happens on your hunting property. Maybe the previous neighbors were elderly and never set foot in their woods, but the new owners like to ride dirt bikes all day, every day. That’s a big difference that could cause big problems for deer hunting.

Analyze everything about the property to figure out what’s not working. That might include giving up property and finding a new place to hunt. Depending on where you live, that can be very hard to do — it certainly is where I live. Public land is scarce and overhunted, and it’s very difficult to get access to private property. Hunters around me are very protective of any private-land access they can acquire. But is hunting a bad spot a productive use of your time?

One of the most painful days of my hunting life was when I learned a change of ownership meant my two buddies and I could no longer hunt a property we’d been hunting together for 20 years. That change forced me to do something I should have done years earlier. The property was pretty poor for deer hunting. It was good once, but it soured after more hunters gained permission to be there. Plus, the local allocation of doe tags exploded, which caused a sharp reduction in deer numbers. The last straw was when the landowner converted all the cropland into mowed grass fields.

The deer hunting was awful there the last five years, but my buddies and I kept going back because it was a place to hunt. We complained constantly about the poor hunting, but it took getting the boot to make us find something else. We’re better off now.

This all might sound pretty basic, but it’s amazing how we rationalize reasons to stick with a bad hunting spot. Think about your own hunting tendencies. Do you hunt locations that used to be productive, but now aren’t?

Our stubborn nature often applies to equipment, too. Most of us don’t have an extra $1,000 sitting around to buy new gear every year, so we use what fits our budget. Often times, hunters avoid making upgrades because they’re afraid of new technology, or of change.

Laser rangefinders didn’t exist 30 years ago. They do now, and they erase a lot of doubt about shot distance. Don’t be stubborn. Improve your gear as you can afford it.

How many times have you heard old-timers say things like, “Trail cameras? We never used them in the ’80s, and we shot deer.” It’s true; no one needs trail cameras to tag a buck, but they sure help. Refusing to use them solely because you didn’t use them before they existed is stubbornness.

In 500 B.C., Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught us, “The only thing that is constant is change.” Nothing about your current deer hunting will remain as it is now. There will be change. Don’t be stubborn. Embrace it, and change your tactics and hunting behaviors to keep pace.

Read Recent Articles:

• Adrenaline Intervention: How to close the deal when a giant buck appears.

• What’s for Dinner? Proper field care and a few simple recipes can change the minds of venison haters.