1. Understand how the deer (or other big game animals) use the land. Use trail cams and observation stands to study movement and patterns.
2. If you own the land or your lease allows improvements, make a plan and improve whatever you are lacking. Food, different cover types, predator control, and water are all things that can be added or improved if they are lacking. Improving hunting property is satisfying all on its own and leads to better hunting.
3. Constantly improve your knowledge of techniques. My “area of study” this year is fake scrapes, but that’s just one example of the many areas where we can improve our knowledge and add to our bag of tricks.
4. Be mobile. Fixed shoot houses are increasingly popular, but especially for bow hunting, it helps to be able to quickly alter stand locations to take advantage of current movement patterns and to position stands for different wind directions.
5. Hunt control, not scent control. The best scent control is a wind blowing toward where the deer ain’t. See tips 1 and 4 for more.
6. Don’t underestimate the power of food. I strongly suspect the vast majority of deer are shot while making their way to or from food. Even in “farm country”, good food gets scarce as the fall progresses. Deer will always find the highest protein currently available. Grow more and better plots if you can, but also learn and hunt the travel routes to/from the current “best available” food sources.
7. Learn to use your optics to see through brush and timber. This takes time and concentration. A steady rest or tripod greatly improves results. Don’t discount the usefulness of a spotting scope even for “big woods” hunting.
8. If you aren’t practicing year-around and from realistic field positions with your weapon of choice, you’re not as good of a shot as you could be. Nothing ruins a good hunt like missing. Firearms hunters especially need to stop impressing themselves with benchrest groups and get realistic with shooting from standing, prone, sitting, and shooting stick positions. The vast majority of rifle hunters can barely shoot pie plate groups when challenged with shooting from a real field position. Don’t be that guy.
9. Don’t discount hunting when everyone else has packed it in. Early, late, bad weather, etc.
10. Hunt YOUR trophies. The hunting media is infected and obsessed with “hosts” shooting large animals in prime areas and making it look easy. We can’t all hunt elk in New Mexico or whitetails on a private farm in Illinois and we don’t all have guides who call us in only after the animals have been scouted, patterned, and all the pieces are in place.
My trophy is the deer that I watched grow up on my own property and that I hunted with my own knowledge. Hunt your own trophy, your own way.
