Best Deer Hunting Tips
Todd Pringnitz – White Knuckle Productions
1. Get off the field edges, and into the timber. Most hunters hunt field edges/ food plots because they can see a long distance, and have an easier job of trimming stands. Get into the timber, downwind of where you would normally hunt. This will give you a much better chance of seeing a mature buck during daylight. Big bucks don’t get big by walking around in the open during daylight very often.
2. If you do a-lot of calling; AKA, rattling antlers, can calls, grunts, and wheezes; STOP! Big mature deer won’t usually come into aggressive calling because if they did – they wouldn’t have survived to become mature. Instead, try (1) grunt every 20/30 minutes. When it comes to calling, less is more.
3. Never be hesitant to move in on areas you see a-lot of deer activity. I run and gun with a Lone Wolf hang on and sticks, and it has been the demise of more big bucks than any other tactic I use. By sneaking into an area, setting up, and hunting right on the spot – you can have the element of surprise! It works, try it!
Scott Haugen – ScottHaugen
1. Scout Now! Start your scouting missions between July 4-10. Over the course of the next 6 weeks you’ll be amazed at how many bulls and bucks you actually see. When in velvet, these animals hang out in the open, as they don’t want to damage their racks. It’s common to see more bucks in a day of summer scouting than you’ll see the entire season.
2. Run Trail Cameras: The best way to cover ground when you’re not there is with trail cameras. Start them now and keep them up all season long, it’s humbling what you’ll learn from them!
3. Be Prepared: Be mentally and physically ready to hunt. 80% of hunters are overweight, which greatly cuts down on where they can actually hunt out West, where the country is big and rugged. Start working out now. Get a good cardio and core workout routine, and eat a good diet, and you’ll increase the odds of filling a tag.
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Leon Pantenburg – Survival Common Sense
1. Know how to use topo maps: A topographical map gives a picture of an area, and using one is one of the best ways to get to know an area. Pay attention to streams and wetlands areas. In general, the best place to find a trophy buck is the last place you’d want to pack it out!
2. Scouting: Do pre-season scouting to locate productive hunting areas. Know what deer sign looks like, and locate natural funnels and trails. Get an idea of where the wind might come from at different times of the day. Find watering locations and where the animals feed, and when. If you’re hunting public land, figure out where the deer might go if they’re pressured by other hunters.
3. Gear up: You spend a lot of time and money hunting – so don’t scrimp on your gear. Get appropriate clothing, boots and rain gear. There is no such thing as bad weather – just inappropriate dressing.
Get a good, usable hunting knife – it may be your only tool when that buck is down. Avoid gimmicky field dressing tools. Have a plan for hauling out the animal, and don’t overestimate your physical conditioning.
Chance Vorderstrasse – Whitetail Instinct
1. Scouting
When it comes to deer hunting I believe there is nothing more valuable than pre-season scouting. Whether you are hunting a new property or an old favorite, scouting is equally important. On a new property the benefits are obvious. In order to know how the deer are moving throughout the new property you need to get boots on the ground. On an old property realize that things change and deer may be using the property differently than in years past. If you are targeting mature bucks the key is to find their preferred bedding. Once you have a good idea where the bucks are bedding, look for tree stand locations that allow you to sit just outside of the bedding area on the trails the buck is using to access food or during the rut, doe bedding areas. But, as you can see, you would never be able to find these areas without pre-season scouting.
2. Positive Mind Set
I believe we all get somewhat caught up in the trap of being super excited opening weekend and for the first few sits of the year. But, as the season progresses we start to let the thoughts of not filling a tag creep into our mind. When this happens we begin to slack off on our scent control, walk loudly to our stand and don’t pay attention when we do get to our stand. Deer hunting, like any other sport, is more mental than physical. When the season is a month old and these thoughts start to creep in, remember that it only takes one second to change your season, but that it will only happen if you stay in the moment. Trust in your preparation and hard work during the off-season and stay positive. In the end it will make all the difference whether you are successful or not.
3. Always Be Willing To Learn
Again, staying on the theme of hunting being more of a mental sport than a physical sport, it is important that you keep an open mine while sitting in the stand and realize that there is always something you can learn. Analyze every encounter you have with a deer. Where did they come from, what time was it, what was the wind doing, why are they moving. Eventually, you will be able to put all these small pieces together into a clearer picture of where a better stand location may be. A lot of the time the information gained by doing this is not easily seen on the surface with an aerial map or even boots on the ground scouting. This “inside information” can be extremely important for those who hunt public land. Let every morning or evening on the stand be a learning experience.
William Yancy – Ranew’s/The Firminator
1. Scent Control – Keeping down the human odor is number one for me. Scent free soaps, scent free laundry detergents and storage of hunting clothing away from daily household odors and campfires is a must. Deer have an exceptional sense of smell and can recognize a scent that is not part of their daily environment. Wind can be a friend or foe when it comes to odor. Try not to hunt feeding areas or heavily traveled deer trails when the wind is pushing your scent into them. Hunt where the wind is in your favor, pushing your scent away from them.
2. Be Undetectable – Don’t walk across open fields or down a path that the deer use to get to your stand or blind. Find a way to your stand where you can be the least detected and are not crossing areas that the deer use to move from bedding areas to food sources.
3. Plant food plots – Food plots help increase the capacity of how many deer you land can maintain and hold. Without adequate food the deer will only pass through. Plots offer nutrition for the deer when the natural browse is gone. Hunger will cause a deer to move from his home range. Plots will help keep deer on your property and draw some of your neighbors deer.
Drake – BassPro
The three main things I find most important when hunting is scent control, scouting, and not taking a shot you’re not completely sure of.
1. Scent control is important due to the fact if a deer can smell you, you will never get a chance to bag that trophy buck.
2. Scouting is another thing I do every season because If you’re going to go hunting you want to hunt in a area that has the game you are looking for. If you don’t scout it is a possibility you will be setting in a tree all day in a area with no deer.
3. As for not taking a shot you’re not sure of this is something everyone should know. You want to take a animal with a good clean ethical shot, not one that could just injure the animal. It makes you look like a better hunter by not injuring a animal on a shot you never should of took.
Anthony Dickson – Triggers & Bows
My tips have to do with minimizing what I refer to as your human signature. These are the things that provide for a deer’s seemingly mystic ability to bust us at the least opportune moment. They are comprised of the 3 S’s Scent, stealth and structure. This may seem rather basic but year after year ignoring them costs hunters opportunity’s.
1. Scent is simple, clean every part of yourself and equipment with a good quality odor eliminator. There are numerous products on the market today that will serve as a solution to this part of the equation. Hunting the wind is paramount. Exercise discipline and don’t hunt a particular stand until the wind is right for it.
2. The stealth component can be handled by staging a mock hunt in your back yard. Use all the equipment you will employ on a real hunt. Testing your equipment will effectively reveal any cracks, clicks, or metallic squeaks from your gear that could prove disastrous in the deer woods. This is also the time to listen to rustling or binding of clothing when drawing your bow or shouldering your firearm.
3. When I say structure, I am referring to your physical structure, i.e. camo and concealment. This in the most rudimentary of terms is the process of obscuring one’s outline. It’s not difficult to achieve but its important should not be understated.
Research shows white tails see quite well in the ultra violet spectrum but not so well in the infrared spectrum. Do not be concerned in your area you are required to wear blaze orange. Simply use good camouflage technics such as wearing camo patterns that blend well with your environment, ensure you have a good back drop and brush in foreground. Lastly sit still!
A phrase I use frequently when speaking at seminars is “paying attention to minute details will serve you well”.
Shane Smith – Jackie’s Deer Lures
1. Cover scent is the first and foremost important tip in being a successful hunter,you can only fool the whitetails nose for a limited time before your winded, and then your hunt is over.This is why I use Jackies Deer Lures cover scent. I prefer the “No Scent plus Earth Cover Scent” because whitetails are curious animals and fresh earth scent is natural to them.
2. Scouting is “Very Important”. Know your land, your habitat surroundings, where the deer feed, their bedding areas, along with their travel corridors. By putting all these together will give you an idea where to place your tree stand. Always hunt downwind from bedding areas.
3. Deer Lures and scents are another “Very Important Tip”. Whitetails identify each other by smell. By placing the smell of another whitetail in their area, this will allow any deer to smell your setup and come to investigate. I use Jackies ID #4 it contains interdigital gland and secretions from another deer which allows the deer to track one another.Whitetail bucks mark their territories with scrapes and rubs,I make mock scrapes using Jackies Mock Scrape Powder, Premium Buck Urine, and Hot Doe in Heat. These are the most commonly used Lures.
Cory Glauner – Outdoors International Hunting
Based on my experience, the best advice for deer hunting is do the research to find where the deer of the caliber you are targeting live or are moving through.
Once you find that general area, do the legwork to get off of the roads beyond the masses and find the particular spots that the deer frequent, when they spend time there and why. If it is a migration hunt, you will need to spend a season or even multiple seasons learning where the travel corridors off and where to set up to intercept.
Finding that great spot can often be a multiple year project. Once you have settled in on a location, try to impact it as little as possible. This can be done by glassing from a distance or just being smart about your entrance and exit from the are and playing the wind.
The last thing is to be persistent. If you’ve done a good job finding a spot, and haven’t impacted it too much, it’s just a matter of time and patience. Be there early, stay late and work hard. Success will come.
Jessica DeLorenzo – Delorenzo Photography/OnXmaps Hunt GPS
These are the most basic tips in my opinion and based on my experience whitetail hunting. You have to play the wind most importantly. It doesn’t matter what other factors are in your favor, if the deer catches your scent prior to getting into range, it’s over. You have to be patient. This applies to limiting your time checking trail cameras, disturbing your hunting spots, waiting for the perfect conditions to choose the stand you’re going to hunt, as well as waiting for the perfect shot to present itself. Lastly, be prepared. You need to have the right tools and the practice, practice, practice. A hunt rarely goes exactly as expected so being able to react in the moment is crucial.
John Eberhart – Eberhart’s Whitetail Workshop
1. Scent Control
The absolute #1 tip for bowhunters is to strive for a scent control regiment that eliminates the need to “hunt the wind”. For centuries hunters have taken animals that relied on their sense of smell by simply hunting downwind of where they expected opportunities. However it’s an undisputed fact that deer oftentimes travel unexpected routes that put them downwind and ruin the best of plans. I perfected a scent control regiment 17 years ago and have deer downwind of me on a regular basis and due to my total scent control regiment, never get winded.
Because odor is something we can’t see or touch, it’s easy for hunting companies to baffle us with false rhetoric and the downside is there are no federal agencies policing their legitimacy. Over my 50 plus years of experience in trying every new scent preventive product that came along, the only system I’ve ever used that worked to perfection was a properly cared for and properly stored Scent Lok jacket, pants, headcover with drop down facemask, and gloves used in conjunction with a clean pair of rubber or neoprene knee high boots and a frequently washed in scent free detergent pack.
Humans are constantly emitting body odor in the form of gaseous and liquid molecules and a properly cared for Scent Lok Carbon Alloy® lined complete covering system will adsorb 96 to 99% of those odor molecules keeping your human odor signature so minimal that scent detection will be a thing of the past. That odor adsorption fact has been proven in a United States District Court.
2. Scouting and location preparation
Most hunters scout and prepare locations during pre-season and mature bucks don’t have the thought process to differentiate between us scouting and hunting and simply react to the sudden influx of human activity by avoiding the area or most often, turning nocturnal. Over molestation of an area during pre-season can totally shut down all daytime activity by mature bucks outside their secure bedding zones, negating any chance of early season successes.
Since well over half of the Pope & Young entries are taken during the rut phases, most scouting and location preparation should be done during post-season while looking at sign left from the previous rut such as scrape areas, licking branches, rub-lines or clusters, converging runways, etc. Once finished, get out and stay out until you return during season with bow in hand.
During post-season you can scout as often and prepare as many trees as you want without fear of altering fall movement patterns. The surrounding area and trees during the rut phases will also look similar to what you are looking at, indicating how much concealment cover your set-ups will offer at crunch time.
3. Seasonal timing
Hunting rut phase locations prior to the rut phases is a huge mistake because your intrusions and presence will alter the doe traffic at the location during a time when mature bucks are primarily nocturnal. Then when mature buck testosterone levels rise to the point that they begin pursuing estrus does during daylight hours, the doe traffic you altered away from your location is what they will be pursuing.
In heavily pressured areas realistic chances at mature bucks early in the season and prior to the rut phases are extremely slim, but if you must hunt, have secondary locations where your entries, exits, and on-stand time will not affect general deer traffic at your rut phase hunting locations.
Since all buck traffic during the rut phases revolves around doe traffic, rut phase locations should be left totally alone until then, so the doe traffic at them is not altered.
Editor’s note: John Eberhart is an accomplished bowhunter that specializes in heavily hunted areas with 30 bucks listed in CBM’s record book from 19 different properties in 10 different counties and with 19 P&Y bucks taken on his 21 out-of-state hunts. John also co-authored the books; “Bowhunting Pressured Whitetails”, “Precision Bowhunting”, and “Bowhunting Whitetails The Eberhart Way”. They are available at:
Dean Vanier – NorthWood Common Scents
Pro Staff for Ten Point Cross Bows PSE Archery and KNIGHT Rifles
With over 35 years in the Deer woods, My best Tips for Deer Hunting are:
1. Do all your scouting in March and April. It gets you off the couch and in the woods early. At some point after the deer season, everything froze in time. When early spring arrives, everything appears as it did at the end of the rut. The shavings are still there under the rubs. The scrapes look like they were made yesterday. Guess what if that buck wasn’t shot that previous year he will be back and he will be bigger. Use this information to set up for the following year. Get your stands in and clear your shooting lanes. There are no bugs, you don’t sweat your tail off. Set up your trail cams and leave them until you can’t take it anymore. Come first day of bow season, That buck will have no idea he is being hunted. Huge advantage.
2. Since Deer behave differently during the 3 phases of the rut, don’t be afraid to hunt them differently. Remember that the rut is a gradual progression. Testosterone is slowly increasing in the bucks and Estrogen is increasing in the does. Understanding this will help you anticipate what the bucks are doing.
During the Pre Rut bucks make scrapes and wait on the does so scrape hunting can be very effective.
Peak Rut the bucks are chasing the does, so were the girls are the boys will be.
Post Rut, Bucks have lost 20% of their body weight and will need to refuel. They will be where there is food, southern exposure and does coming in to the secondary rut cycle.
When making mock scrapes, buck urine is your best deer lure early in the season. If 3 bucks are on 50 acres. Let say a 4 , 6 and 8 pointer. They typically are in bachelor groups They all know each other very well through sight and smell.
Introducing another buck into the mix is an absolutely deadly technique.
3. Lastly, Always save venison from the previous year as you may need it to go with your humble pie.
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