Killing Big Bucks: Hindsight is 20/20

[bowhunter1023]

I've been listening to nothing but hunting podcasts to satisfy my desire to be pursuing a mature buck, and it got me thinking about things I know now that I wish I knew "back in the day". Today's podcast was Episode 962 of the Wired to Hunt Podcast. It is their weekly Rut Fresh Radio episode and one of the guests, Josh Profit from Kentucky, said something that I immediately recognized as something I wish I'd have heard and taken to heart 20 years ago.

"The afternoon is a deer's morning and the morning is a deer's afternoon."

I spent a good bit of time "chewing" on this and have settled on it being one of my favorite bits of wisdom that will certainly inform future strategies and decisions.

That train of thought led me this thread. When I look at the first half of my hunting career in comparison to the second half, I see how the mistakes I made early have led to great success in recent years. If I'm boiling that down to one tidbit of advice, it's that "less is more." Hunting less has led to success because I'm hunting smarter now. In the early days, I thought I could "earn" a buck but hunting 100-150 hours a year and it rarely correlated to success. But staying out of the woods until the conditions are right, has led to success.

So, the question is: What do you know now that you wish you knew much sooner if your hunting career?

 

["J"]

Makes sense, especially since I’ve moved down here and hunting Ohio. My time is limited and I learned to hunt the peak of the rut and stay away from my spots at all other times.
It’s paid off in sightings and harvesting better deer.

 

[giles]

I wish I learned earlier that hunting has very little to do with deer for me.

 

[at1010]

Spot on man!

If a deer wants to die and shows a high tendency - kill him where he wants to die, not where you want him to die.

Like you - I thought I could earn a buck by way over hunting.

Three - big deer come and go but mostly they are around each year. Worry less about a deer and more about the deer with friends and family.

 

[whitetailjunky3]

I’m still trying to learn not to get hung up on the deer I get pictures of and shoot the first buck that gets the blood pumping. If I would just follow this advice i would definitely have more bucks on the wall.

 

[Buckmaster]

Per your buddy Mountanier: “if you sit in your stand from daylight until darkness during gun week every day. You will get your Big Buck”.

 

[jagermeister]

One thing I wish I learned sooner in my hunting career would be to pay more attention to the smaller details. The mundane things. Like seemingly imperceptible habitat details that make a mature deer bed “here” and not “there,” travel through “this corridor” and not that one over there. Things that a younger me thought was simply random or happenstance. Things that seem arbitrary to 90% of everyone else out there hunting. Those are the tidbits that add up to a recipe for success when you finally pay attention to the correlations that exist. It’s easy to pay attention and catalog the trinkets of knowledge and buzzwords you read about online, or see in a video… but to catalog those teeny-tiny details as they hit you in the face, in the field, or on your trail cameras… that’s what’s difficult. But for me, that’s what seems to increase my success each year.

I’ve also gotten better about selecting when to hunt and when not to. It’s sooooo important to do whatever possible keep a mature deer from knowing he’s being hunted. But it takes a lot of self control, which can be difficult. I wish I had the patience 20 years ago that I have today.

 

[finelyshedded]

During the lockdown if it ain’t happening where I’m sitting in 2 hours, go to another area or stand and repeat. Back in the day we had tons of places to go but the past 15-20 years of leasing access has decreased dramatically. Soooooo, if it’s not happening in the few spots we have left I’d look at public land nearby or head home and get stuff done. Cell cams help monitor scrapes and plots but don’t catch “everything” but nothing tells you more than ass time in a honey hole stand after 2 hours.
Roger Rothaar was the first hunter that introduced this strategy of hunting in a hunting article I read way back in the 1980’s. I wish I took it more to heart cuz due to my stubbornness there were many all day skunks or sits watching young deer that were ran off by their estrus or near estrus moms.
So if you’re hunting your rutcation don’t be afraid to move if it’s not happening in your first sit cuz it’s happening somewhere.