Deer Hunting Tips For Experienced Hunters
I offer these deer hunting tips to help you advance your hunting success. The average deer hunter with only average knowledge and commitment, over time gets only average results. It is easy for the average hunter to be able to get a small buck every year or so, but being able to bring home that beautiful trophy buck on a regular basis requires more commitment and more knowledge.
The advanced deer hunting tips I’m sharing with you here are for the true hunting masters.
1. Scout Your Area In Advance. I’m not talking about where you’re going to sit when you arrive at your hunting spot — I mean be genuinely aware of the area that you are hunting in. The most successful hunters actually start hunting months prior to the first day of the hunting season. I developed the habit of getting permission to check out the lease where I was going to hunt, then I scouted out the surrounding areas. I surveyed all the potential hunting sites and then did a “dry hunt” — went through the motions of hunting but without a gun, so I could get to know the areas that had the most deer movement, the largest bucks, and the best buck-to-doe ratios. You can walk around the lease in the middle of the day, looking for big buck signs that I could see.
2. Learn to Recognize Big Buck Signs – In order to find out where the trophy bucks reside, learn what to search for. One thing you want to look for are tracks. Be aware of the size, number of, and the direction of the tracks, which will clue you in on the size, number of and movements of the deer. You also want to look for scrapes. These are areas where a buck scratches the ground and sometimes urinates to mark their territory and attract does. Bucks usually do this below low hanging tree branches that are located on the border of heavy brush areas during the rut. Rubs – If the bucks rub the velvet off fresh antlers on posts and trees, be sure to see it and mark where they are. If you see six or more rubs in 100 yards, that’s called a “rub line.” The rubs are typically on the side of the tree that the buck is traveling form so noting which sides of the trees have rub marks in a rub line gives clues as to the direction of movement. Observe how big the bedding areas are once you find them. No signs of bucks means no bucks!
3. Understand Your Firearm. Know the ballistics of the cartridge and bullet you are using. You also need to know how your gun reacts to the distance you are shooting. You need to know how far your shot raises for short shots and how far it falls for longer shots. You should practice judging how far your shots are and maybe even walk off the distances to possible sighting areas. This will allow you to know if you are making a 400 yard shot and also know how much your bullet is likely to drop making this shot. Doing this will enable you to be able to adjust your aim to make a quality shot.
4. Shot Placement – If you master the aim and ballistic characteristics of your deer hunting rifle, you can be more concerned with exact shot placement. I am a “neck shooter,” which means I believe a shot well-placed anywhere on the neck will bring your deer down every time. There are many hunters who disagree with me on this preference. No matter where you hit the neck, you’ll get him very effectively; you’ll either sever the carotid artery or breach the spinal column, or some variation thereof, depending on how high or low the bullet lands. From a broadside, front or rear quarter angle, or head-on angle the neck target is as large as the traditional “behind the lower shoulder” target and much more effective. I don’t recommend attempting full rear shots unless you are trying for a trophy buck that you can’t pass up. Cleaning a deer that’s been shot in the rectum is unpleasant, to say the least. You want to make smart decisions when you take a shot. The best deer hunters make a fast and efficient kill.
5. Attactants, Calls, and Rattling – While we do not have time to go into a lot of detail, it is an important deer hunting tip to use attractants (like natural food plots, salt licks/mineral blocks, feeders, and flavored blocks), deer calls, and rattling methods. If you are going to use food related attractants you need to prepare it in advance. Just like any garden, food plots takes a lot of time and attention. Continuous feeding of an area should start weeks or even months ahead of the hunting season so the deer get used to the location and timing of their free meals. Calling and rattling are hit-or-miss techniques that usually only work during rutting. Occasionally I have been able to bring a buck in slowly and cautiously by rattling outside of the rutting season, but during the rut, they tend to rush right in. I have almost been run over by bucks when rattling in the field, so if you become proficient at this technique be prepared for quick action. And proficiency is required and often slowly learned. There’s a learning curve involved in knowing how to effectively mimic the calls or recreate the fighting sounds of deer. But once you learn how to do this, it’s a very useful skill.
While every deer hunter dreams of being able to display a trophy buck at some time in their life, advanced deer hunters are not satisfied unless they get a trophy buck each and every year. If you are going to join the ranks of the elite hunters, then you need to know the advanced deer hunting tips the elite hunters know.
If you want to learn more about deer hunting and get more deer hunting tips that can help you land the large bucks that get you trophy racks, go to Deer-HuntingTips.com and have a better hunting season than you’ve had in years.