Don’t Blow it on Early Season Bow Bucks
Patience is the key to success on opening day whitetails! By Bernie Barringer Any serious whitetail hunter spends some time glassing fields on late summer evenings, admiring the whitetails that are so visible at that time of the year. They are actually quite easy to pattern because their movements are so predictable. Excitement builds because the opening day of bow season is a short time away. So why is it that so few of those mature bucks are actually taken by bowhunters in the first few days of the early archery seasons? I believe there are four primary mistakes many bowhunters make which ruin their chances of bagging one of those bucks during the early fall. Let’s take a look at these so you don’t make the same mistakes. Watch the Clock Summer days are long, especially in the northern half of the US. It’s common to be seeing whitetails in the hayfields or soybeans in broad daylight at 8:30 or 9:00 in the evening. What many hunters do not realize is that the daylight hours are getting shorter by 4-5 minutes per day. That’s nearly a half hour per week. Of course, half of that time is in the evening, so every week the sun is going down 15 minutes earlier. A lot of hunters interpret deer movement in early fall as “starting to go nocturnal” when in reality, the deer are coming out at the same time; it’s just getting dark earlier. Yup that deer that was standing in the last rays of sunlight at 8:30, is three weeks later standing in full darkness at the same exact time. Failing to take this into account can cost you a chance at a big buck, which leads us to mistake number two. Move Back Too many hunters set up on the edge of the field expecting to get a shot at the bucks they saw a few weeks ago. In reality, those bucks aren’t likely to appear in the field during daylight. Not only is it getting dark sooner, but as the velvet comes off, the buck’s disposition begins to change. He’s becoming more cautious about showing himself, and he begins to hang up back in the woods for a while before cautiously moving out into the open field. If your treestand is right at the edge of the field, you may not encounter him until it’s too dark to make a safe and ethical shot. By moving your ambush point back 50 yards from the field, you have a much better chance of getting a shot with enough daylight to see your sight pins. Follow the entry trail a ways back and look for sign: droppings, rubs, tracks milling about, and nibbled plants. These are indicators of the area where the bucks are biding their time before making a move. Here’s where your stand belongs. Tree Trimming Many a buck has escaped with his life because a hunter didn’t trim one little branch. In the early season there are lots of leaves on the trees and shrubbery or other vegetation at ground level can mess up your shot or prohibit you from getting a shot at all. Be ruthless with your lane-cutting. Deer are not at all alarmed by limbs and cuttings lying on the ground, so trim away. Try to have at least 3-4 good, clear shooting lanes. Use a long pole saw to trim high branches and a clipper to nip saplings and large weeds along the ground. Wear gloves, boots and of course long pants to limit human scent left in the area. Try to do it at least a week before the season opens. Wait Until the Wind is Right Now you have a stand in position, the bucks are in a predictable pattern and you can’t wait to get in there and get it done. But wait! You may only get one chance and here is where most hunters blow it. Opening day arrives and the wind is not quite right but it’s the perfect setup. What difference can a little issue with wind direction hurt right? After all you are using good scent control and have the latest sprays and scent-control clothing. An overly optimistic reliance on scent control has saved the lives of a lot of deer. No matter what the marketers would like you to believe, there is no such thing as scent elimination, only scent reduction. Reduce the temptation to hunt the stand until the conditions are perfect! You may only get one chance at this program that you have been working on for weeks. Do not make your move until the time is right and then go get it done. You will be glad you waited. I promise. That is the voice of experience speaking. Get your binoculars out and go find a nice buck. If you can avoid these four mistakes, your chance of giving him a ride in your pickup just went way up!
Are Bucks Avoiding Your Treestands?
Some recent research on whitetail movements suggests that bucks learn where your treestands are located and even more importantly, they tend to avoid those areas. By Bernie Barringer Most of us have been aware that sometimes we tip off a buck to our location. At times, the buck makes it clear to us that he’s “busted” us, but at other times, the buck may become aware of our presence by the slightest untimely movement, sound or wisp of human scent. In these cases he most likely sneaks away undetected, and we never knew we had a close encounter. Just how much damage do these negative encounters do to our chances of shooting a buck from that particular location? That question has been answered in a very definite way by some solid scientific evidence aided by today’s GPS technology. Clint McCoy, a graduate student at Auburn University, recently completed a study that tracked 37 bucks for an entire hunting season and compiled the data he collected into some very surprising conclusions. Ten of these bucks were 4 years or older, nine were 3 years old, ten were two years old and eight were yearlings. Each was equipped with a GPS collar that tracked their exact location to within a few feet and reported the results every 30 minutes for three years. Those millions of data points were all taken on a 10 square mile study area in South Carolina so the bucks had plenty of room to roam. On this study area were about 100 food plots totaling 300 acres, 60 automatic feeders and 100 treestands. Hunters were dropped off and picked up near their treestands. The hunting started on September 15 and ended November 22. It was recorded which stands had hunters in them and for how long. Each buck was tracked in relation to the hunters in the stands and specific attention was paid to what McCoy called a “Danger Zone” which was the distance a hunter could visually see from the treestand. The results of this exhaustive study were quite revealing when it comes to the bucks’ awareness of the use of stands and their tendency to avoid those stands while hunters were present and for some time afterwards. It stands to reason that many of the stands were place in relation to the food plots. On August 24, one out of every three visits the bucks made to the food plots were during daylight. By November 22, the food plots were getting almost no daylight use. The data showed that the bucks were four times more likely to walk through the danger zone at the beginning of the season than they were at the end. At the end of the season, the buck’s average location was 55 yards farther away from any treestand than it was at the beginning of the season. The data also showed that the more times a stand was hunted, the more the deer avoided it. No surprise here. If, for example, you hunted a stand for 12 hours in any week, your chance of seeing any of the bucks was cut in half. This avoidance behavior lasted for an average of three days. Surprisingly, there was little difference in the avoidance moves between mature bucks and yearlings; they all learned to avoid the stands quite quickly. So what can we take away from this? Well the deer were tipped off to the presence of hunters in primarily three ways: Sounds, sight/movement, and scent. If we can reduce any of these three, we can increase our odds of seeing the bucks. Sounds are the easiest to control. Entering and exiting the stands is the worst time for alerting deer with noise. Dry leaves, cracking twigs and jingling equipment must be avoided. Some hunters go so far as to clear a path to their stand with a rake. Make sure your equipment both while travelling to the stand and while on stand is deadly silent. I was brought up with a strict regimen of going to the stand an hour before daylight in order to let our scent “dissipate,” I was told. I rarely do that these days. Consider waiting until daylight to walk to your stand. This is what I have been doing for several years and I believe I spook a lot less deer because I can walk much more quietly when I can see well, an artificial light source doesn’t tip off my presence, and there is a chance I might see a deer before he sees me and avoid a negative encounter. Having deer see you approach the stand is a dead giveaway. Use the screen of a ditch, ridge, or thick cover to mask your entry. If you are cutting trails to a stand on the edge of a food plot, put a bend in the trail right at the end so any deer in the field cannot see you coming from a distance. Make the entry and exit strategies just as important as all the other factors in choosing your stand locations. Wind currents can be the single most important factor in tipping deer off to your stand site. While we cannot entirely eliminate human odor, we can do things that will help reduce it. Spray down with Scent Killer on your pantlegs and boots so you minimize scent on the ground and on brush as you walk to your stand. Use antibacterial/antimicrobial soaps, shampoos and laundry detergents. These all help reduce your scent impact, but the most important factor is simply self control. If the wind isn’t right for a stand, just resist the temptation to hunt there no matter how badly you want to. One could say that there really isn’t anything new as a result of this study, but at the very least it adds some solid scientific data to things we already suspected. The bucks are patterning us, and we had better take every precaution we can if we are going to beat
Semi-Guided bear hunting success in Ontario
A few years ago I met a young man who had just inherited a large bear hunting concession from his grandfather. I worked out a deal with him where I could have the first week of bear season exclusively to my group if I filled up the camp with friends. We do much of the baiting and hanging treestands, etc. We are also responsible for getting ourselves to and from the stands, getting our bear out, etc. In exchange for that we get a good deal on the hunts. I call it a semi-guided hunt for lack of a better term. I normally bring ten hunters but this year I had two back out at the last minute; one had back surgery and one had a broken ankle so we had eight hunters. Everyone saw bears every evening and we were done by the fourth day with all eight tagging a bear. I videoed my hunt as usual and my nephew Corban flew out from Oregon to be a part of the hunt this year. Because he came so far and because he’s probably on the hunt of a lifetime, I put him on the bait which had an old mature boar with what appears to be a P&Y head. He shot the bear the first night. He did a nice job with the video too. For more info on this hunt, visit Wilson’s Havik Lake Outfitters. I’ve got the first week booked up again for 2018. Enjoy the two videos.
Three Top Opening Day Stand Sites for Mature Bucks
The early days of archery season are perhaps the best time of the year to pattern and shoot a buck. Here are the three best places to waylay an early-season whitetail buck. By Bernie Barringer Opening weekend of archery season in many states opens at a time of change for the whitetail buck. Most seasons open in September or on October 1. In early September, the velvet comes off the antlers and the testosterone is beginning to rise. The bachelor groups are breaking up and the food sources are changing. Some hunters love this time of the year because the deer are almost totally focused on the available food and are unmolested so their patterns are somewhat predictable. Others scorn this time of the year because the food sources can change rapidly and the bucks will move with the food. The key to success during the early season is keeping on top of the food preferences and moving as the deer move. There are patterns available, and if you are diligent, you can get yourself in the right place at the right time. Here are three high-percentage stand sites for the early days of the bow season. Observation Stands Across the whitetail’s range, hunters are out in the late summer glassing fields, trying to get a glimpse of the buck they may be able to harvest come fall. This is an effective way to get a feel for the deer that live in an area, and helps us learn where they are feeding, but it only goes so far. Many times the mature bucks will not enter a field in a position they can be seen from a distance. They may use a ditch, grassy waterway, or finger of trees to enter a field and avoid stepping fully into the open until the last moments of daylight. Additionally, it’s common for the deer to change trails or entry points. Rather than pick one and hope for the best, it’s often better to place a stand in an area with high visibility of the entire field. A high corner, for example, would allow you to spend an evening on stand in an area that might offer a shot, but has a better chance of giving you a view of the most common entry points for the feeding deer. I call these observation stands because they allow you to observe the activity from a distance, then make a more surgical, precise move once you know where and when your target buck is likely to appear. Staging Areas Bucks like to hang back and observe behavior in the field before entering. They will let the does and younger bucks move out into the field and feed. They will hang back and watch the body language of the deer in the field before they enter. They choose staging areas where they can see the field at times, but primarily, they just hang out and wait to see if the deer already in the open are feeding calmly. These areas can be identified by the sign the bucks leave while loitering. Droppings, tracks, rubs and sometimes scrapes are signs of their presence. These areas are one of the best places to shoot a big buck in the early season because they spend a considerable amount of time here during the last hour of daylight. Place your treestand where you can take advantage of the wind and do not hunt the stand until the wind is right. You may only get one chance to shoot a big buck in one of these areas, so make sure everything is right before you make your move. Parallel Trails Trails that follow the edge of a crop field can be hard to find because they do not get much use, but they can be just the ticket for an early season buck. Like the two sites already mentioned, these are the results of the mature bucks’ reluctance to enter the open during broad daylight. Parallel trails will be from 20 feet to 30 yards inside the edge of the field and are indistinct trails so they are usually identified by a few tracks rather than the bare earth of a well-worn path. Bucks use these trails to scent-check the field and to connect observation spots or staging areas. A buck may show up at the edge of the field an hour before he is ready to enter. These trails seem to give him something to do while he waits. Walking these trails gives him a sense of security and helps him determine if the “coast is clear” so to speak. Most times these trails will be on the downwind side of the field, and since the deer tend to enter the field from the downwind side, they may cross an entry path. Where a parallel trail crosses and entry path is a good spot to set up a treestand on the downwind side. You may be back in the timber too far to have a clear view of the field yourself, but that’s a fair tradeoff for an increased chance of shooting a mature buck. In all cases, no matter which one of these three stand sites you choose for the early days of the season, enter and exit the stand site carefully and use the wind to your advantage. The deer learn fast that they are being hunted so wait until everything is right and then move in to get the job done.
How to Fire Up Your Bear Baits
Get on location and give them the right things to eat and you’ll have bears hitting the bait in no time; here’s how. By Bernie Barringer I confess. I was playing a game on my phone as I sat in the treestand that early fall day. I had been glancing at my surroundings every few minutes, but really I didn’t expect to see a bear just yet. It was four hours before dark on the first day of the 2010 bear season. So the sight of a patch of black fur moving through the brush caught me a little off guard. Gulp! I swallowed hard as my adrenaline glands dumped their magic potion into my bloodstream. I reached down to tap my 14-year-old son Sterling on the shoulder. “Bear coming!” I hissed in a half-whisper. We had only been in the stands for 40 minutes, yet Sterling was about to get an opportunity to see a bear, in the wild, up close and personal, for the first time. And his back pocket contained a bear tag. I hadn’t drawn this year; I was along for the moral support and to video anything exciting that might happen. And it was about to get really exciting! The adrenaline surge continued as it took the bear 10 minutes of stealthy movement to close the last 20 yards to the bait. But this gave Sterling time to carefully get his bow off the hanger and in position for a shot. I recorded video as I watched through amazed eyes as my fidgety adolescent kept his cool while waiting for the right shot. His arrow flew true and the bear crashed through the brush for a short distance; then piled up within sight. Then Sterling fell apart. Well… okay, we both fell apart. I admit, my knees were shaking as bad as his. See the video at the end of this story. This had been a 40-minute bear hunt, and that is amazing in itself. But truthfully, this was only the culmination of doing a lot of things right over the course of several weeks. If you are going to shoot a bear over bait, you must first overcome the challenge of getting a cautious bear at the site during daylight. And that is a lot harder than most people think. A dozen years of serious bear hunting has taught me some things that have helped improve my odds. This was the third bear our family has bagged off that same bait site in the past six years. Let’s have a look at why I believe my system works. Location, Location, Location Bears have an amazing sense of smell and I have no doubt that they can sense a good-smelling bait from a half-mile downwind. But if you are not on location, they’ll never smell it in the first place. During the late summer and fall when we are baiting bears, the bruins have one thing on their mind… eating. They are in a state called hyperphagia which means they are gobbling up high-carbohydrate foods in order to store fat for the long winter months of inactivity. They often feed for 20 hours a day. That means they are on their feet a lot, and travelling from place to place in their search for food. They follow terrain features like field edges, ridges and the shorelines of lakes, rivers and swamps. In more arid terrain, your bait needs to be within a mile of water. When bears are gorging themselves, they need a good long drink every day. If you choose your bait site using the prevailing wind direction, while taking into account these terrain features, you will get a bear to commit to your bait. Today’s technology has made this easier than ever. Aerial photos, such as those found on Google Earth, help you find these terrain features before you ever leave home. Forget about sign; you will not find much bear sign. Set on terrain. Once you have determined your general location, you must move in and put your bait right on target in a more specific location. For this pinpoint accuracy, you need to take into account several things: The right tree for your stand (which needs to be comfortable too!), the proximity of heavy cover, and what I call the “Comfort Factor.” The Comfort Factor goes hand in hand with heavy cover. Bears are reluctant to cross open areas in the daylight. If you can locate the bait where they can stay in cover during their approach, they are more likely to come in during shooting hours. If you locate your bait in open timber for example, they may not be comfortable moving in on the bait until after dark. I like to pick out a place that has lots of ground cover near a large block of timber, and put my bait right in the thick stuff. This means a lot more work trimming a shooting lane to create a clear path from your treestand to the bait, but it is worth the trouble. Calling All Bears I hunt where there is a good deal of competition for the bears. Baiting is popular in this part of Minnesota. Plus most of my baits re near a large state forest that has a lot of hunting activity. I have found that one of the keys to success is to get the bears coming to your bait first. I am convinced that the first day or two after you put the bait out is going to make or break your hunt. Here’s an important thing to remember: The actual bait you use is secondary. Its job is to get them to come back over and over again. You have to get them there initially to be successful. For this reason, I pull out all the stops when I first put the bait out. Getting bears to visit your bait site is the biggest hurdle of all. Here are a few tips that
Is Ozonics the Missing Link?
by Glenn Walker My dad is old school, so naturally when I showed him the spot where I killed my buck, he was a bit surprised. “What… that doesn’t make sense, the west wind had to be at your back the entire time…” I spent the rest of the afternoon doing something I haven’t had much chance to do, educating my dad. More and more, advanced hunters are setting up their stands, not thinking of how they as hunters will use the wind, but rather, how will the buck use the wind? The more I hunt, read, and talk with other like-minded whitetail addicts, one thing continues to become clear- mature bucks prefer to travel with the wind quartering into their face. Old timers like my dad understand that whitetails live and die by the wind, comparing their #1 sense for survival to a human’s sight. That being said, we are also realizing that the sage advice of “sitting with the wind in your face” isn’t always the perfect solution. Sitting with the wind at your back! Or in your ear! That’s crazy… right?! Crazy like a fox… with the help of Ozonics. The Setup No stand setup is ever perfect, and in fact, many are a gamble. I like to set my stands with a specific purpose. Maybe I’m looking for the right wind, temperatures, time of day, rut phase, etc… Look for a stand where you have the odds stacked in your favor, for that wise old buck to make his fatal move. The problem, this could go really wrong. The disastrous part is when the buck hears you coming in, or doesn’t walk exactly where you thought, and possibly winds you. One of my personal favorite stand setups is downwind of a thick doe bedding area, yet up above a nasty, steep drop-off to a swamp. Over the years this setup has worked well because in the right wind conditions, the bucks will scent check the bedding area from downwind, which means I am safe. But… at the same time, in the morning, with the thermal effect creating rising air off the slope, theoretically the buck can smell everything below him as well. In the evening, not a big deal, any scent I’m giving off will drop down into the uninhabitable swamp. But what if there’s deer in the swamp? Or what if he’s only showing up on my cameras in the morning? Or at night? Or… There is so much out of the hunter’s control, now you can see where Ozonics comes in. Ozonics is the missing link in a scent free hunting plan. Utilizing Ozonics Scientifically proven to eliminate odors, ozone generating Ozonics can easily be utilized as soon as you step out of the truck. With the new Kinetic Backpack, your Ozonics unit can be used effectively while you quietly sneak in and out of your stand. And then, when on stand, remove the unit from the pack and place it in the tree or blind like you normally would. If you’re not already using Ozonics, or familiar with the science and their impressive results, be sure to visit their informative website at www.ozonicshunting.com to learn. My good friend Tom Nelson, host of Cabela’s American Archer, is a loyal Ozonics disciple. Tom finds his perfect setup often by setting up a ground blind, where Ozonics is incredibly effective. “I utilize ground blinds in a lot of spots where no suitable trees are available. The trouble with ground blinds is that it is much harder to monitor the wind direction while enclosed within them. I make a point to check the wind direction every 30 minutes while hunting and adjust my Ozonics and the blind windows accordingly.” Nelson also added, “Before I even raise my bow up into my stand, or nock an arrow in my blind, I turn on my Ozonics. More than once I have had deer show up almost immediately, and had I not had the Ozonics turned on, I am sure I would have spooked the deer and ruined a good part of my hunt. Don’t be limited this fall. Remember that the wind is the deer’s best friend, and with the help of Ozonics, you can find the perfect setup to exploit that wise old buck’s habits one last time. As always, good luck, be safe, have fun, and send us pictures of your giant buck! Photos by Bill MCall
Face-Off: Headnet or Face Paint; Which is Better?
Each has advantages and disadvantages. If you have been using one and never considered the other, this list of pros and cons may change your mind. By Bernie Barringer My buddy Paul was sitting across the table from me eating dinner with his face completely covered with several colors of paint: black, brown, olive and tan. Other guys at that table started poking fun at the odd sight and Paul looked a little sheepish as he realized he had forgotten to remove the paint before sitting down to dinner. But Paul made a pretty good comeback with some interesting statements that ring true about the importance of hiding the glow of your face from game animals. He believes that your face is often the first thing they see, so making your face blend in is just as important that any other kind of camouflage. It got me thinking about the use of paint and a face mask and how important it is when hunting. There’s no doubt that covering your face will reduce the chances that a deer will stop and stare right at you—one of the worst case scenarios in hunting—and help us stay better concealed. Some people are advocates of painting the face and others are just as adamant that a mask of some sort is better. Let’s examine the pros and cons of each. Painting the Face Putting on face paint is fast and easy. Taking it off? Not so much. Hunting in warm weather can make a facemask very uncomfortable, but some paint on the face will not be noticed. Another advantage is that it moves when you move. When you turn your head, there’s no extra movement from cloth moving, and no chance that a mask will impede your vision if you have to turn your head quickly. Paint comes in several colors and you can choose a couple that will be a good match for the terrain you are hunting. Sitting in the shade of a tree, you can choose darker colors. When stalking in sagebrush, go with the light greens and tan. When hiding out in the shadows of a ground blind, paint your face all black. Unless you are naturally dark skinned, your hands often give away your location, especially if they are moving. One advantage of face paint over a mask is the ability to put some on the back of your hands while you are at it. One of the drawbacks of face paint—an area where a fabric mask has an edge–is in the area of reflection. Face paint may darken your face, but if the sun hits you just right, it cannot stop the sun from reflecting off your face, and in many cases the shiny paint makes the reflection even worse. This is especially true if the paint has been faded or partially removed by sweat. When looking for face paint, make sure you find a brand that doesn’t go on shiny, but has a dull finish to it. Wearing a Face Mask The biggest advantage I see in using a facemask is the ability to pull it off and be done with it. Getting the paint off your face can be pretty involved and requires a mirror, something I do not have handy in most of my hunting. Another advantage is that a mask covers your ears and face when it’s chilly. Often I don’t want a hat pulled down over my ears to impair hearing, but one piece of fabric is just about right to cheep the frost out. Same goes for the cheeks and chin. Another advantage is protection from bugs. Mosquitoes can be a serious problem in the early deer season or during a spring bear hunt. The mask at least partially protects the little bloodsuckers from getting to your skin. Black flies love to get behind your ears and bite you there. A facemask prevents this. Some of the drawbacks of using a facemask include the fact that they can impair your hearing. If you choose to use a facemask, choose one of a soft fabric that doesn’t make any noise when you move your head. Facemasks can be hot when hunting in warm weather, and some people feel a little claustrophobic when wearing one. This is multiplied when sweat is running down your cheeks. If it’s hot with no breeze at all, a facemask will not be a good choice. Make sure your facemask doesn’t block your peripheral vision. Choose one that fits tight to the sides of your temples and doesn’t stay in place when you turn your head. If you can turn your head inside the mask, your vision will be blocked. Here’s the biggest negative of all for bowhunters: A facemask can affect your anchor point. Most of us anchor to the side of our face in some way. I use a kisser button on the corner of my mouth. The fabric will change your anchor point and possibly be distracting at the moment of truth. I usually pull my facemask down before drawing the bow but sometimes there just isn’t time. Hopefully this comparison will help you make a decision about which of these two options is best for you based on the conditions you are faced with when you hunt. Using either one will increase your odds of being in the deer woods undetected. I would love to hear your comments below on which you prefer.
Learn your bucks through the lens
The first two weeks of August are the first—and possibly the best—time to get a look at the deer in your area. This is when the hunting actually starts. By Bernie Barringer Late summer is an easy time for whitetail bucks. Food is everywhere, the hunting pressure is off, and the stress of growing antlers is winding down. Other than a few bugs and finding water every day, there’s not much for a buck to do. Green crops, such as soybeans, clover and alfalfa are the preferred foods at this time, although deer will nibble on corn if it’s in the milk stage. Bucks that would never be caught in the daylight during the hunting season will be leisurely browsing in the fields an hour before dark. There a many things a hunter can learn from watching the deer this time of the year. You can see some activity with binoculars, but to really get a good look at the deer and their surroundings, it’s a good idea to invest in a quality spotting scope with a window mount and a tripod. You can spend thousands on a spotting scope if you want, but a mid-priced scope such as the Nikon Prostaff series 20-60×80 will run $500-$600 and bring the deer up close for you. You will need to mount the scope solid, thus the need for the window mount when glassing a field from a high point on a road, or the tripod, when you have to walk to a vantage point and observe from a place you can conceal yourself. Let’s take a look at some important things you can learn from watching these late summer deer in the fields. Inventory The first advantage you have is the ability to inventory the bucks. All bucks will not be visible every evening, but if you watch their preferred feeding area for a few days, you are most likely to get a look at the majority of the bucks in the area. This helps you understand the potential for the upcoming season. Keep in mind that bucks will move quite a bit during September, and some of your bucks will leave while others may come in, but knowing some generalities of the deer available to you will help you choose what caliber of buck you will want to hold out for come early hunting season. Habits and entry points It’s surprising how much knowledge about deer behavior can be had just by observing where and when the bucks enter the fields. One year I watched as a mature buck entered the alfalfa through a ditch that bisected the field. He would just appear at the point of the ditch and move cautiously out into the field whenever the wind direction allowed him to feel safe. The following year, that buck was nowhere to be found, but a different mature buck was entering the field in exactly the same way. This pattern has been repeated through the years. Bucks have tendencies and comfort levels; they use the terrain in certain ways. Once you learn these tendencies and the points they prefer to enter the fields. You have a potential hunting spot for the opening days of the season. Staging areas Bigger bucks often enter the fields last. They will sometimes hang back where they can observe the deer already in the field, usually does and young bucks, through sight and smell. They will watch the body language of the deer in the open to determine the safety level of the field. The areas they hang out in I call Staging Areas. These are perfect places to hang a scouting camera. They are also excellent treestand locations for early season bowhunting. Wind directions and Stand set-ups Once you observe the deer for several evenings, you will notice that the bucks tend to enter the field in different places depending on wind direction and sky conditions. I have noticed that deer tend to avoid walking up a hill with the sun directly in their eyes. They will enter a field in a different location based on whether it’s overcast or sunny. Wind direction is a key to where the deer enter the field. This is not to say that they will only move into the wind, but they will take advantage of the wind on the side of their face when they can. Evening thermals carry scent downhill, and the bucks will take advantage of that. Having the knowledge of where the bucks tend to enter the field based on wind direction will be a huge advantage in choosing where to set your stands and which ones to hunt based on the prevailing wind directions of the day. Behavior and Interactions While most of the topics I have discussed to this point have the end goal of helping you shoot a buck you have spotted during August, there are advantages to glassing deer that just help us better understand the species. Watching deer and observing how they act, react and interact can be very educational. The ways in which does interact can be very interesting. Over time, you can figure out which does are the dominant ones. One matriarchal doe is usually a leader, and often looks around more than the others; a sentry so to speak. The other does look to her for guidance. Bucks will exhibit dominance tendencies as well. Often, when a mature buck enters the field, the other bucks will stare at him for a while. If he moves close to one of them, the subordinate buck will move off. Rarely do you see confrontations during this time, but the pecking order becomes clear if you are observant. You can learn a lot from watching deer; the information you gather can help you understand the deer in your area much better, and it can also lead to a greater chance of shooting a nice buck in the early days of the archery season.
Walk In Whitetails
Gaining access to hunt can be a difficult task across much of North America these days, but programs in 25 states that open private lands to public hunting offer a place for anyone to hunt for free. By Bernie Barringer I came from a non-hunting family. In fact my parents wouldn’t even let me own a gun. I’m not sure if the concern was more about the gun, or about the thought of me with a gun, but at any rate, I bought a bow when I was 14 years old and it changed my life. This was the 1970’s and living in Iowa, all I had to do was ask a few farmers for permission to hunt and I had access to more hunting land than I could possibly hunt on the limited time I had before and after school. Those days are long gone. Today, unless a kid grows up in a hunting family, and better yet, a family with property, he’s going to have a hard time finding a place to shoot his first deer. Good deer hunting property is leased or owned for hunting, and just going out to ask for permission can still take place, but the success rate has become so low it’s not even worth trying in many areas. I hate the idea that deer hunting has become very difficult to get into for a youngster without a place to hunt. Some areas have abundant public hunting land, but they are the exception, especially in the eastern half of the US. In many eastern and southern states, up to 95% of the land is privately owned. Many of these landowners are transplants from suburban areas who have little to no background with the outdoor lifestyle so they are not at all receptive to someone who comes knocking for permission to kill their deer. Where are the kids going to hunt? And for many of us who do not own property, where are we going to hunt? I have been fortunate that I have taken more than 20 out of state do-it-yourself road trip whitetail hunts in the last 15 years. I have begun to keep a careful watch on the access programs in many states that open private land to sportsmen. My first introduction to this opportunity took place on a deer hunt in Kansas a few years ago. I was driving back to where my travel trailer was parked after a November morning hunt when a doe ran across the remote gravel road in front of me. I slammed on my brakes just in time to miss the huge buck that was following her. I grabbed my binoculars and watched them race over a hill in the tallgrass prairie. He was the kind of buck that makes your heart pound in your ears. I spun around in the road and headed to the other side of the section to see where they might come out. But I found that they had disappeared into a brushy draw in the middle of the section. There was a white sign on the fence that stated “WIHA.” I was fully aware of the WIHA hunting lands because I had seen the pheasant and quail hunters working it with their dogs, but clearly I had been missing out on the deer hunting opportunities. Kansas’s Walk in Hunting Access program is geared towards bird hunters, but the amount of excellent deer hunting to be found on these lands is mouth-watering. And it’s mostly overlooked. I have hunted Kansas many times since that trip, and before I go, I spend some time going over the WIHA brochure and the map of WIHA lands on the Dept. of Wildlife and Parks website. I have since killed a nice buck on land in North Dakota designated Private Land Open to Sportsmen (PLOTS) and other states that have similar programs. Most Midwestern states now have a program that offers the landowners some compensation for allowing the public to hunt the land. In the Midwest and western whitetail states, these lands are primarily grasslands that provide bird hunting, but there are some amazing gems of deer hunting habitat on these properties and the deer hunting pressure is minimal in most cases. In the Northeast, the programs are growing by leaps and bounds, with more and more land being enrolled each year. About half the states in the Northeastern US have a program of some sort that allows hunter access. These are not as much geared towards the shotgun toting crowd and many of these parcels offer excellent deer and turkey hunting. With so much of the East being held under private property, the public lands can be utterly overrun with hunters, yet the Voluntary Public Access lands are little known and lightly hunted in many areas. In the Western US, these lands often fall under the heading of Block Management programs. Montana has tens of thousands of acres enrolled. Wyoming’s Private Land Public Wildlife (PLPW) is much the same. Much of the land in these two states is sagebrush with small creek bottoms running through it. You will really have to spend some time with a list of lands and aerial photos picking through these properties, but if you are diligent, you may find a gem of a property to hunt. Colorado’s Big Game Access Program (BGAC) has been off and on due to funding, but the eastern half of the state with its open prairies and center pivot irrigation systems is where most of the open land is found. If you like to spot and stalk whitetails and mule deer, this is a Mecca for doing so. The Southeast is lagging behind in the availability of private land that’s open to public hunting. Texas and Louisiana each have a program, but none of the states to the east across the southern whitetail belt offer any program of this nature. Georgia recently received a $993,000 grant from the Federal Natural Resources Conservation