ChrisSpikes
Senior Member
I hope Warren doesn't mind me posting this. I think everyone here can learn from it, and in turn become a more successful hunter. I know it certainly has influenced my hunting, and all for the better. Some of you may have seen it before, but read over it again. It never gets old. I only wish I could have read this 20 years ago.
I think everyone develops their own style of hunting through knowledge gained from a lot of different methods as well from the individuals interest, desire, abilities and limitations. Through the years I've had the opportunity to answer a lot of questions about the way I've hunted. Listed here are my answers to some of those questions.
I am not trying to tell anyone how or suggest how they should or shouldn't hunt. These are just my honest answers to some random questions that are listed in no certain order and are sometimes repeated.
Also, these were methods that I used during the physical peak years of my life (younger, stronger and no health problems), hunting very large tracts of land. I'm 65 years old now and will be the first to admit that I ain't what I use to be nor am I capable of hunting as hard as I once did. With that said, I still hunt as hard as I can using the same basic style but without the intensity and physical ability that I once had.
Hopefully someone will find something, here, that they can use to help them be a more successful bowhunter.
________________________________________________________________________
Through the years I've been a member of several hunting clubs but most of my hunting is on public land. I have always felt too restricted by club rules and petty, club membership jealousy. This doesn't exist when hunting open land.
Public land also provides huge areas to scout and be able to hunt many different locations. I like to move around a lot with the potential to hunt a different spot for every hunt.
________________________________________________________________________
Every time I go in the woods is a learning experience for me. Anyone tells you that they have it all figured out is either not telling the truth or they have themselves fooled. Over the years I have developed a system that I use, but I think my main thing is, I feel like I've always tried harder than most hunters. The harder I worked the more success I seem to have.
________________________________________________________________________
For me a shooter buck is a state legal buck and I love to shoot does. I've found the only thing that makes a doe easier to shoot than a buck is they are more active during the daylight hours. I've watched bucks stand like statues for as long as half an hour. They were checking things out. Once they decided to move they never hesitate or look around, in their mind everything is safe. Now a doe, she is always looking for buggers to jump out and get her. Really, once I make the commitment to try and kill and I do just that I'm proud of the moment and if it has horns..... that's just a bonus.
________________________________________________________________________
Cut-over plays is a big factor in my hunting. I especially like the stream side management zones that the loggers leave along the creeks. Those big oak trees, found in them, are prime targets of mine.
________________________________________________________________________
I have found Honey Locust Bean trees to be a buck magnet. It seems to me like bucks make up a high percentage number of the deer that show up to feed on the long black bean pod dropped from them. Sign doesn't show up as good under a hot bean tree as it does under most oaks. The leaves on the ground from the honey locust trees are really small and don't show disturbance from feeding, like the larger leaves of oaks. I've watched bucks walk through prime acorns to get to the locust beans.
________________________________________________________________________
I use the term "flow area" to represent an area that deer flow through while traveling from point A to point B. Just a travel area, much like a funnel but not as defined. I remember one flow area between a major river and a creek, that I killed a buck on. The deer were making their way from a grown up, select cut-over (bedding area) to some agriculture fields, a mile away. The gap between the river and creek was a couple of hundred yards wide but the red oak, not yet in it's prime, was the draw to pin point the movement.
________________________________________________________________________
Entering and leaving the woods hasn't been a big concern for me in reference to disturbing deer. I usually hunt so far from my truck that I don't think it's been a factor most of the time. Most of the places I climb on are between one and two miles from where I park. It usually takes me an hour of hard walking to get to some of my favorite places. I can see where someone that hunts close to the roads or where they park, could have a problem spooking the deer laying up close.
________________________________________________________________________
I use a compass constantly, not only for direction but also for checking the wind, finding deer after the shot and a lot of other situations. When I'm traveling through the woods, I almost always have it out and in my hand . I always have a topo map of the area that I'm hunting and started using a GPS when they became available. I've never been lost (I have been turned around a couple of times) and never had a fear of being lost. I'm as comfortable navigating in the dark of night, as I am in the light of day.
________________________________________________________________________
As you know, deer are very sensitive to human intrusion. They are a lot smarter than most hunters give them credit for. I believe they not only have a memory but are able to reason things out. For that reason I try to find places to hunt that no one else wants to go to the trouble it takes to get there. I only use one ultra light stand and during hunting season it's in one of three places, in my truck, on my back or up in a tree with me in it. When I go up, it goes up with me. When I come down, I take it down. I almost never hunt the same place two times in a row and hardly ever hunt a place twice in a season. I usually spend at least two hours a day walking looking for the best sign available to hunt. I can remember walking 8 hours one day and not finding anything to climb on, instead of climbing and hoping something came by I continued to look until dark. The next day I changed areas and continued the search. When I climb I usually expect to see a deer under me. It don't always happen but you can bet the sign is there.
________________________________________________________________________
Moon phase. I've always kept a lot of records of my hunts and I knew that I saw twice as many deer during the week of the first and last quarter as I did the weeks of the full and new moon put together. I couldn't get a handle on it until Jeff Murray came out with his "Deer Hunters Moon Guide". It's all about moon position. It seems the deer have an incredible urge to move when the moon position is straight up or straight down. It has really been effective for me. It never ceases to amaze me how accurate it can predict movement.
________________________________________________________________________
I feel like it's very important to be comfortable using a compass and topo map. It's not that difficult. Using a topo map, I'm able to find spots that show potential in the area's I'm hunting. I can log those spots into my GPS and go right to them. It's a great way to scout. Also, when I'm in hunting areas and find something that looks good, I enter it in my GPS. When I get back home I enter those coordinates into topozone.com and can see exactly where they are. Using this method allows you to find better or alternate ways to approach these spots. A GPS is an awesome tool, that I wish would have been available 30 years ago. Using it, you always know where you are and which way to go to get back to where you came from and how far it is. I've even used mine to help me get into position to kill turkeys.
________________________________________________________________________
I don't try to age my deer. I really don't care how old they might be. I just want to get a high percentage shot, have a good hit and find it. I keep a camera with me and I really enjoy taking the pictures where they go down. I use a little tripod that I tie to a tree to mount my camera on. Most of the time I'm hunting alone and sometimes it takes up to 30 minutes to take a couple of pictures. Have to be careful not to cut my head off in the picture, it's happened before. Ha ha.
________________________________________________________________________
I first started sleeping in my vehicle back in 1983, at the time I had a 1974 Ford Bronco. I'm 6' 3" so the cab was to short. I rigged up a way to fold the front passenger seat down and supported a strip of plywood from the dash board back to the back seat. It created a place to spend the night on hunting trips.
Later I had an 1985 Ford F-150, 4-wheel drive that I actually spent over 1,100 nights in during hunting trips. It was set up a lot better than the Bronco. Of course I had a camper shell on it, and carpet covered plywood on the floor. I built a good solid bed frame and use an excellent mattress, after wearing out the first one. Curtains across the windows provided me with privacy. That ole truck took me on a lot of memorable hunts and I made it through some very cold nights using two sleeping bags.
I still hunt the same way, but have a different truck. I put a mark on the inside camper wall by the bed for each night I spend in it. One thing about sleeping in the truck, no matter where you are or which way it's parked it's always the same inside. I find it very comfortable and even when hunting as a guest, where they have a really nice camp, I still sleep in my truck. It's home away from home.
________________________________________________________________________
I appreciate all my kills. Some of my best stories and memories are does and small bucks. I just like to hunt and I'm an equal opportunity shooter. I never have been or ever will be a Trophy hunter, I'm just a bowhunter that enjoys a good buck, when I'm lucky enough to have a chance at one. They are hard to come by.
________________________________________________________________________
Hunting water ways works really well for me. I spend a lot of time walking creeks in search of sign to set up on. I've had some good luck on creek crossings. One in particular, takes and hour to walk through the hills to get to it, but worth the trouble. Very few times that I haven't had the opportunity to shoot on a morning hunt, when hunting there. I've packed out a good many from that area.
________________________________________________________________________
I sometime, return to my truck during the late morning to early afternoon for a break. While I'm there I'll eat a bite then shoot some practice arrows and clean up. I have a small bowl that I half fill with water and add baking soda. I'll strip down and soak a wash cloth with the solution and do a sponge bath. Without rinsing I'll powder down with more baking soda, then suit up in some clean camo.
________________________________________________________________________
Making a high percentage hunt, to me, is what it's all about. Hunting time is too precious to waste sitting in a tree hoping a deer comes through. Most of the time when I climb I expect a deer to be under me. It doesn't always happen, but it's not because I'm not hunting a high percentage hunt. I usually walk two to four hours a day searching for that perfect spot to set a stand. Many times I've hit the ground running on a big drainage, walking out the edge of a creek for a mile then crossing over and coming back the other side. When I was younger I would sometimes jog from one oak tree to another trying to check everyone I could find, looking for the best possible hunt in the whole area. I might find more places to hunt than I had time for on that hunt and hunt what I thought was the best. Then the next day check out another drainage and do the same there. Believe me, I had more places to hunt than I had time to hunt but I never stopped looking for that perfect spot.
Running and gunning like that, I'm sure that I probably have disturbed deer and maybe even educated some but most of the time I only hunted a place one time, and doing that you don't have much of an impact on them. Most of the oak flats are removed from the daytime bedding areas and I'm usually clean and as odor free as I can be and I never touch anything with my hands and wear rubber boots that's used for hunting only.
Think about it, these deer are using this primary feed tree for the whole area and have been on it, undisturbed for say four days. I find the tree on one trip in and set up at the time I find it or return with my equipment and set up. That evening the deer come in just as they have programmed their selves to do for the past few days to pick up some choice acorns and zip, if I do everything right, an arrow passes through one of them.
________________________________________________________________________
You know I get to talk with a lot of guys that hunt with bows and I love to listen to their stories. I always key in on the distance of their shots. In my opinion the closer the shot the better the bowhunter. The name of the game for me, is putting deer under you. Scouting everyday you hunt and hunting only high percentage hunts will do that for you.
________________________________________________________________________
Killing a deer with a bow, down on ground level with it, is a special treat. I use to say that one like that was worth 10 from a tree stand. When I first started bowhunting I use to spend a lot of time slowly moving through the woods trying to do so. I even developed a technique, for getting within bow range even after they see me. It's easier to explain telling, instead of writing about it.
.....While still hunting, if I could see a deer before it knew I was there, I would drop down and put the stems of several fallen leaves between my fingers and a few in my mouth. Once that was done I would start my stalk. Sooner or later that deer would become aware of my presence and become alert. With the deer keyed in on me I would release a leaf and as it would float to the ground the deer would lock in on the movement of the leaf, forgetting about me.
I would be downwind, so it couldn't smell me. I usually had some sort of camo on, so once I froze, it couldn't really see me but still it knew that some sort of movement had alerted it. Once it saw the leaf fall, a very natural thing that it had seen all it's life, it was satisfied that everything was cool. To that deer, it was just a leaf floating to the ground.
Usually they would flick their tail and return to browsing or picking up acorns. Then I would continue my stalk until they noticed my movement again. Then I would go through the process again and again until I was in bow range. It didn't work every time but the times that it did was very rewarding.
Several time I have worked my way up to and inside of 20 yards. Once during a preseason scouting trip I showed a friend how I did this and we managed to get inside of 10 yards on a doe with her fawn. We were on an open ridge and had started the stalk from at least 200 yards away. We both ran out of leaves. Great Fun!!!
Later, after I became better at hunting feed trees, I quit slipping and started running. Trying to look at every tree in the area I was in, trying to locate primary feed trees. The name of the game for me, was the more trees I checked the better my chance's were to find what I was looking for, a primary tree for the entire area. When I did, it was almost a guaranteed kill. What I call a "high percentage hunt".
________________________________________________________________________
I feel like the first four years I bowhunted was a learning experience for me. Back then there wasn't any information available about bowhunting like there is now. The few hunting magazines that were around maybe had one or two bowhunting articles a year. For me it was a trial and error period with lessons learned from trying hard. I'll have to say that I had a burning desire to put deer under me for close bow shots. I was pretty much addicted to trying to learn how to bowkill deer on a routine basics. I think I tried harder than anyone that I have ever known. Those first four years was like an apprenticeship program and I managed to kill four deer during that period. The fifth year alone, I killed four and the sixth year I killed nine, seven of which came from under Oak trees and one from a Persimmon tree and the other one from hunting a trail.
________________________________________________________________________
Walking 2 to 4 hours a day, every day you hunt, searching for that perfect tree will wear a person down. The name of the game was to find the perfect tree, recognize it when I found it, set up on it right and be there when the deer come in. A primary feed tree is definitely a High Percentage hunt, where other methods are not. Finding it is what's difficult. I always looked for a tree that was so hot that it would take my breath away.
Usually I would hunt a tree only one time, then move on to another one. This way it was a complete surprise to the deer that had been coming into the tree safely for " X" amount of days. They would follow the same pattern that they had been doing, the only difference is I would be there to welcome them. Moving around a lot, helps to make it impossible for them to pattern you.
________________________________________________________________________
I usually hunted as hard as I could during the period of Bow Season before the Gun Season. Most of the Oaks, drop their acorns during this October and early November period. Once the acorns are gone and the gun hunters flood the areas, the deer go underground. Makes for hard hunting.
________________________________________________________________________
A lot of writers really pump up the advantage of hunting the Rut. That might work on a consistent basics at a lot of places but where I have done most of my hunting, 95 plus percent of the Rut activity, is done in the safety of the after hunting hours. In the darkness of night time. For me, the best method for Bowhunting deer, has always been hunting Oak trees that are in their prime. The best way I have found to Bowhunt bucks, has been setting up on flow areas. I have killed deer using other methods, but hunting a Red Hot Oak tree is still my favorite way.
Some different ways I have killed deer, have been:
1. Hunting flow areas ( usually travel, which includes funnels)
2. Honey Locust Bean trees ( buck magnets )
3.Trails ( in my opinion, very Low Percentage hunt )
4. While walking ( spot & stalk )
5.Persimmons trees
6. Wheat Field
7. Food plots
8. Cut-over
9. Creek crossings
10. Oak trees
I guess the bottom line is, I try hard to find primary feed trees to set up on and if I can't, I'll settle for the next best thing that I think will work.
________________________________________________________________________
My Style of Hunting
By Warren H. Womack
(Part One)
By Warren H. Womack
(Part One)
I think everyone develops their own style of hunting through knowledge gained from a lot of different methods as well from the individuals interest, desire, abilities and limitations. Through the years I've had the opportunity to answer a lot of questions about the way I've hunted. Listed here are my answers to some of those questions.
I am not trying to tell anyone how or suggest how they should or shouldn't hunt. These are just my honest answers to some random questions that are listed in no certain order and are sometimes repeated.
Also, these were methods that I used during the physical peak years of my life (younger, stronger and no health problems), hunting very large tracts of land. I'm 65 years old now and will be the first to admit that I ain't what I use to be nor am I capable of hunting as hard as I once did. With that said, I still hunt as hard as I can using the same basic style but without the intensity and physical ability that I once had.
Hopefully someone will find something, here, that they can use to help them be a more successful bowhunter.
________________________________________________________________________
Through the years I've been a member of several hunting clubs but most of my hunting is on public land. I have always felt too restricted by club rules and petty, club membership jealousy. This doesn't exist when hunting open land.
Public land also provides huge areas to scout and be able to hunt many different locations. I like to move around a lot with the potential to hunt a different spot for every hunt.
________________________________________________________________________
Every time I go in the woods is a learning experience for me. Anyone tells you that they have it all figured out is either not telling the truth or they have themselves fooled. Over the years I have developed a system that I use, but I think my main thing is, I feel like I've always tried harder than most hunters. The harder I worked the more success I seem to have.
________________________________________________________________________
For me a shooter buck is a state legal buck and I love to shoot does. I've found the only thing that makes a doe easier to shoot than a buck is they are more active during the daylight hours. I've watched bucks stand like statues for as long as half an hour. They were checking things out. Once they decided to move they never hesitate or look around, in their mind everything is safe. Now a doe, she is always looking for buggers to jump out and get her. Really, once I make the commitment to try and kill and I do just that I'm proud of the moment and if it has horns..... that's just a bonus.
________________________________________________________________________
Cut-over plays is a big factor in my hunting. I especially like the stream side management zones that the loggers leave along the creeks. Those big oak trees, found in them, are prime targets of mine.
________________________________________________________________________
I have found Honey Locust Bean trees to be a buck magnet. It seems to me like bucks make up a high percentage number of the deer that show up to feed on the long black bean pod dropped from them. Sign doesn't show up as good under a hot bean tree as it does under most oaks. The leaves on the ground from the honey locust trees are really small and don't show disturbance from feeding, like the larger leaves of oaks. I've watched bucks walk through prime acorns to get to the locust beans.
________________________________________________________________________
I use the term "flow area" to represent an area that deer flow through while traveling from point A to point B. Just a travel area, much like a funnel but not as defined. I remember one flow area between a major river and a creek, that I killed a buck on. The deer were making their way from a grown up, select cut-over (bedding area) to some agriculture fields, a mile away. The gap between the river and creek was a couple of hundred yards wide but the red oak, not yet in it's prime, was the draw to pin point the movement.
________________________________________________________________________
Entering and leaving the woods hasn't been a big concern for me in reference to disturbing deer. I usually hunt so far from my truck that I don't think it's been a factor most of the time. Most of the places I climb on are between one and two miles from where I park. It usually takes me an hour of hard walking to get to some of my favorite places. I can see where someone that hunts close to the roads or where they park, could have a problem spooking the deer laying up close.
________________________________________________________________________
I use a compass constantly, not only for direction but also for checking the wind, finding deer after the shot and a lot of other situations. When I'm traveling through the woods, I almost always have it out and in my hand . I always have a topo map of the area that I'm hunting and started using a GPS when they became available. I've never been lost (I have been turned around a couple of times) and never had a fear of being lost. I'm as comfortable navigating in the dark of night, as I am in the light of day.
________________________________________________________________________
As you know, deer are very sensitive to human intrusion. They are a lot smarter than most hunters give them credit for. I believe they not only have a memory but are able to reason things out. For that reason I try to find places to hunt that no one else wants to go to the trouble it takes to get there. I only use one ultra light stand and during hunting season it's in one of three places, in my truck, on my back or up in a tree with me in it. When I go up, it goes up with me. When I come down, I take it down. I almost never hunt the same place two times in a row and hardly ever hunt a place twice in a season. I usually spend at least two hours a day walking looking for the best sign available to hunt. I can remember walking 8 hours one day and not finding anything to climb on, instead of climbing and hoping something came by I continued to look until dark. The next day I changed areas and continued the search. When I climb I usually expect to see a deer under me. It don't always happen but you can bet the sign is there.
________________________________________________________________________
Moon phase. I've always kept a lot of records of my hunts and I knew that I saw twice as many deer during the week of the first and last quarter as I did the weeks of the full and new moon put together. I couldn't get a handle on it until Jeff Murray came out with his "Deer Hunters Moon Guide". It's all about moon position. It seems the deer have an incredible urge to move when the moon position is straight up or straight down. It has really been effective for me. It never ceases to amaze me how accurate it can predict movement.
________________________________________________________________________
I feel like it's very important to be comfortable using a compass and topo map. It's not that difficult. Using a topo map, I'm able to find spots that show potential in the area's I'm hunting. I can log those spots into my GPS and go right to them. It's a great way to scout. Also, when I'm in hunting areas and find something that looks good, I enter it in my GPS. When I get back home I enter those coordinates into topozone.com and can see exactly where they are. Using this method allows you to find better or alternate ways to approach these spots. A GPS is an awesome tool, that I wish would have been available 30 years ago. Using it, you always know where you are and which way to go to get back to where you came from and how far it is. I've even used mine to help me get into position to kill turkeys.
________________________________________________________________________
I don't try to age my deer. I really don't care how old they might be. I just want to get a high percentage shot, have a good hit and find it. I keep a camera with me and I really enjoy taking the pictures where they go down. I use a little tripod that I tie to a tree to mount my camera on. Most of the time I'm hunting alone and sometimes it takes up to 30 minutes to take a couple of pictures. Have to be careful not to cut my head off in the picture, it's happened before. Ha ha.
________________________________________________________________________
I first started sleeping in my vehicle back in 1983, at the time I had a 1974 Ford Bronco. I'm 6' 3" so the cab was to short. I rigged up a way to fold the front passenger seat down and supported a strip of plywood from the dash board back to the back seat. It created a place to spend the night on hunting trips.
Later I had an 1985 Ford F-150, 4-wheel drive that I actually spent over 1,100 nights in during hunting trips. It was set up a lot better than the Bronco. Of course I had a camper shell on it, and carpet covered plywood on the floor. I built a good solid bed frame and use an excellent mattress, after wearing out the first one. Curtains across the windows provided me with privacy. That ole truck took me on a lot of memorable hunts and I made it through some very cold nights using two sleeping bags.
I still hunt the same way, but have a different truck. I put a mark on the inside camper wall by the bed for each night I spend in it. One thing about sleeping in the truck, no matter where you are or which way it's parked it's always the same inside. I find it very comfortable and even when hunting as a guest, where they have a really nice camp, I still sleep in my truck. It's home away from home.
________________________________________________________________________
I appreciate all my kills. Some of my best stories and memories are does and small bucks. I just like to hunt and I'm an equal opportunity shooter. I never have been or ever will be a Trophy hunter, I'm just a bowhunter that enjoys a good buck, when I'm lucky enough to have a chance at one. They are hard to come by.
________________________________________________________________________
Hunting water ways works really well for me. I spend a lot of time walking creeks in search of sign to set up on. I've had some good luck on creek crossings. One in particular, takes and hour to walk through the hills to get to it, but worth the trouble. Very few times that I haven't had the opportunity to shoot on a morning hunt, when hunting there. I've packed out a good many from that area.
________________________________________________________________________
I sometime, return to my truck during the late morning to early afternoon for a break. While I'm there I'll eat a bite then shoot some practice arrows and clean up. I have a small bowl that I half fill with water and add baking soda. I'll strip down and soak a wash cloth with the solution and do a sponge bath. Without rinsing I'll powder down with more baking soda, then suit up in some clean camo.
________________________________________________________________________
Making a high percentage hunt, to me, is what it's all about. Hunting time is too precious to waste sitting in a tree hoping a deer comes through. Most of the time when I climb I expect a deer to be under me. It doesn't always happen, but it's not because I'm not hunting a high percentage hunt. I usually walk two to four hours a day searching for that perfect spot to set a stand. Many times I've hit the ground running on a big drainage, walking out the edge of a creek for a mile then crossing over and coming back the other side. When I was younger I would sometimes jog from one oak tree to another trying to check everyone I could find, looking for the best possible hunt in the whole area. I might find more places to hunt than I had time for on that hunt and hunt what I thought was the best. Then the next day check out another drainage and do the same there. Believe me, I had more places to hunt than I had time to hunt but I never stopped looking for that perfect spot.
Running and gunning like that, I'm sure that I probably have disturbed deer and maybe even educated some but most of the time I only hunted a place one time, and doing that you don't have much of an impact on them. Most of the oak flats are removed from the daytime bedding areas and I'm usually clean and as odor free as I can be and I never touch anything with my hands and wear rubber boots that's used for hunting only.
Think about it, these deer are using this primary feed tree for the whole area and have been on it, undisturbed for say four days. I find the tree on one trip in and set up at the time I find it or return with my equipment and set up. That evening the deer come in just as they have programmed their selves to do for the past few days to pick up some choice acorns and zip, if I do everything right, an arrow passes through one of them.
________________________________________________________________________
You know I get to talk with a lot of guys that hunt with bows and I love to listen to their stories. I always key in on the distance of their shots. In my opinion the closer the shot the better the bowhunter. The name of the game for me, is putting deer under you. Scouting everyday you hunt and hunting only high percentage hunts will do that for you.
________________________________________________________________________
Killing a deer with a bow, down on ground level with it, is a special treat. I use to say that one like that was worth 10 from a tree stand. When I first started bowhunting I use to spend a lot of time slowly moving through the woods trying to do so. I even developed a technique, for getting within bow range even after they see me. It's easier to explain telling, instead of writing about it.
.....While still hunting, if I could see a deer before it knew I was there, I would drop down and put the stems of several fallen leaves between my fingers and a few in my mouth. Once that was done I would start my stalk. Sooner or later that deer would become aware of my presence and become alert. With the deer keyed in on me I would release a leaf and as it would float to the ground the deer would lock in on the movement of the leaf, forgetting about me.
I would be downwind, so it couldn't smell me. I usually had some sort of camo on, so once I froze, it couldn't really see me but still it knew that some sort of movement had alerted it. Once it saw the leaf fall, a very natural thing that it had seen all it's life, it was satisfied that everything was cool. To that deer, it was just a leaf floating to the ground.
Usually they would flick their tail and return to browsing or picking up acorns. Then I would continue my stalk until they noticed my movement again. Then I would go through the process again and again until I was in bow range. It didn't work every time but the times that it did was very rewarding.
Several time I have worked my way up to and inside of 20 yards. Once during a preseason scouting trip I showed a friend how I did this and we managed to get inside of 10 yards on a doe with her fawn. We were on an open ridge and had started the stalk from at least 200 yards away. We both ran out of leaves. Great Fun!!!
Later, after I became better at hunting feed trees, I quit slipping and started running. Trying to look at every tree in the area I was in, trying to locate primary feed trees. The name of the game for me, was the more trees I checked the better my chance's were to find what I was looking for, a primary tree for the entire area. When I did, it was almost a guaranteed kill. What I call a "high percentage hunt".
________________________________________________________________________
I feel like the first four years I bowhunted was a learning experience for me. Back then there wasn't any information available about bowhunting like there is now. The few hunting magazines that were around maybe had one or two bowhunting articles a year. For me it was a trial and error period with lessons learned from trying hard. I'll have to say that I had a burning desire to put deer under me for close bow shots. I was pretty much addicted to trying to learn how to bowkill deer on a routine basics. I think I tried harder than anyone that I have ever known. Those first four years was like an apprenticeship program and I managed to kill four deer during that period. The fifth year alone, I killed four and the sixth year I killed nine, seven of which came from under Oak trees and one from a Persimmon tree and the other one from hunting a trail.
________________________________________________________________________
Walking 2 to 4 hours a day, every day you hunt, searching for that perfect tree will wear a person down. The name of the game was to find the perfect tree, recognize it when I found it, set up on it right and be there when the deer come in. A primary feed tree is definitely a High Percentage hunt, where other methods are not. Finding it is what's difficult. I always looked for a tree that was so hot that it would take my breath away.
Usually I would hunt a tree only one time, then move on to another one. This way it was a complete surprise to the deer that had been coming into the tree safely for " X" amount of days. They would follow the same pattern that they had been doing, the only difference is I would be there to welcome them. Moving around a lot, helps to make it impossible for them to pattern you.
________________________________________________________________________
I usually hunted as hard as I could during the period of Bow Season before the Gun Season. Most of the Oaks, drop their acorns during this October and early November period. Once the acorns are gone and the gun hunters flood the areas, the deer go underground. Makes for hard hunting.
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A lot of writers really pump up the advantage of hunting the Rut. That might work on a consistent basics at a lot of places but where I have done most of my hunting, 95 plus percent of the Rut activity, is done in the safety of the after hunting hours. In the darkness of night time. For me, the best method for Bowhunting deer, has always been hunting Oak trees that are in their prime. The best way I have found to Bowhunt bucks, has been setting up on flow areas. I have killed deer using other methods, but hunting a Red Hot Oak tree is still my favorite way.
Some different ways I have killed deer, have been:
1. Hunting flow areas ( usually travel, which includes funnels)
2. Honey Locust Bean trees ( buck magnets )
3.Trails ( in my opinion, very Low Percentage hunt )
4. While walking ( spot & stalk )
5.Persimmons trees
6. Wheat Field
7. Food plots
8. Cut-over
9. Creek crossings
10. Oak trees
I guess the bottom line is, I try hard to find primary feed trees to set up on and if I can't, I'll settle for the next best thing that I think will work.
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