The Top Tips for Successful Deer Hunting
Day 3: Successful Deer Hunting Includes Working With the Wind and Knowing Where Everybody Else Is Hunting
Editor’s Note: There’s more to taking deer than just walking through the woods with a gun slung over your shoulder. Here are my rules to hunting deer the right way.
From interviewing some of the best hunters in the nation, and from my own personal experience, I believe that hunting with the wind in your favor – whether you’re stalking or sitting in a tree stand - is one of the most-critical ingredients for successful deer hunting. If your tree stand is placed to face the wind, and the deer must come with the wind to arrive at your hunting spot, then you’re hunting right. If the wind dictates where you’ll hunt each morning, then you’re hunting right. If you’re scouting instead of hunting when the wind is variable, then you’re hunting correctly. If the wind is wrong to hunt a spot, but you choose to hunt it anyway, you’re hunting wrong. If you don’t constantly check wind direction while you’re hunting, you’re hunting wrong. If you go to your stand with the wind blowing on your back, you’re hunting wrong. If you don’t let the wind dictate where you hunt, you’re hunting wrong. The buck’s nose and sense of smell is his number-one alarm system to notify him of danger. If you’re not keeping deer from smelling you, then you’re hunting incorrectly.
Knowing where everybody else is hunting is important. Hunting pressure plays a major role in where and when you can find deer. If you’ve studied maps to know where to hunt, sighted-in your rifle to be able to shoot accurately, know that you’re in the very-best spot in the woods to take a deer, sitting still to prevent from disturbing anything in the woods and hunting with the wind in your face to prevent the deer from smelling you, yet you overlook the effects of hunting pressure, then you’re not hunting effectively. Hunters spook deer. When deer see you move and then smell you, their natural instincts teach them to flee. Therefore, if you’re in a region where there are numbers of other hunters moving through the spot you plan to hunt, you’re not hunting effectively. The deer will escape from danger – hunter pressure – before he’ll eat, drink or breed.
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